Shira is Co-Founder & CRO at Wonder Media Network — this interview has been lightly edited for style and readability
Sam Sethi spoke to Shira Atkins after the announcement that Acast was to acquire Wonder Media Network
Sam Sethi: How old is Wonder Media Network?
Shira Atkins: We started the company about six and a half years ago, and I co-founded it with a dear friend of mine from college, Jenny Kaplan, who is the CEO. I’m the CRO, and we’ve built this business together, bootstrapped it, and have about 25 employees now.
SS: Was it Acast knocking on the door, or were you stalking Ross in various New York cafes? How did this meeting come about?
SA: Very organically and naturally. In the course of regular business as founders, acquisition is always something that we think about, and we’ve certainly had conversations over the years.
We actually were first connected with Greg [Glenday] and Veronika [Taylor] and got to know Ross subsequently. Of course, we’ve known about Acast and have had some partnerships over the years, but it felt like the right time for us, and it felt like the perfect home. I didn’t let on that they were our total front runner. We of course had some other conversations, but we have felt from the beginning like this was a match made in heaven.
SS: Branded podcasting - we heard from Harry Morton at Lower Street how much it’s grown - is that what you’ve found, that you’re not chasing the deals, they’re chasing you now?
SA: We still do a fair bit of chasing, but it does feel that brands increasingly need to think like media companies, and if they’re going to think like media companies, they need to think omni channel. And there are use cases for audio that are not just bolt on to an existing strategy, but are genuinely the right approach for brands and executives who are really busy, or maybe they’re better on audio than they are on video, or there’s a particular kind of story that just makes sense in audio. And marketers and corporate affairs people at the world’s largest companies are starting to understand this. And I’m so glad that there are other companies like Lower Street and Jar and Podglomerate. There’s so many lovely people that are doing this work, and I think it is totally a rising tide. Lifts all boats.
SS: Do you find that CEOs are trying to be the tail that wags a dog? Do they try and dictate to you? Or do they defer to your expertise and let you run the show for them?
SA: For the most part, there’s a deference to our expertise. We like it when CEOs get involved and want to champion the work. But largely, we are doing a lot of discovery and strategy work with brands to help them figure out why audio, why now, what are the goals, and how can we have that ladder up to whatever the content is. And the thing that has differentiated our work in the space is doing a lot of the consultative groundwork to ensure that the podcast is successful because it is, as we all know, a very crowded space. And it’s hard for brands to break through because it’s not the sexiest. You’d rather listen to your favourite podcast than one from Pfizer. But we’ve managed to, with Pfizer as an example, create content that is authentic for them, but also content you want to listen to because it’s good and it’s finding the exact right audience.
SS: How long is a branded podcast? Does the CEO get one hour? What is a good length for a branded podcast from a corporate point of view?
SA: So there’s absolutely no one size fits all. The use case that you were just describing with a CEO sort of delivering a message, perhaps to their employees, we do that quite a bit. We’ve done that with companies like GE, for example, where it’s internally facing, so it’s not for public consumption. In some cases, that’s better for a brand. They’re like getting their audio to a very specific audience. We typically don’t go above 20 minutes for any internally facing content that feels laborious.
For external, it totally depends. We’ve done narrative audio documentaries for brands, and we’ve also done more thought-leadership pieces. Similarly, we try to stay sort of in the 20 to 30 minute range for episodes, but we’ve certainly gone shorter and also longer. We let the content dictate the length. It’s taking the principles of advertising and applying it in a strategic fashion.
SS: Notebook LM, the AI chatty hosts. Do people say “Oh, we just chuck a document into Notebook LM. That’s the branded podcast done, is it?”
SA: We’re not tending to speak to the kinds of brands that would do that. A lot of our clients are very large Fortune 500s and for them, there’s also a lot of red tape and legal process and understanding the nuances of what happens in the content and also working with teams that care deeply about storytelling. AI can be a helpful part of the process from a research perspective, but certainly not from a content perspective. There’s not yet the capability to meet the needs of these kinds of brands that take a lot of care in every single word that comes out.
SS: I can see why Acast is a great fit because of their international footprint; and brands are global, and therefore working with you very much to increase their footprint as well. Are you going to get into internationalisation through language as well?
SA: Yes, definitely. We have actually produced some content already in other languages. It’s something that we care a lot about. So excited about the potential with Acast to continue to do that. Pfizer is a global company. They have offices all over the world. They actually have some podcasts in Germany and in South America and they’re desperate for us to get involved in those markets as well and we haven’t yet fully had the capability to do so. So I’m really excited to do that.
SS: Congratulations. For any entrepreneur, CEO, CRO to get their company from bootstrapping all the way through to sale, it’s a massive round of applause.
SA: Thank you so much. We’re thrilled - and the best part about it is, as I know Ross talks about all the time, is the culture and the people, and we take a lot of pride in our team and it’s such a wonderful vibe and it just feels like it really fits.
We can’t wait to see what the next chapter brings.