Ads and Media Buying

The Attention Bargain

The Most Slept-On Attention Bargain for Brands

If there’s one thing I love, it’s data. So, when research firm Sounds Profitable announced they’d be releasing a new study, The Ad Bargain, I was excited. And the research doesn’t disappoint. Unsurprisingly to those of us in the industry, podcasting may be the most slept-on attention bargain for brands. I figured I’d use this week’s blog post to highlight some of the findings I found most interesting, and share some of our thoughts on what we’ve learned.

Sounds Profitable’s study from last year, The Medium Moves the Message, compared podcast advertising to broadcast television and AM/ FM radio. This latest study takes a similar approach, this time comparing podcast advertising to CTV and YouTube. The overall results are positive (though not surprising to those of us in the industry): podcasting works for brands. Let’s dig into some of the nitty gritty results that stood out to us.

What’s Good for the Listener is Good for the Brand

Part of the reason why podcast advertising works for brands, is because podcast advertising also works for consumers. I don’t know that I’d say podcast listeners love podcast ads (I’m sure some listeners love some ads), but they also don’t hate them as much as they hate other advertising. Podcast listeners are receptive to podcast advertising, with 63% of respondents agreeing that ads in their favourite podcast are less annoying than other ads.

As Sounds Profitable’s Tom Webster points out, podcast ads are often more integrated into the podcast, performed in the host’s voice, match the overall tone of the podcast, and (mostly) don’t interrupt content in the same way that other digital ads might. As the trend in podcasting moves towards more programmatic ad buys, our industry needs to remember to continue respecting the listeners’ experience, making sure that ads are creative, highly produced, and carefully targeted. (Podcast ads are also more difficult to avoid, requiring pulling out your phone and manually fastforwarding to skip through them, so if the creative is bad, they will very quickly become very annoying.)

As it stands now, podcast listeners are still more likely to report listening to all of the ads they encounter on podcasts.

What makes this data even more striking is the fact that podcast listeners also tend to be more ad avoidant. As we saw last year from The Medium Moves the Message, podcast listeners are more likely to subscribe to ad-free, on-demand media.

Podcast listeners are a highly desirable, difficult to reach audience for advertisers. And yet, considering their seeming aversion to advertising, podcast audiences are incredibly receptive to podcast advertising.

The Influencer Impact

Here’s a slide that particularly caught my attention in this study:

Do you see what I’m seeing here? Yes, podcasts outrank all of the mediums measured. But not by much– podcasts rank pretty closely with TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. I can’t help but notice that all these mediums have one thing in common: influencers. Brands may still not think of podcasts as a medium for influencer marketing. But as Matt Mise wrote about earlier this year, creators definitely do recognize the power of podcasts. The intimacy of podcasts combined with its long-form nature create a perfect platform for building a parasocial relationship between the listener and the host. When listeners hear those host-read ads podcasts are so known for, they tend to trust their favourite host. They’re influenced.

The Ad Bargain also reveals that podcast listeners draw a clear connection between the brands mentioned in podcast ads, and the content they’re listening to.

As Tom Webster writes:

“[P]odcast listeners draw a straight line from advertiser support to creator support, like no other media consumer. If you are watching an episode of Young Sheldon and see an ad for Doritos, there is a long mental leap from buying chips to helping poor Sheldon go to college or whatever that kid does (I don’t watch the show.)”

This connection between advertiser and content creates good will for podcast advertising. Other digital advertising might be seen as disruptive, getting in the way of the content consumers have sought out (I cannot tell you how frustrated I get every time a YouTube ad pops up right in the middle of a stitch count during my YouTube crochet tutorials). Podcast advertising, on the other hand, is seen as supporting the content consumers are seeking out (“Without this brand’s support, my favourite podcast wouldn’t exist”). And this good will leads to conversion.

Since this research is focused mainly on podcast advertising, I’ve been keeping this blog post mostly limited to your typical podcast ads– pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll, etc. But if you’ll indulge a quick divergence, let me draw a connection here to the work Pacific Content is known for: producing original podcasts with brands. Podcast ad campaigns run for limited periods of time and are generally non-exclusive. And even still, listeners draw that connection between the advertising brand and the content they love. Imagine how deep the goodwill from listeners would go if their favourite brand not only sent a little money towards their favourite podcast now and then, but actually fully funded their favourite podcast? That is a powerful opportunity for brands to really drive support from consumers.

More Than We Bargained For

In the past couple of years, I’ve been having lots of conversations around three dreaded letters: ROI. I figured it would be great to end this post on a big highlight from The Ad Bargain: podcasts drive sales!

Across every measure you’d use to determine ROI, at every point in the marketing funnel, podcasts were more effective than YouTube or CTV. This means they scored highest in increasing awareness, favorability, consideration and driving action. If you’re looking for a bargain and want to protect your ROI, clearly podcasting should be part of your marketing mix.

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