Today in the business of podcasting:
Simplecast adds YouTube integration for automatic uploads by Adam Shepherd
Simplecast has announced a new batch of features that include more robust analytics, an update to episode notes, and automatic YouTube transcoding. Audio podcasts on Simplecast can now have their new episodes automatically shipped over to YouTube for transcoding into a video version of the episode, complete with all of the metadata from the original audio version. Due to YouTube policies regarding ads, Simplecast users will have to deliver host-read endorsements and sponsorships to YouTube standards and no dynamically-inserted ads will be included. [Source]
What marketers need to learn from breakthrough brand IP like Barbie, Nike, Super Mario Bros. for 2024 by Kristina Monllos
2023 has had some astronomical high points for branding breakouts, namely in the form of both Mattel and Nintendo putting out smash hit film adaptations starring their biggest icons. Now marketers are mulling over what it’ll take for the next ‘Barbie moment’ to happen. The consensus of Digiday’s industry interviews is that the conditions that created Greta Gerwig’s Barbie cannot be replicated quickly, and as such there likely won’t be a similarly huge brand-forward breakthrough next year in the same vein. It’ll take time for companies to properly digest and reverse-engineer how Barbie broke the mold, or how Mario became the highest-grossing video game film adaptation. [Source]
Here’s What’s Missing From Netflix’s Data Dump, According to Ad Experts by Bill Bradley
Recently Netflix published their first “What We Watched” engagement report, promising the report will be updated twice a year to reflect watch data on Netflix over the previous six months. On the plus side: the report gives a broad overview of over 100 billion hours of viewership. The report helps fill in broad strokes of how things are performing for the 18,000 titles in Netflix’s catalog that are included. On the flip side, What We Watched is sparing with what data it does provide, leaving out any sort of gender, income, race, psychographic, or behavioral markers that one would expect from such data. Also, by virtue of only publishing once every six months, a good portion of the data is no longer relevant to the marketing decisions of advertisers who are interested in how Netflix content is performing right now. While the study is a step in the right direction, signs point towards a smaller, more transparent version being released at a much faster rate would be more useful than a giant spreadsheet once every two quarters. [Source]
…as for the rest of the news: Podimo has secured €44 million in combined funding, and eMarketer finds most TV and video ad buyers require at least three(!) forms of data currency.
Research Database Snapshot
Source: Triton’s U.S. Podcast Ranker, November 2023
What it says: The latest ranking of top podcasts by average weekly downloads according to Triton Digital
What it means: Triton’s Podcast Metrics service measures participating publishers and is certified by the IAB Tech Lab
Why it’s cool: “This Past Weekend” (The Roost Podcast Network) was the biggest mover in the top ten, climbing seven spots.
