Malabar Gold & Diamonds × Paytunes: Varamahalakshmi Festival Audio Campaign Case Study

 

 

 

Campaign Overview / Background

In July 2025, Malabar Gold & Diamonds partnered with Paytunes to launch a high-impact audio advertising campaign celebrating the Varamahalakshmi Festival. The campaign ran across Spotify, JioSaavn, and YouTube Music, strategically designed to amplify awareness among audiences in Bengaluru and Rest of Karnataka.

The goal was to use digital audio to boost brand recall, spread festive sentiment, and connect with urban and semi-urban consumers in the critical pre-festival shopping period.

 

Objectives

 

• Establish top-of-mind awareness across Karnataka.
• Ensure wide reach and frequency consistency in the run-up to the festival.
• Measure audience engagement with Paytunes core KPIs: Reach, CTR, and LTR.
• Strengthen regional brand presence while adapting communication to both urban and semi-urban audiences.

 

Strategy & Execution

 

• Multi-Platform Presence: Combined Spotify, JioSaavn, and YouTube Music to maximize audience penetration across demographics.
• Audio + Companion Banner Mix: Deliver storytelling through 30-sec audio paired with banners for visual reinforcement.
• Targeting Precision: Gender-neutral, broad age targeting (25–55 yrs) with playlist-level targeting to capture high-intent environments.
• Phased Rollout: Twelve-day schedule (28 July – 8 Aug) covering both urban Bengaluru and Rest of Karnataka, ensuring balanced coverage.

 

Key Results & Outcomes

 

• Bengaluru:

 

• LTR: 1.06× – outstanding listener retention, a sign of strong message resonance.
• CTR: 1.5× – Performed well thanks to active listening.
• Reach: 1.01× – near-perfect planned delivery.

 

• Rest of Karnataka:

 

• LTR: 1.05× – engaged listenership maintained throughout.
• CTR: 1.45× –  a strong uplift , showcasing active engagement
• Reach: 1.03× –  exceeded target, outperformed Bengaluru Reach.

 

 

Overall Campaign:

• Listen-Through Rate (LTR): With a 1.05× uplift, the campaign significantly outperformed benchmarks, showing strong audience resonance and sustained attention throughout the audio ads.

 

• Click-Through Rate (CTR): CTR achieved 1.45× the benchmark, a strong result given that audio is primarily a background medium where users are often multitasking. This demonstrates that despite its passive nature, audio effectively drives active engagement in addition to its core strengths of recall and emotional connection.

 

• Reach: The campaign achieved 1.03× reach uplift, delivering slightly above the planned audience scale and proving the precision of targeting and media execution. 

 

Audience Demographics & Segmentation

Urban Bengaluru: Achieved strong LTR and CTR, highlighting high engagement and resonance among city-based professionals and homemakers, while Reach was slightly below target.

 

Rest of Karnataka (Semi-Urban): Performed well on both LTR and CTR, while Reach surpassed expectations—demonstrating not only strong engagement but also wider-than-planned audience delivery.

 

Key Insight: While urban audiences delivered high LTR and CTR, reflecting strong engagement and brand recall, semi-urban regions outperformed on Reach, driving broader audience delivery and creating a balanced impact across regions.

 

Malabar Gold & Diamonds Ad Execution –

 

 

Device Type Breakdown & Reach Strategy

• Mobile Android
  Dominated delivery with ~87.74% share of total impressions.
  Primary driver of LTR and CTR uplift across the campaign. 
• Mobile iOS
  Accounted for ~10.92% share, representing the second-largest contributor.
  Played a key role in complementing Android reach, especially among premium users. 
• Tablet (Android)
  Very minimal share (~0.6%)
  Likely contributed to incidental or passive listening sessions. 
• Desktop (Other)
  Represented ~0.42% of impressions.
  Minimal engagement; not a core device for audio-based interaction. 
• Smart Home Devices / Smart Watches
  Combined share 0.17%, highlighting negligible interaction on wearables or IoT devices. 
• Tablet (iPad)
  Lowest delivery at ~0.14%, indicating limited usage among the campaign’s target demographic. 

Insight: The campaign’s engagement metrics like LTR and CTR was primarily driven by mobile-first consumption, validating Paytunes’ strategy of focusing on audio delivery across smartphones, where user attention and interaction were most consistent.

