Brian Wieser revises ad forecast downward as U.S. ad market grows wary by Seb Joseph
Analyst and principal at Madison and Wall Brian Wieser has published a new forecast for U.S. ad spend predicting non-political spend growth will be 3.6% this year, a decrease from the rosier 4.5% prediction several months ago. Ad tech firm PadSquad CEO Dan Heehan told Digiday he anticipates successful brands will both pull back on ad spend and adapt towards safer bets, namely proven strategies and digital media over traditional media buys like TV. Which, if true, puts podcasting in a position of needing to re-affirming with brands (new and old) that this industry is a proven safe bet for advertising dollars.
Perplexity’s Podcast Ads Leave No Escape From AI Vlad Savov
Coverage of Savov’s reaction to a new integrated sponsorship on The Right Time with Bomani Jones in which Perplexity sponsored an episode. During the episode, Jones asked the AI-powered search bot sports questions. One thing the segment demonstrates is this is part of a larger push by Perplexly to show off its capabilities in sponsored segments. Namely, the Perplexly sponsored episodes of The Ben Shapiro Show mirror Jones’, just with sports questions swapped out for politics. It also shows an evolution of brand integration in podcasting, as in both cases the product was a centerpiece of a branded content segment instead of a traditional ad read.
Variety breaks the announcement that ABC News’ audio strategy is pivoting to focus on true crime, with new productions including 20/20: The After Show to act as a companion podcast for the long-running investigative TV series. In addition to a hype-maintaining companion podcast, The Crime Scene Weekly will act as a standalone series discussing current news in the true crime scene. In addition, a rotating narrative series based on real-time news events is kicking off with Bad Rap: The Case Against Diddy. This podcast slate announcement comes on the heels of NBC and CBS taking similar tacts with their long-tail true crime series (Dateline and 48 Hours respectively), further demonstrating traditional media is seeing the benefits of podcasting. Both in its capabilities to boost existing material (e.g. recap shows and re-broadcasting old content), as well as net-new content that can feed back into the TV ecosystem.
As for the rest of the news…
- YouTube is parting the curtain with a free webinar next Wednesday, March 26th, at 2:00 p.m. EST featuring Jenny Huang (Senior Product Manager, Discovery) and Emma Sweet (Global Product Activation Manager, Podcasts). The two will discuss the YouTube algorithm and share key discovery signals that’ll benefit video podcast performance.
- Audacy has announced several executive changes, including appointing Interim President and CEO Kelli Turner formally to President and CEO. In addition, Chris Oliviero is now Chief Business Officer and Bob Philips has been appointed CRO.
- Alitu has entered into the visual world with the recent addition of video recording, allowing users to record with up to 12 remote guests, with the final product arranging camera feeds in a grid sized for YouTube.
- SoundStack and Edison Research have partnered to launch a new service, Edison Download Metrics, offering precise podcast download analytics for publishers of all sizes
