Brand marketers are exploring a greater involvement in audio channels such as podcasting as part of their media budgets for the coming year, following the growing importance of audio content across the wider advertising industry.
Speaking at Campaign’s Year Ahead breakfast briefing - presented in partnership with Merkle - Gemma Flanigan, marketing director of Cadbury brand equity UK&I for Mondelez, highlighted the importance of audio within the company’s 2023 media strategy, noting that it was set to play an even larger role prior to the backtrack on proposed restrictions for confectionary product advertising.
“For us, audio is becoming something we're exploring more and more, given the rise of it,” she said. “And up until the end of last year, where we were facing advertising restrictions, then it was definitely becoming a more important part of our media mix this year. So even if we don't pursue it quite to the degree that we were planning to, it is certainly something that we're still really keen to test and learn.”
“There's no doubt that podcasts have had a big boom through the pandemic,” added Direct Line’s former managing director of marketing and co-host of The Places We'll Go Marketing Show Mark Evans, “and it looks set to stay.”
Podcast revenues within the UK have grown more than 60% year-on-year according to IAB figures, and as part of another session at the event, Spotify’s EMEA head of sales Rak Patel illustrated part of the reason behind this, citing the comparative affordability of podcasts as a key driver behind the continued expansion of advertising within the sector.
“If you get tactical, this is a cheaper creative to create,” he said. “Clearly a platform like ours is very dynamic... it's digitally driven. And so that is what's important for us in terms of illustrating that true value back to advertisers”
“We know that the scale of podcasts is here to stay and it's growing - it's forecast to get to €1.5 billion across EMEA by the end of this year - and will continue to do so. So we've launched many a set of tools to help brands and agencies really get the most out of our platform.”
Pinterest’s EMEA director of business marketing Visha Kudhail also noted that one of the most important things for marketers is to meet their target market on its own terms, and indicated that the company is investigating how it can invest in podcasting as a channel.
“[In terms of] addressing the audience and what audiences really care about, creators, and pinners - which are our users - love podcasts,” Kudhail said. “...we're looking into that, so I don't want to say too much.”
