Today in the Business of Podcasting
200,000+ Audiobooks Are Now Available to Spotify Premium Listeners in the U.S.
A batch of audiobooks previously only available to Spotify Premium users in the U.K. and Australia have been made available in the U.S. The new books are accessible with Spotify’s new 15 hours of audiobook listen-time made available for every Premium user. The announcement also brings new research built from a survey of 1,000 adult audiobook listeners in the U.S., conducted by The Logit Group in September. 72% of Gen Z and Millennial respondents listen to audiobooks. 37% of all respondents enjoyed an audiobook enough to listen through multiple times. And the much-lauded connection power of audio is still present in book form, as 42% of respondents aged 18 to 34 expressed interest in finding out more about their audiobook’s narrator. [Source]
Branding Investment in Podcasting Doubles, Magnifying Focus on Brand Lift
According to the recent IAB and PwC U.S. Podcast Advertising Revenue Study, brand-focused campaigns are now a majority of projected podcast ad revenue for 2023 at 51%. Ad revenue from branding campaigns has almost doubled from 2021 to 2023, from $695.4 million to $1.39 billion. This focus on brand-building is also reflected in The Podcast Opportunity from Sounds Profitable. Of those surveyed who currently buy ad space on podcasting or have previously bought in podcasts, 51% of respondents cited brand awareness as a main driving factor. All of which dovetails into the next story. [Source]
Sixty percent of major brands plan to increase their ad budgets in 2024, new research shows
New research from ebiquity, built from a survey of 92 respondents at multinational advertising companies, shows cautious optimism for 2024. As the headline notes, 60% of respondents plan to increase their budget next year, a marked increase from the 29% who said the same last year during fears of an economic downturn. Only 7% of the remaining respondents not increasing their budgets next year said they intend to decrease spending next year. Video is expected to get the bulk of growth next year. On that subject, it’s worth noting studies, including Sounds Profitable’s own The Medium Moves the Message, show podcasting needs to be in that conversation. The leading advertisers in podcasting perform significantly better in lower-funnel metrics with podcast listeners than the leading advertisers in TV and Radio with their consumers. The addition of podcasts to a multichannel media mix also shows significant mid-funnel effects. [Source]
Twilight of the brands by Brian Morrissey
As Morrisey says to kick off his piece: the internet has mostly been a disaster for publishers. As social media grows, trust in large institutions has eroded and brand images are more difficult to maintain as more companies are expected to have a take on global issues, regardless of relevance. Meanwhile major publishers are going through identity crisis, such as The New York Times shifting to a more CNN-esque organization while CNN attempts to leverage their brand to shift towards direct-to-consumer. A ‘brand’ consisting of a small group, or even just a single person, can weather this new climate much more effectively with their added agility. This bodes well for podcasting in the long term, as it’s largely an industry where the podcast-er is the product audiences are tuning in for, not the publication producing it. [Source]
Sounds Profitable Research Database Snapshot
Source: Podcasting for Influence from Lower Street
What it says: Business owners/founders over-index for daily podcast listening compared to other decision-makers surveyed.
What it means: Branded podcasts are an excellent way to reach a very targeted market compared to other media platforms.
Why it’s cool: Business owners and founders are twice as likely to listen to podcasts daily than managers – which means empowering owners with podcast content they can recommend to managers could even grow the space!
