The Advertising Landscape Part 3: Driving to Action
Sounds Profitable’s latest segment of data from The Advertising Landscape, built from the largest public study of podcast and advertising in the country with 5,005 American respondents aged 18+, is now live. As the title suggests, Driving to Action focuses on how different ad-supported mediums drive actions with Podcast Prime listeners.
As a quick refresher: in the Advertising Landscape parlance, Podcast Primes are respondents who consume podcasts at a daily or near-daily cadence. Respondents were asked to choose which forms of media they had taken various actions with re: ads in the past six months.
“Wrote down a promotional code” puts podcasts with ads in the top spot with 33% of respondents, YouTube with ads in second with 10%, and Instagram with 9%. 27% researched the brand after hearing ad-supported podcasts (followed by Instagram in second place with 13%).
A quote from Tom Webster’s webinar presentation, in which he’s highlighting a slide showing 22% of Podcast Primes made an immediate purchase after hearing a podcast ad in the past six months:
“22% say that a podcast ad prompted them to make an immediate purchase. Again, much higher here than premium TV streaming services or Instagram or YouTube. These may be Podcast Primes but they’re not they’re not podcast exclusive. They’re not podcast-only. They are encountering ads in all of these other platforms. But as we saw in the first couple of studies, the podcast ad is more notable for them. They’re paying more attention to it. They’re clocking it. They’re registering it a little bit more precisely.”
Top Podcast Advertisers – June 2025
Magellan AI’s monthly chart of top movers & shakers and top overall spend by brands has been updated with June data. Sports remains a favorite investment for podcast advertisers, taking 11 of the top 15 advertisers’ top genre for spend. Disney, LinkedIn, and T-Mobile are among the top 15 spenders last month (and they spent more than in May), but the #1 slot goes to Toyota with $5,710,000 spent in June.
While more and more big brands get into podcast advertising, it’s worth taking a step back to recognize how far the industry has come from almost exclusively promo code-driven direct-to-consumer campaigns in the early days to Toyota dropping nearly six million in just one month on podcast ads.
Spotify Wants Fans to ‘Read Like They Listen’ as It Hypes Audiobooks by Brittaney Kiefer
A new ad campaign from Spotify is promoting the fact audiobooks are included in Spotify Premium subscriptions with similar language to music discovery. The ads focus on social-media driven hits, such as the latest celebrity-author’s installment or flavor of the month from BookTok (a general term for readers hyping up books on TikTok). All while using music-coded language. “Stephen King just dropped a 14 hour banger” might be a rare instance of a wholly new sentence being spoken in the English language. A quote from Spotify Global Head of Creative Jeremy Wirth:
‘We want to make discovering audiobooks on Spotify as natural and exciting as finding a new artist or track, helping fans connect with stories that spark the same depth and emotion they find in music. We want people to read like they listen.”
In effect, the goal is to encourage the same buffet approach as users have become accustomed to with individual songs. While more people listening to audiobooks is an overall benefit for spoken word content, it does mean podcasts are looking at more competition for attention within one of the top apps.
Podcasts become a strategic IP play for Hollywood talent by Alexander Lee
Podcasting is no stranger to star-studded casts and producers piloting IP concepts before committing to a full TV pilot or movie deal. For example, Gimlet swung for the TV fences with a star-studded audio fiction limited series back in 2016 with Homecoming. But newer versions of these test-bed audio dramas have skewed even more Hollywood. Digiday covers the growing trend of established actors like Gina Torres and Ty Burrell headlining audio fiction productions that serve dual purposes. A quote from Lee:
“As stars like Torres step into the podcasting space, they’re tapping into a growing trend where actors are not just lending their voices but controlling the content. This shift reflects a larger rethinking within the media industry about content ownership and revenue models, as companies recognize podcasts as a new avenue for creator-driven IP and a potentially lucrative extension of traditional Hollywood fare — sometimes even offering the origins of an idea.”
To get back on track after the Coldplay Situation, data ops company Astronomer hired Ryan Reynolds-founded production company Maximum Effort to produce a satirical ad. The 60 second spot features Gwyneth Paltrow acting as a “temporary spokesperson” answering frequently-asked questions.
Any time an on-screen question gets close to mentioning Coldplay, Paltrow cuts it off with a smile and a genuine sales pitch for a service Astronomer offers. It’s a solid piece of satire poking fun at companies trying to move past embarrassing online trends, and it communicates the humanity of the situation.
Astronomer is a company of over 300 employees, regardless of where they might be vis-a-vis a CEO. I argue the ad is a solid reminder that comedy is not inherently dangerous or even unwelcome when dealing with tricky PR scenarios. When executed by professionals, it can be a saving grace.
Finally, it’s time for my Quick Hits. These are articles that didn’t quite make the cut for today’s episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week:
- JAR Audio is no more, with the company now rebranded to JAR Podcast Solutions along with a simple message to marketers: Podcasts should perform.
- Acast has published their second quarter report and, as the headline says, North America is performing well. According to Chief Communications and Brand Officer Lizzie Pollott’s post on LinkedIn, this is the first time the U.S. has been Acast’s largest individual market with net sales growth of 27%.
- Starting this week Google is piloting a machine-learning program that will use YouTube watch history to decide if an account owner is over 18, and if not, trigger parental safety measures for any Google services accessed by that account.
- Night Vale Presents, the podcast label containing everything from indie darlings like Dreamboy up to the legacy hit Welcome to Night Vale has signed a multi-year podcast partnership with Realm, who will exclusively represent NVP’s podcasts for ad sales, distribution, and live events.
- Crooked Media, the company behind progressive political podcasts like Pod Save America, is hosting a live event dubbed Crooked Con on November 6th and 7th in Washington, DC.
