True crime, news, comedy and interviews – there is a podcast for everyone. The podcast industry in Australia is growing fast, with revenue set to hit $47m in 2020 and over 1.6m Australians regularly downloading podcasts. In their latest report, Deloitte encourages brands to consider moving their ad spend towards podcasting and treating it as it’s own channel, not a small part of radio. Here’s what you need to know.
Podcasts are proving powerful for advertising. Spotify reported that “41 percent of listeners say they trust ads more if they hear them in a podcast and 81 percent report having taken action after hearing a podcast ad;.” This may seem high, but podcasts have a way of feeling very intimate. An ad break during a TV show, creates a break between the show and the advertisers. During podcasts, these ads are much more seamless, they’re usually read by the host, and are usually a product or service that they tried and test and are relevant to the audience.
Brands are also trying to enter the podcasting world with Deloitte valuing the global enterprise podcast industry at $US1 billion ($1.5 billion). Many businesses invest tens of thousands of dollars into building their expertise (research) and creating content (reports), so spending an additional $500 to produce a podcast, considering the content might make for compelling material, seems like a great investment. Here’s how a few brands are getting ahead in the podcast game:
- GE developed ‘The Message’ a science fiction podcast series.
- Sephora’s #Lipstories a podcast highlighting influential female founders, creators and thought leaders.
- Bumble’s Love etc. a podcast about all the shapes, sizes and stories of love.
Spotify has been heavily focusing on podcasts and it is working. They reported a 200% increase in podcast listening YOY. The platform currently has 700,000 podcasts, and they have reported that over 16% of its users now listen to podcasts.
They have been purchasing multiple podcasting companies as well as using Streaming Ad Insertion technology. This technology uses all the data they know about listeners like current location, interests, age, etc. to serve relevant ads during podcasts – meaning different listeners to the same podcast will be served different ads. And although ads aren’t played during music streaming for premium users, ads will continue to play during podcasts. Spotify's comprehensive and insightful ad technology gives it a major advantage compared to other podcast networks on the market.
Sylvia Jahn
