Women’s Sports Excel @ Upfront, Issues w. Bulk Data, & More

The State of Audio Advertising – Oxford Road

The new report is pitched as ‘the chief audio officer’s guide to maximizing ROI in a changing landscape.’ Oxford Road provides a bird’s-eye view of podcasting as an industry, explaining big developments and challenges of the past few years in bite-sized summaries. From the iOS 17 auto-download tweak, to the growing presence of YouTube and video in general. The report also builds a mini-Podscape, focusing on specific tools and services from an advertiser’s perspective, sorted by where in the campaign management process they live.

I took a data journey—here are the disturbing things I found by Jack Neff

Over a period of six months, Neff filed data subject requests from multiple large data brokers to get a perspective of what information companies like Axciom, Epsilon, and Experian collect + share with marketers. The result was a treasure trove of misinterpretations/false data, including the presumption Neff was born in the 1930s, never graduated high school, also graduated college with student loan debt, and – because of a single visit to Telemundo’s website – speaks Spanish. As privacy evolves and it becomes more difficult to identify consumers through their data, companies who sell data in bulk are going to have a tough time pivoting to focusing on integrity. Half the records, even if twice as accurate, will not be worth double the price.

Scripps Closes Upfront Seeing ‘Overwhelming’ Demand for Women’s Sports by Bill Bradley

E.W. Scripps has finished out the TV upfronts this year with a notable uptick in women’s sports investment. CRO Brian Norris told AdWeek the company’s low single-digit growth in volume can be largely attributed to their commitment to women’s sports. And that interest is reflected in ratings, with the Indiana Fever victory over Chicago Sky hitting 1.6 million viewers, making it ION’s most-watched WNBA telecast in the past two years. As marketers grow more interested in women’s sports, we humbly point to the growing field of podcasts focused on women’s sports as another avenue for getting brands in front of eager fans.

Rogers Sports & Media Announces Exclusive Advertisement Sales Agreement with Wondery

Rogers Sports Media has announced they will be the exclusive Canadian ad sales rep for Wondery content. Earlier this year, Rogers announced the closure of branded podcast company Pacific Content, which then shifted to the brand being acquired by Lower Street Media. This new deal signals Rogers has not fully exited podcasting.

As for the rest of the news…