A Podcast About Podcasting (With Brands)
Why rent an audience when you can build your own?
Earlier this year, Pacific Content took part in an experiment of sorts. It was an audio version of an upfront. “What’s that?” you may be asking yourself. Well, it’s advertising lingo. In its heyday, upfronts were a mecca for TV buyers — the place where they would preview the upcoming season of television and decide which shows they would want their ads to rent space and live in for some time. They still exist (though have become virtual since the pandemic), and now, they have them for podcasts too.
Given our year or so of living virtually, our friends at Sounds Profitable had the idea to make a podcast version of an upfront. They called it UpNext, and invited a number of podcast companies, including Pacific Content to participate.
Though, instead of making a pitch to buy ads in one of the shows we produce, in the 12-minute episode that introduces our series, we make the case for brands to make their own show. Our simple pitch to you is this: aside from being the favourite creative project you will ever work on, making a show can earn your brand an audience of its own.
Have a listen to our pitch episode. Then, listen to a sampling of our audience-first shows, made with brands like Atlassian, Rocket Mortgage, Dell Technologies, Ford, and SciMar. Let us know what you think!
Hosted by Showrunner Alison Broverman and Sound Designer Gaëtan Harris. With Audience Development Director Dan Misener, Head of Editorial and Customer Marketing at Atlassian John Ville, and Earned Media Strategist at Quicken Loans Clay Closson.
To listen to the version with the show episodes:
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Transcript: Why rent an audience when you can build your own
GAËTAN
Alison, if I may say so, you’re looking quite deep in thought.
ALISON
Hi Gaëtan. Thanks for noticing. I could use a little help here, actually.
GAËTAN
What’s up?
ALISON
Well, we’ve been asked to make an original piece of audio for a brand.
GAËTAN
…Am I missing something? That’s literally our job?
ALISON
Well, yes. Obviously, we produce original podcasts with brands. But that’s different. Those are for clients.
GAËTAN
So, why is this different? What’s the brand?
ALISON
Pacific Content.
GAËTAN
That’s us!
ALISON
Exactly.
GAËTAN
So what’s the problem? We’re Pacific Content. We DO make podcasts…
ALISON
Yes, but is this really the right promotional tool for us? Is it too meta? Who podcasts the podcast company?
GAËTAN
I see what you mean. What if we lean into this meta-audio piece then?
ALISON
What do you mean?
GAËTAN
Can we get a music change here? Something a little more dynamic and decisive.
ALISON
I see what you did there. Is this supposed to help?
GAËTAN
Is it not helping?
ALISON
Look — producing a good original podcast is a ton of work, and let’s be frank, it’s not cheap. If we’re out here promoting ourselves — there’s a lot of faster and cheaper ways to do that.
GAËTAN
I know who you need to talk to. Can I get a little flourish?
Fanfare tag plays
ALISON
What was that for?
GAËTAN
It was supposed to be entrance music… but it didn’t quite work, did it? Let’s try this…
SOME KIND OF MAGICAL ENTRANCE SOUND FOR DAN
ALISON
Oh! It’s our audience development director Dan Misener!
DAN
Hi there.
GAËTAN
Dan, welcome to our meta promotional original audio palace.
DAN
I love what you’ve done with the place.
ALISON
Thanks for stopping by. Look, I’m just afraid that an original podcast isn’t going to be worth the time and effort we have to put into it. Why don’t we just buy some ad time in a podcast that’s already popular?
DAN MISENER
I think you’re absolutely right that making a really high-quality original podcast, especially if you are a brand, is more work than most people think it is. It’s interesting work, it’s creative work, but it is significantly more work to make your own show than it is to simply buy inventory on somebody else’s show.
ALISON
So why not do that, call it a day, and knock off early?
GAËTAN
Dan, why don’t you tell Alison what you tell our clients.
DAN
The way that I think about this is rooted in my perception as a listener, right? I think about the shows that I love. I think about the shows that I listened to. And I think about my response to the advertising I hear in those shows. And you can, if you’re a, maybe a buyer, if you are in-house at a brand, you can call up lots of podcasts networks. You can approach individual shows. You can work with any number of companies in this space, and buy 30-second pre-rolls, that’ll start airing tomorrow.
But when you buy ads in somebody else’s show, you’re really renting their audience. You are paying to be an interruption in somebody else’s ears. And that’s how advertising has worked for a very, very long time.
And so there’s nothing wrong with buying ads and there is nothing wrong with paying to access somebody else’s audience. But I would argue that by making your own show, you can come from a significantly stronger place, as a brand, especially as a brand. Because when you make your own original high-quality show that is a genuine audience-first show and doesn’t smell or feel or taste or sound like an infomercial; when you make something that’s actually worth a listener’s time and attention, you are earning that time and attention. And you are earning the time that they spend with you. And that you are earning the mind share that comes with having produced a show.
ALISON
Well, when you put it that way…
DAN
The other way that I think about this is maybe a little more cold and calculating, I think about cost per minute of attention, right?
So I buy lots of podcast ads, in my day job. And typically I’m buying 30-second spots or I’m buying 60-second spots. Sometimes we buy longer spots. Sometimes they’re pre-rolls sometimes they’re mid-rolls. And when we buy those spots, we’re paying per impression. Usually, we buy the stuff on a cost-per-impression basis. And I spend a certain number of dollars and I get a certain number of her impressions in return. And there’s a limit to that, right? I only get the impressions that I bought. I only get the number of 30-second dynamic ad insertions that I paid for and not a single one more.
