Podcasts are coming back!

Podcasts, one of the oldest and historically least sexy digital content channels, may become the new hot digital marketing channel. According to AdAge, the new found success can be mainly attributed to the success of “Serial”, a podcast centered around a crime drama, advertisers are quickly jumping on this new trend. Podcasts have historically been relegated to the bottom of digital publisher’s properties given its long form content and lack of visual media – two major weaknesses in the current digital media marketplace.

However, podcasts also have some unique strengths. Podcast audiences are usually well-educated and tech saavy, making them the coveted influencer/early adopter segment that advertisers spend millions to reach. In addition, podcast advertising can best be compared to native advertising where the podcast teams both create as well as deliver the marketing messages within the podcast itself. This lack of differentiation between the editorial and advertising content makes what can be considered native podcast advertising up to 5 times more effective. Given that the advertising can be highly customized, direct response advertisers like Warby Parker have been using podcasts to better track ad performance.

Scaling advertising measurement through podcasts can be difficult however. Since there is no click involved, podcasts must rely on more inconclusive measurements such as downloads. However, publishers are quickly pivoting to provide advertisers the metrics they need to make podcasts a viable advertising channel. Apple is currently in talks with Nielsen to institute industry-wide standards of measurement, similar to Nielsen ratings in TV. It is interesting to note the negative correlation with advertising effectiveness and measurement. Often the most effective channels, especially like PR and influencer WOM, whether in person or through social media, can often be the most difficult for advertisers to track back to the source. 

Political parties seem to disagree on everything....except Amazon

Anyone that has watched the news in the last…forever…knows that political parties rarely agree on anything. In the YouGov Brand Index released lately, however, studies have revealed that individuals from both sides of the political spectrum do agree on one thing – they love Amazon.  

YouGov recently interviewed 600,000 people about 1,200 brands and ranked them by their level of positive and negative feedback. Amazon came in #1 for Democrats, #1 for Independents and #2 for Republicans, just behind Craftsman. Other brands that landed in the top 10 across all political parties include Johnson & Johnson, Craftsman, Clorox and Dawn.

While the company did not report on the bottom 10 list, there were some brands that only appeared for one party, including Dove, PBS and Barnes & Noble, which appeared on the Democrats list only.  Some companies, like Dove, whose ads focus on female empowerment, played into many of the issues of a particular party; others, however, are head-scratchers.

Read the article to see thefull Top 10 list as well as some interesting notes on particular brands. 

How digital technology will change the way brands market in the future

For those of you interested in new thinking and innovation especially around marketing and branding, I recommend ‘Co-Exist’, a section of the magazine Fast Company.

This week they ran a thought-provoking article by Tom Adams (Global Head of Strategy at FutreBrand) titled “The Brands of the Future will help you Consume Less.” In the piece, Adams argues that the evolution in digital technology and enhanced aggregation of personal consumer data will drive a major shift in the way brands market to and define their relationship with their consumers. 

At present, branded products and services know lots about us, but often it is relatively fragmented and piecemeal. They collect data through diverse means – web presences, online marketing, interactive games, mobile services and apps – and then use this knowledge to target and push ever-greater consumption – what Adams terms a single-minded focus “on increasing penetration and frequency.” In other words, they use the info they have about us to get us to buy more and more stuff that we don’t really need.

Adams argues that in the future, this model won’t hold. As platforms evolve to allow us as consumers to merge a range of personal data, including on how much we eat, spend, exercise, recycle etc, we will be able to create a “lifestyle dashboard” to produce a more holistic view of our lives and consumption needs. Adams argues that smart brands of the future will re-think their marketing and digital strategies to more effectively use this kind of profile data. Their approach will be to attract consumers by helping them “understand how much they consume, and what this means for their health, wealth and happiness.” 

This is more than enhanced personalization. It is helping consumers manage - and potentially change - their lifestyle. 

Adams believes the net effect is that we will in fact consume less, but may pay more for it. In addition, he believes that the new engagement model will build stronger loyalty to brands than ever before. 

In terms of who will be the providers of the “lifestyle dashboard,” Adams argues the most likely are current “aggregator brands,” which he defines as search engines, multi-brand retailers and software service providers.

With this in mind, the next time you visit Google to search for the new season’s lip gloss from your favorite brand, consider that in future Google may preface its list of search results with the question: “Ali, you already have 3 tubes of Chanel lip gloss, 5 tubes of Lancome and 3 of Dior…. do you really need another one?”