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(By Richard Davies) Not so long ago podcasting was barely noticed by the powers that be at Advertising Week, the annual mega-conference in New York for advertising and marketing executives. Our medium was just a little outhouse in the backyard of a mighty media mansion that was dominated by video, TV, and print.
So much has changed. And much more is on the way.
Today, enthused Matt Scheckner, Global Chief Executive at Advertising Week, “the heat around podcasting is tremendous. 2019 was when the renaissance of audio really began to pick up speed.”
That’s a far cry from five years ago when a lone audience member at Advertising Week politely asked a question about the potential for podcasting as a way to reach consumers. I remember being politely waved away with a dismissive smile.
The annual Infinite Dial survey of digital consumer behavior “has changed more in the last four to five years than in the previous 17,” says Tom Webster, Senior Vice President of Edison Research. One third of Americans, or about 90 million people, have listened to a podcast in the past month, according to Edison. Podcasting is no longer a niche market that advertisers can afford to ignore.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau predicts that podcast advertising revenues will top $1 billion by 2021.
But with improving standards in audience measurement and discoverability, the increase in revenues may be far greater in the next few years.
“There’s been explosion from venture capital investment. Hollywood is now in the podcasting space,” Grant Durando, Growth Marketing Consultant of Right Side Up, told the Advertising Week podcast session, “Beyond $1 billion. The variety of podcasts and the content on offer have grown tremendously.”
Podcasting’s overall share of audio listening has doubled in the past five years. Research reveals that regular podcast consumers listen more to podcasts than to radio, music, or SiriusXM.
The listening environment is also changing.
“Just as digital audio has become ubiquitous on phones, it’s becoming the same for cars,” said Webster. Dashboards now include podcasts.
Smart speaker ownership has grown extraordinarily quickly, changing the way people listen to audio. Consumers are buying multiple smart speakers to put in their homes.
Research shows that “people are intentionally purchasing smart speakers to reduce screen time,” Webster told the Advertising Week audience. Smart speakers could be a threat to TV. “They are enabling audio consumption where it might not have happened before.”
Worldwide sales of smart speakers will almost double this year compared to 2018, according to new research by SAR Insight.
“We’re at the front end of a platform shift that will really change the world of marketing,” says Bret Kinsella, founder, CEO, and research director of Voicebot.ai, a company that provides news and analysis on voice assistants and artificial intelligence. “Microphones are everywhere and that changes the way people think about how they interact with technology.”
In recent years we’ve gone from click, to touch, to speak, says Kinsella. “Every time there’s a platform shift, there’s a shifting of the deckchairs. The dominant players can change. The rapid adoption of voice assistants such as Alexa, Siri, and Google “has taken analysts by surprise and that exposure is flowing into more voice assistant usage on smartphones, PCs, and through household appliances. It is clear that voice assistants are heading toward both ubiquitous access and usage.”
The changes in technology that drive consumer behavior are of growing interest to the advertising industry. But despite growing awareness that podcast listeners are more engaged than average consumers, many marketers are not there yet.
“Many brands don’t have an audio strategy to transform a visual idea into an audio experience without just shouting and being aggressive,” Rob Walker Global Director, Creative Solutions at Spotify, told a panel on audio marketing.
More insights are needed. As thinking about audio marketing evolves and becomes more insightful, some large consumer names are turning to sonic branding. Audrey Arbeeny, Founder of Audiobrain.com describes it as “the strategic and creative development of an authentic and consistent audio sound for a brand.”
Growing attention to “the theater of the mind” provided by audio is another recent shift at Advertising Week.
“The biggest thing for us is how to transfer a brand’s visual identity into a sonic identity,” says Janet Levine of Mindshare, a global media and marketing services company.” The challenge is help brands understand “how to shift from a visual world to a sonic one.”
“Every time there’s a platform shift, there’s a shifting of the deckchairs. The dominant players can change.”
The rapid adoption of voice assistants such as Alexa, Siri, and Google “has taken analysts by surprise and that exposure is flowing into more voice assistant usage on smartphones, PCs and through household appliances,” reports Voicebot.ai. “It is clear that voice assistants are heading toward both ubiquitous access and usage.”
Richard Davies is a podcast host and consultant. DaviesContent.com works with brands to improve their audio strategy. He can be reached at Daviescontent@gmail.com