 

Daypart / Timing Insights

• Late campaign days (Aug 7–9) saw higher CTRs, likely due to optimization effects and audience readiness closer to the festival.
• LTR remained consistently high across all times, reinforcing audio’s strength during multitasking (commuting, work hours, evenings).

 

Geographic / Regional Insights

• Split performance underlines a classic trend:
  • Urban centers (Bengaluru) focus on listening engagement → brand recall uplift.
  • Semi-urban audiences (Rest of Karnataka) were more responsive to banners → delivering stronger CTRs.

 

Key Learnings & Takeaways

 

1. Audio storytelling builds emotional connection → evidenced by strong LTR improvements.
2. Reach delivery precision underscores Paytunes’ programmatic planning strength.
3. CTR variance across regions highlights differing audience behaviors: passive listening in metros vs. active participation in semi-urban areas.

 

Recommendations for Future Campaigns

 

• Amplify banner integration in high-CTR zones: Build on proven performance by increasing visibility of call-to-action banners alongside audio, especially in urban regions. 
• Introduce interactive audio innovations: Deploy tap-to-call, voice-enabled banners, and shoppable audio formats to convert strong engagement into measurable actions. 
• Double investment during festival peaks: Prioritize high-demand cultural moments (Varamahalakshmi, Diwali, Dussehra) to leverage elevated consumer readiness. 
• Optimize creative mix by region: Emphasize emotive storytelling for urban audiences (to maximize Reach) and more action-driven messaging for semi-urban audiences (to maximize LTR and CTR). 
• Strengthen mobile-first delivery: Continue focusing budget on Android and iOS, which drove >98% of impressions and engagement, ensuring maximum scale and interactivity.

 

Audio Attention in the Real Attention Economy

 

In today’s digital landscape, the battle for user attention is fiercer than ever. The average human attention span has fallen to about 8 seconds—shorter than ever before. Brands must not only grab attention but also sustain it long enough for their message to drive real impact.

The Problem: Fleeting Attention on Most Digital Platforms

• Banner and display ads on websites usually keep user focus for only 1.6–2.6 seconds before they are ignored or scrolled past.
• Short-form video ads and reels hold attention for about 7–9 seconds on average before users swipe away or skip.
• This fleeting engagement translates to lower brand recall and minimal action.

The Unique Edge of In-Stream Digital Audio

• In the Malabar × Paytunes audio campaign, only 30-second in-stream digital audio ads (accompanied by clickable companion banners) were deployed—no other audio or video formats were part of the strategy. 
• Here’s why it matters:
  The campaign saw average Listen-Through Rates (LTR) of approximately 1.05x industry norms.
•  This result means a substantial share of the audience listened all the way through—far higher than what visual formats deliver in the same time frame.

Attention Economy Benchmarks (per 100 exposures):

Platform/Format	Avg. Attention (seconds)	Completion Rate (per 100)	Audio Attention Uplift
Banner/Display Ads	2–3	12–18	4–8x lower than audio
Short Video (Reels)	5–9	18–25	3–4x lower
Full Video (In-Stream)	7–10	15–25	3–5x lower
Audio (30s spot)	≥26	~91 per 100	1.05x  higher than Industry avg

 

• Banner ads are rarely noticed long enough to reinforce a message, leading to weak recall.
• Short-form video and reels offer a slightly longer window but are quickly dismissed with a swipe.
• 30-second digital audio ads command undistracted, multitasking-friendly attention, leading to 3–8x more completion events per 100 impressions than most display or short video placements.

 

Listen to the Podcast Version of This Case Study

 

 

Conclusion 

The Malabar Gold & Diamonds Campaign with Paytunes showcased how audio-first advertising can seamlessly blend festive storytelling with measurable performance. By uniting the emotive power of in-stream audio with companion banners and precise regional targeting, the campaign achieved above-benchmark reach, exceptional listen-through, and a strong uplift in CTR—proving audio’s ability to both engage attention and drive action.

This success highlights the strategic value of digital audio in festival-driven marketing, where brand recall and cultural resonance are equally critical. For brands seeking to cut through the clutter and create lasting festive impact, audio-first strategies with Paytunes deliver both scale and emotional connection.

 

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