When you create your own show, the sky’s the limit. You’re not capped out at how much your show or your audio can reach somebody, right? It really is limited only by your ability to make a good show and your ability to reach the right audience.
GAËTAN
Thanks, Dan. Very convincing, extremely intelligent, as usual. And not to get all Levar Burton on you, but you don’t have to take Dan’s word for it.
JOHN VILLE
Hi, my name is John Ville. I’m the head of editorial and customer marketing at Atlassian.
ALISON
Ah, we’re bringing in our clients to tell their own stories now. Good idea.
GAËTAN
If this were a podcast episode I’d say something like Atlassian produces the excellent podcast Teamistry with us.
ALISON
And John was named best B2B Content Marketer of the year in 2020.
GAËTAN
So he knows something about the value that an original podcast can bring to a brand. But it was still something of a risky idea at first.
JOHN VILLE
We really had to convince our chief marketing officer, the value of podcasting, as you all know, it’s a bit of a wild West out there. The numbers are very hard to come by so we had to convince our CMO that there is value there. He was also interested in podcasting as well. So he wasn’t, we weren’t working against somebody who wasn’t familiar with the format.
But then also we wanted to go deeper and do a rich story. So that takes time and effort. And let’s say money. Let’s just be really honest here. So we did have quite a large production ask that we had to convince, and it went through many, many rounds of me doing, going through PowerPoint decks, you know, just sort of showing him what we can achieve and then critically it’s the follow-up brand lift studies we’ve been doing afterward to really drill down into seeing whether the audience is the right audience. So we hit that audience. do they attribute Atlassian to the podcast, but also our values and also our software. So those things kind of go hand in hand. It was convincing, for the initial outlay, but also saying, Hey, we can show some results.
ALISON
Well, for Atlassian the results have been pretty good — Teamistry is currently in production on season 3, and the show was just nominated for an Ambie Award for Best Business Podcast. But beyond that, what value has Teamistry added to Atlassian as a brand?
JOHN VILLE
So it fits within our brand messaging because it talks to that it decision-maker and upwards level at enterprise companies, which is exactly where we’re pitching our products to and at. So it’s almost like an extra arrow in our quiver. We can say that we, that we have a blog, we have social media, we have video, we have downloads and white papers, but we also have this other medium that’s also incredibly useful and it captures audience. And what’s astonishing about podcasting is the length of time people will stay with you.
It also gives us a platform for our customers. So this season we’re talking to a number of customers and featuring them in our stories and in our episodes as well. So, it breeds that loyalty. They see that they can work with us and with our software, but we can also tell their story on our platforms to a broader audience. So I think it kind of ticks many boxes, in terms of the value that Teamistry has to Atlassian. And, you know, it’s super on-trend right now. Everybody’s on a podcast or they’re doing a podcast. And I think if you’re not there you’re kind of missing out, particularly with that B2B space.
GAËTAN
Another one of our clients had to overcome some internal skepticism. With Rocket Mortgage’s podcast, Home. Made., the company’s CMO was sold right from the start — but some of the people who were tasked with making a podcast weren’t so sure. Here’s Clay Closson describing a brainstorming meeting with one of his coworkers.
CLAY CLOSSON
The first thing she says, as soon as we started the meeting, “Clay, Clayton, I’m just going to tell you this right now. A podcast about mortgages is going to fail. I don’t want to insult you, but this is never going to work. Nobody wants to listen to anybody talking about mortgages, except, you know, people getting a mortgage. It’s just… I know that we want to do this as a company, but it’s going to be a failure.”
ALISON
But Home Made isn’t actually about mortgages at all. It features richly told, immersive stories about the meaning of home.
GAËTAN
The show was featured on Apple Podcasts’ New and Notable list shortly after it debuted, which gets the podcast, and Rocket Mortgage’s name, in front of millions of eyeballs.
But for Clay and Rocket Mortgage, a sound-rich, narrative podcast is a long game.
CLAY
And everybody here is very clear about this is the long play. It’s not a fast thing. It’s not going to immediately drive revenue or anything from this. This is all about us patiently putting in the effort, creating great stories that people can relate to, finding the audience, and then waiting for that audience to mature, and then come back to us at some point.
This is not designed for us to actually make money right now in any way, this is just a gift that we’re giving people. And so it intrinsically helps our brand by being what it is.
GAËTAN
The other thing about making an original podcast? It’s definitely hard work — but it can be so fulfilling.
CLAY
This is the favorite project I’ve ever worked on in my life.
GAËTAN
A closing quote like that requires some happy ending music, don’t you think?
ALISON
OK. We’ve heard from our audience development expert Dan Misener — and from a couple of our amazing clients. So what’s next?
GAËTAN
Next, we wrap things up and explain the rest of this UpNext podcast feed.
ALISON
Right, the next five episodes you will hear are NOT infomercials. They are episodes of original podcasts from brands like Atlassian, Rocket Mortage, Ford, and more.
GAËTAN
Thanks for listening. And if you have any questions about anything you’ve heard here… or just want to have a chat about what an original podcast might look like for YOUR brand… visit us online at pacific-content.com.
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