Malcolm Gladwell and Exceptional Advertising
While listening to an episode of one of my favorite podcasts recently, I experienced an interruption. It happens to me regularly. In the midst of really beginning to dive into a topic, as the threads of the story are about to pull apart, spin around me and draw me closer, I hear it.
After this quick word from our sponsor.
I begin to take the reflexive action I’ve developed for this moment, reaching for my phone, skipping ahead 15 seconds at a time until the ad is over, tracking back 15 seconds if I’ve gone too far. But this time, something stops me. Instead of a typical ad read I hear my host, Malcolm Gladwell, begin down a rabbit hole of sorts.
Like many of you, I spend a lot of time thinking about the fall of the Roman Empire, and let me just read to the names of the last five emperors before everything went to hell in a hand basket. Anthemius, Olybrius, Glycerius, Julius Nepos, Romulus Augustulus.
Hold on. I was told there was an ad coming, but instead Gladwell seems to be launching into a separate segment about the Roman Empire. This isn’t the subject of the podcast I’m listening to, but I’ll bet he brings it around. After all, relating the seemingly unrelated is what he does.
I know what you’re saying, you’re saying, ‘I’ve never heard of any of these emperors,’ and that’s my point. They were all terrible! They ended up beheaded, poisoned! What do you think would happen to the rest of the Romans?
At this point, I’m hooked. Where is this going? What connection is there to be made?
If only there was a ZipRecruiter for the Roman Empire, because if the Roman Empire had a tool for helping them find the best emperors, maybe they’d been able to find a leader who could hang on to his head.
Ahh…there it is. It was an ad after all. But instead of feeling betrayed by being drawn into something that ended up being an ad, I laugh. After all, this premise fits perfectly into the spirit of Revisionist History. The rest of the ad proceeds as you might expect, save for one more quip about the Romans.
ZipRecruiter’s powerful matching technology learns what you’re looking for, identifies the most qualified candidates, and invites them to apply for your job. It’s so effective that eighty percent of employers who post a job on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site within the first day. So if you need an emperor who can keep your empire together, you need ZipRecruiter the smartest way to hire. And now my listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com/Gladwell. That’s ZipRecruiter.com/Gladwell.
This is a regular occurrence. On television or radio, ad breaks are just par for the course. For your favorite shows to exist, they have to make money. For shows to make money, they need to advertise.
But as Gladwell exemplifies, they certainly don’t have to do it badly. Particularly in a medium like podcasting, which is built on an intimacy that doesn’t exist in other forms of media.
Podcasts have absolutely exploded in popularity over the past few years. According to eMarketer, there are 73 million podcast listeners in the US, with 52% of that audience listening to at least 4 podcasts a week, and 14% listening to more than 10 podcasts a week. Simply put, a ton of people are listening to a bunch of podcasts, and those numbers are expected to grow.
That rise hasn’t gone unnoticed by advertisers, who have quickly responded by dropping ads into those podcasts. Podcast ad revenue has risen steadily over the past few years, and it is projected to continue to rise substantially.
But alas, not all podcast ads are the same! In the early days the ads were simply read by the host of the podcast, who often actually enjoyed the product and used it themselves. The fact that they could get paid for hawking was just an added benefit. Advertising on podcasts was still underground, it had yet to go mainstream.
As podcasts grew in popularity the ad types diversified. Some stuck with the old school podcast model, products the hosts were getting paid to promote but really did enjoy. Some attempted to copy that model, but it was obvious that the host was reading a pretty specific script. This became more evident when several hosts on several podcasts were all sharing the same non-specific anecdote about how they got tired of paying for expensive razors, or always needed to book hotels at the last minute, or always had a tough time finding a shirt that fit them until whatever new company provided whatever innovative product that met their very specific and yet completely universal needs.
Eventually, some opted to run simple commercials, not read in the host’s voice and obviously scripted. Presenting sponsors and sponsored segments rose in popularity. Some organizations, most famously NPR, developed restrictions around hosts reading ads, as they wanted to ensure they didn’t blur the lines too much, obfuscating what was part of the program and what was a paid endorsement. Podcast ads started to look a great deal like every other kind of advertising, and as they did they lost some of the magic.
After all, and at the risk of repeating myself too much, podcasts are an intimate medium. For hours at a time you listen to a conversation, often between people who consider themselves friends. In a format designed to go long, you start to feel like you know the people who live in your earbuds for a few hours a week. You become a silent addition to their friendship. Sure, you’re not on the podcast, but you could be. You know the beats, the inside jokes, the segments.
As a result, ads that don’t fit in are jarring. As the space has become more crowded, the quality of the advertising has continued to fall. Podcasts scaled surprisingly well, but the intimate advertising that had at first so seamlessly appeared with them was struggling to scale with it.
We as consumers have no problem with hosts and the companies behind them making some well-earned cash, but not like this! Isn’t there some happy medium, a way to scale podcast ads without losing the intimate feel of a podcast that makes the medium so special?
