Building Podcasting’s Next Legacy Brands, Audio Advertising Posts Fresh Gains & More

Building Podcasting’s Next Legacy Brands, Audio Advertising Posts Fresh Gains & More

August 31, 2026

Podcast Trailer Study Gets a Second Act With New Three-Part Series

Trailer Park: The Podcast Trailer Podcast, hosted by Arielle Nissenblatt, is launching a three-part miniseries built on Coleman Insights research into what actually makes a podcast trailer work. The research was developed alongside NOVA Entertainment and Pantheon Podcasts. 500 U.S. listeners were given four real podcast trailers to react to, with the study isolating single variables like narration style and opening approach to see what moved listening intent. Five themes ran through the results: energy, show-name recall, topic clarity, ease of understanding, and authenticity, with the trailers that felt more authentic winning stronger preference in three of the four tests. Guests include Coleman Insights’ Jay Nachlis, Pantheon’s Peter Ferioli, and NOVA’s Rachel Corbett to walk creators through how to put the research to use.

Internet advertising records strongest growth in four years, reaching $19.8 billion in FY26

Australia’s internet advertising market grew 14% year over year to $19.8 billion in FY26, its strongest financial-year growth since FY22, according to IAB Australia. Audio climbed 6.6% to $353 million, and podcasting led the way inside that number, rising 10.1% and now accounting for 40% of all audio spend. Podcast advertising also set a fresh quarterly record of $40 million in the June 2026 quarter, up 13.1% on the year before. IAB Australia CEO Gai Le Roy credited much of the momentum to always-on rather than campaign-cycle spending, with small and medium businesses, retailers, and overseas advertisers all putting more money into the channel.

Brands can’t just flip the ’employees as creators’ switch by Alyssa Mercante

Companies are split between adapting existing creator programs, as Gap has, and building from scratch like Starbucks. Both paths demand new measurement tools, oversight, and compensation structures that never existed when the creators were outside contractors. The thorny questions pile up fast, from whether employees log hours and film on company time to FTC disclosure and the store-level metrics that suffer when staff split attention between filming and customers. The programs that work, the piece argues, tend to share clear marketing ownership, simple success metrics, and a real payoff for the employees taking part.

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