Coworking – Mitello Camay of Podcast Reach Network
We kick off our new segment interviewing folks around the wide world of podcasting with the Director of Brand Partnerships at Podcast Reach Network. Camay speaks to the collaborative nature of podcasting, urging newcomers to focus on networking with both creators and advertisers. To that note, he swears by Podscribe, LinkedIn and InMail messages as invaluable tools, especially if starting from scratch. Learn more about Camay in the full interview, available now on Sounds Profitable.
The tolerance and effectiveness of in-game audio ads (Veritonic & Audiomob) by Brad Hill
RainNews covers the recent study from Veritonic and Audiomob titled The Power of In-Game Audio Advertising. The white paper is built from a comprehensive brand lift study conducted by the two companies surveying a mixed-gender group of 333 mobile game players aged 25-65+. All responses were from users who had heard or interacted with Audiomob’s ad format. Key findings include a high amount of ad tolerance, with 54% of respondents saying they preferred non-intrusive audio ads over interruptive video formats. Only 9% preferred video ads to audio, indicating audio ads are far more palatable to the mobile gaming market.
Podcasting is Asking the Wrong Question About Video by Steve Pratt
A common mindset throughout the podcasting industry is publishers thinking “how do I turn my audio podcast into video?” Pratt challenges that as the wrong approach, as it ignores the context through which the podcast existed in the first place. Audio content is built for the contexts where someone cannot use a screen (e.g. driving, cleaning the house, cooking) while it cannot be as engaging in other situations (e.g. living room TV, ‘second screen’ content while reading the newspaper). A different framework, that still allows for diversifying audio and video content, is network strategy thinking: “how do I best serve my audience on each platform?” Pratt uses ESPN as an example, as they exist across multiple platforms and modes of content with unique strategies for each, but are all identifiably ESPN. In a sentence, the piece challenges podcasting to think like a network.
In focus: the random Google News audio downloads by James Cridland
Coverage of a recent spike in downloads to Podnews Daily that sent episode downloads from their normal range around 2,500 to around 40,000 downloads. On further investigation, Cridland determined the downloads are coming from Google News audio briefings (e.g. when someone asks their smart speaker “hey Google, play the latest news”), and that they’re exclusively coming from Indonesia and Malaysia from an Android phone’s generic Dalvik user-agent. Triton Digital’s Sharon Taylor, EVP of Podcast and Content Delivery, also shares TD’s findings of odd download behavior from the generic Android user-agent in several countries. Attempts to contact the audio side of Google to rectify the situation have not made progress since early March. Cridland notes that the million-ish downloads coming from Google News auto-downloading the latest episode of his podcast are technically IAB verified as they are total downloads of the file. That said, v2.2 guidelines do account for anomalies like huge spikes should be investigated further.
How To Market To The Whole Family At Once by Megan Poinski
A recent study from Razorfish looks at the purchasing power of Generation Alpha, built of kids 15 and younger. Nearly seven in ten own a luxury product by the age of 10, and 35% aspire for a luxury car when they’re older. Starglow founder Jed Baker tells Forbes Gen Alpha and their parents are a key demographic for messaging, citing the growing popularity of Kids & family podcasts. In an extended interview, Baker goes on to say trust is podcasting’s most valuable currency. If marketers can maintain authenticity and keep on-message, podcast audiences are actively paying attention. In the world of social media and digital advertising, the average view is someone passively scrolling their phone. Podcast ads are a different context, and have more oomph as a result.
As for the rest of the news…
- Public voting for the Webbys is open until April 17th. There are a lot of Sounds Profitable partner companies in that list. Go vote!
- AdLarge & the fwd. network have announced their new EVP, Revenue Operations is industry veteran Ilwira Marciszek.
- Wondercraft co-founder Oskar Serrander posts some thoughts from Spotify’s Advance event, including a link to Spotify’s official partner directory (including Wondercraft).
- Libsyn has announced a multi-year advertising and hosting partnership with Bachelor universe alum Nick Viall’s podcast The Viall Files and his audio-first media company Envy Media.
- Adam Putterman, co-founder of Ours Privacy, has announced a new integration with Podscribe that brings his company’s HIPPA-compliant customer data and privacy platform into Podscribe’s Marketing Intelligence Engine for Podcast Advertising.
- Realm is growing their stable of actual play RPG podcasts with a new exclusivity deal bringing on The Glass Cannon Podcast in its tenth year of production.
- iHeartMedia has announced a big push in the Asian Pacific (APAC) region with a slate of multi-language podcasts from high-profile hosts, done in partnership with Mammoth Media Asia