Thankfully, there is, and it is well demonstrated by Malcolm Gladwell. His podcast Revisionist History, with its intellectually provocative viewpoints, deep dives, and of course, lovable and ever-questioning host, burst onto the scene in 2016. The content is strong, but so is the experience.
The advertisers on his show — ZipRecruiter, Blue Apron — aren’t unusual for podcasts. If you listen to any popular show, you probably know them quite well. But instead of beginning with the company and forcing in a story, Gladwell begins with a story and brings it back to the advertiser. Tying ZipRecruiter into the fall of Rome is one example, but even when it’s a more typical advertisement, it still stands out.
As an example of that, here’s an ad read he did for Blue Apron.
I’ll be honest. After a hard day’s work revising history my producer Jacob, I like a glass of wine or two. But here’s the thing, I don’t know a thing about wine! I’m Canadian, I was raised on beer and Tim Horton’s donuts! Jacobs twenty-seven, a millennial, he was drinking wine out of a box until, like, last week. For all I know he still lives this parents basement.
‘I moved out’
But then we discovered that Blue Apron has come out with a wine plan, your own sommelier, six bottles a month specially chosen to complement your Blue Apron recipe. So right now we’ve got two orders of Chrissy Teigen’s garlic and soy glaze shrimp, charred broccoli in hot green pepper sauce, one of many delicious offerings from Blue Apron’s ever-changing menu and pairing it with a nice chilled bottle of 2016…(what is it)…this wine’s so good I can’t read the label!
Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to live as large as me and Jacob check out this week’s menu and get your first three meals free at blueapron.com/Gladwell that’s blueapron.com/Gladwell and don’t forget to elevate every meal with the perfect wine. Blue Apron, a better way to cook.
What a pleasant story. It’s obviously an ad, but it’s colored with interesting asides and background, something beyond the typical “I’m busy and it’s hard to cook, that’s why I use Blue Apron, here’s what they’ve got coming up this week”.
Gladwell’s reads don’t take a great deal of additional effort, just some thought, a bit of time, and a personal touch. It helps, of course, that he’s an exceptional author and storyteller, but it also helps that he cares! He doesn’t want the ad to totally disconnect you from the experience of the podcast, he wants it to tie in and exist together. Isn’t that what all content creators and marketers alike should strive for?
Gladwell recently launched another podcast, Broken Record, where he speaks with musicians about projects they’ve completed. For that, he’s partnered with Rick Rubin. One of the main sponsors of the show? Sonos.
It’s an obvious fit, but having Rick Rubin speak softly about his history with Sonos, particularly in the context of a podcast about music, feels quite genuine. It feels like the first-hand podcast promotions of old.
Gladwell hasn’t shied away from some of the more dominant podcast advertisers, even if they aren’t entirely relevant to his show. For example, All Birds is a supporter. Even there, though, Gladwell makes an effort to make things interesting.
New Zealand has more sheep than people, which I didn’t believe until I went there and I was like, they do have more sheep than people! If they gave sheep the right to vote in New Zealand, they would have a sheep as prime minister because, sheep would all vote for sheep, they’re sheep, that’s their thing! They go together!
New Zealand sheep give us merino wool. You can have all the cashmere you want, I’m not wearing goat. I’m more merino, merino sweaters with merino socks. I’ve got merino underwear, and now thanks to All Birds I wear merino on my feet. All Birds wool runners, no synthetics, all natural, so comfortable it’s like I’m floating in a river of marshmallows. Even my Broken Record pal Rick Rubin, the Zen master, wears them.
‘This is Rick. I’m usually barefoot but on the odd occasion that I’m not I might be wearing All Birds.’
Find your pair of cozy wool runners from All Birds at allbirds.com.
Maybe Rick Rubin’s endorsement isn’t quite as convincing there, but at least it’s treated simply as an add on, with a wink and a nod. The sheep of New Zealand are the real stars.
The point here is that there’s something to learn from Gladwell and his ad reads that can be applied to both marketing and content creation in general. Context is critically important. As more content is created, as streaming grows, as podcasts continue to proliferate, as the definition of “premium” continues to be muddied, marketers need to be cognizant about where and how their ads are appearing, and they will often need to customize them for each environment.
Content creators will need to ensure that the partnerships they’re forming make sense, and they’ll have to be willing to get into the weeds with those partners. It might take Malcolm Gladwell and his team a bit longer to find the right partners, conceptualize the ideas, and execute. Sure, they can’t just read through provided ad copy or riff through it without much serious thought, but it is worth the investment. Listeners will give your ads more consideration, which will lead to higher returns. Those returns will make it easier to convince your partners to reinvest and easier to draw in new partners. Listeners will appreciate the content and the crossover. It’s a win-win.
None of this is a secret, and none of it should come as a particular surprise. Still, corners are cut, scripts are read, and portions of your program shuffle along, uninspired and ignored.
If you want to be successful in the new reality of media, no matter who you are, you need to consider your environment and put the time in. Thankfully, Malcolm Gladwell has provided an excellent blueprint for those aspiring to do so.
Advertisements were lightly edited, as they had been replaced on the audio versions of the podcasts I found.
