The podcast community continues to grow up, and that is opening new opportunities for marketers. That’s one of the messages presented by the industry at this week’s Advertising Week-New York on Wednesday.
Scott Davis, Senior VP of Corporate Sponsorship at National Public Media (NPM), told buyers that by moving from baked-in ads to dynamic ad insertion, it has allowed podcasters to move from targeting listeners to being much more about the impressions delivered as things continue to evolve.
“The next stage of that is the audience verticals, and being able to create different slices of the audience where we can serve ads to truly help an advertiser drill down on what broad audience they really want to reach,” Davis said. That’s been a total game change and has made it a modern world of advertising. It’s changed everything for us — it also makes it more accessible to a lot of buyers.”
Davis said podcasters have also been able to use the changes to become more involved in ad campaigns at the planning stage, something that was harder in the past when the medium was lost between the radio and digital ad buying teams.
“Digital buyers didn’t want to touch it because there was no display aspect to it, and radio buyers didn’t want to touch it because it wasn’t radio, wasn’t measured by Arbitron at the time, and so it was kind of a jump ball,” Davis said. “The advancement has really changed, and it’s been nice to see the evolution of audio as a medium to be something that can be embraced and evaluated, regardless of platform.”
Rockie Thomas, CRO at the audio tech firm SoundStack, said the evolution for audio has not always been a smooth road.
“We’re a little bit of the Wild Child of media, but we have finally matured,” she told buyers. “We’ve moved out of the house, and we’re looking forward to being part of all the media plans out there. And I’d like to say, in a visually cluttered world, audio has no competitors.”
Ira Glass, host of This American Life, said that while many podcast creators got into the business to tell stories, there is an increased focus on the business side as they learn how to survive. Glass said that has not always been easy, such as when he had to fight to get facetime with the New York Times when it sold advertising for his show. “If I had had my way, we would have been out on way more sales calls,” Glass said.
Four years after This American Life announced an “ongoing creative and strategic alliance” with the New York Times, Glass in July signed with National Public Media (NPM), the sponsorship subsidiary of NPR, to become the sole sales representative of the podcast.
Davis said one of the things he is most excited about for podcasters is the fact that audio is now with people all the time. “The ability to curate your own audio experience is just kind of awesome, and it’s been a game changer for radio, for audio, for everything,” he said. “And that, to me, is the coolest thing we’ve got going on.”
‘We Are No Longer Just An Audio Platform’
The growth of audio is being driven at Spotify by Gen Z, as the audience segment has become its fastest-growing audience. Jessica Levinsohn, Head of Business Brand Marketing at Spotify, said Gen Z makes up half of Spotify’s global user base. Those young adults are also leading the push into new video formats.
“Our users are spending 2.2 hours per day with us across different moments and devices, and they’re driving a massive shift in how people engage with Spotify,” Levinsohn said. “We are no longer just an audio platform. We’re seeing in focus time explode with 20 billion minutes of video podcast streamed annually. So they aren’t just passively streaming anymore.”
It is a shift that creators like Rachel Lindsay, host of the podcasts Higher Learning and Morally Corrupt, are embracing. “I feel like it allows us to connect with viewers in a completely different way,” she said. “It’s really an exciting time for creators.”
Levinsohn said it is not just video that is changing Spotify. She said Gen Z is used to having a two-way conversation with their media platforms and that has led to greater use of its playlist feature. She said 60% of shared playlists last year were created by Gen Z, while at the same time in-person events have become “essential” — including live podcast tapings.
“We know events are huge for Gen Z, but the rising ticket price makes them less accessible,” Levinsohn said. “Brands can help bridge the gap and offer tangible value by sponsoring live events,” she told the crowd of marketers and ad buyers.