Podcast Listeners Get Older (Kind Of); Will A.I. Take Over Everything?; AAPI Podcasts You’re Not On; How Fast Do Your Trees Grow?

“We’re driving, but we can only see through the rearview mirror.”

- Dan Granger

This week on the Media Roundtable: Industry Edition, the agents of influence are tackling A.I. disruption, old guards learning new tricks, and the demos powering podcast advertising. Let’s dig in.

Hosting is Oxford Road’s CEO?Dan Granger, along with fellow Oxford Road savants,?Stew Redwine,?Neal Lucey, and?Spencer Semonson.?

At the top of everyone’s mind:

• The Old Empire’s New Bet????-?Hearst invests $2.25MM in Barometer to further Barometer’s AI-powered brand suitability platform. The established media giant has a vested interest in furthering trust for advertisers to flock to their subsidiaries, so this is one bet that could pay off.
• Brand Safety GPT?????-?We’re?big?proponents of effective brand safety tools and were all ears when we heard about Podscribe’s AI approach to ensuring brand safety. They’ve mixed ChatGPT with the GARM framework we know and trust and could make brand safety a whole lot easier for brands and publishers. Interested??Join the waitlist.
• Click “Heard About it on A Podcast"???-?33% of all podcast listeners say they’ve actually bought something based on listening to a podcast. Worth calling out are millennials, Black and Hispanic listeners, and listeners making over $100k, all of whom are purchasing at even higher rates. The advertiser takeaway? If you’re trying to talk to these demos, you need to be where they’re listening.?
• It’s Like a Japanese Podcast????-?Japan has traditionally been a source of innovation, but they’re slow to dive into podcasts with less market penetration than the US ten years ago. The team discusses why.?

Short on time? A recap of each topic is shared below, but for industry insights you won’t get?anywhere?else, hear the full episode by clicking the link below.

Listen Here

The Classifieds

I Wish I Was a Little Bit Taller, I Wish I Was a Baller

To celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month,? The Influencer is highlighting podcasts with hosts from the community throughout May. Our first selection comes from the Business genre and is hosted by Ben Baller.? The CEO & Founder of IF & Co. Custom Jewelry, who's an all-around dynamo with abundant swagger, Ben spends each episode detailing his life, his passions, and his entrepreneurial spirit with the few he deems worthy. His passion and drive to succeed make him an all-around entertaining host and interviewer, making him an agency high performer. Many B2B clients have found success on this Cloud 10 show, and anyone else looking to reach a demo of finance-focused entrepreneurs are hard pressed to find a suaver, cooler option than this.

Q&As to Mind Your P’s and Q’s

All of us have stumbled upon a little gem from history that proved heinous thanks to our country’s sordid past. Skip past that unsavory experience by getting clued in sooner, with our second selection from Headgum. Hosted by popular blogger Andrew Ti and co-host Tawny Newsome, every week the twosome answer fan-submitted questions and internet quandaries related to race, ethnicity, and societal norms, bringing us closer to a shared understanding of one another. Saucy and funny as well, the hosts touch on many different cultural touchstones along the way, including Star Trek, Twilight, and Cable News. This is very similar to offerings in the Society and Culture, Comedy, and Education genres, and is best suited for those who like to laugh as much as they like to learn.

In Case You Missed It

The Old Guard Embraces The New

?Blue chip brands are investing in various media safety tools to ensure safer and less risky environments across their platforms. Barometer, the AI-powered platform helping brands assess podcast content suitability for advertising, just raised $2.25 million in a seed round led by HearstLab, an investment arm of Hearst Corp (yeah, that Hearst Corp). Additionally, our partners at Podscribe have released their own AI-Driven Tool that scores podcast and YouTube content using the GARM framework. This new approach offers deeper content understanding, including sarcasm and context, and provides transparency into the reasoning behind labels. The tool promises to benefit advertisers and publishers by ensuring content meets risk and suitability requirements while building trust between parties. The conversation on the podcast quickly turns to A.I. and its potential impact on our industry.?

Read More

SPOT Up / SXM Down

Spotify continues to get more competitive for performance brands while, for some reason, SXM is still figuring out how to leverage its massive suite of media offerings. For the latter network, Podcast revenues are up, but they are seeing erosion in their core offering’s subscriber base. To turn that tide, SXM is addressing the app experience and entering into partnerships with WalMart and others. Is this a case of a media channel being “so money and not even knowing it,” or is Spotify offering something unique? Tune in to hear what the panel thinks.

Read More

Japan is Behind in Podcast

Our show concludes with an article about the state of Podcast in Japan. For brands with international ambitions, it can be sometimes difficult to get reliable stats on Podcasts usage. This is especially true for Asian markets where Podcast listening is generally below the rest of the world. So, when we see a comprehensive study on the Japanese market, it is essential to take notice.

Podcast usage in Japan is low at just 16%, but listening shares similarities with other markets. Notably, Podcast listeners are younger and listening is also higher among senior management. Our panel’s assessment is that Japan is about 10 years behind the US as far as Podcast adoption. For marketers looking for the next big thing, Japanese Podcast may be it.?

Read More

This Week in Great Podcast Reads

Sara Carter’s Spring Therapy

Normally we’d advise against a host spending the first half of their ad read setting up the brand before actually talking about it, but Sara Carter’s spot for Fast Growing Trees is the exception, and exceptional it is. What makes this one so unique is the slow buildup of the opportunity and how it explores that opportunity to help the listener see why they need more plants in their life. Her understanding of the Fast Growing Trees service, which offers a private nursery of curated plants, allows her to focus on what she’s selling, something visual. With that, she describes the ideal scenery: Spring, colorful flowers, gardens—almost as if she were describing a paradise. She even refers to it as therapy, letting the audience know it’s good for them on top of it all. Great execution by a great podcast. If the Sara Carter Show can give out the prescription for happy living this spring, there’s no limit to what it can do on behalf of your brand.?

Listen Here

If you’ve read this far, thank you!

The Influencer is a production from the team at Oxford Road.

If you like our sometimes sassy, mostly informed POVs on the wonderful world of audio advertising, you should see what we do for our clients.

Interested in seeing how we could help your business??

Contact us at [email protected]!