This is The Download from Sounds Profitable, the most important news from this week and why it matters to people in the business of podcasting. I'm Newton Shuttlecott. And I'm Gavin Gaddis. The Download is brought to you by Podscribe. Find out more at podscribe.com.
This week, what brand fans love about podcasts and how they listen. Making podcasting stickier. No, I didn't think through that headline. The creator economy at South by Southwest. And rise of the silver influencer. Not to be confused with the silver surfer. Let's get started. This Wednesday from Tom Webster, it sounds profitable. The power of branded podcasts, a report from Jar Audio and Sounds Profitable. looks at a section of respondents to the 2024 survey of 5,071 Americans aged 18 plus.
Of respondents asked their likelihood to consume a podcast about a favorite brand or product, brand fans make up the 15% who said very likely. Brand fans trend younger than the average US population and are a diverse crowd. They only skew 3% more male than the US population.
And Hispanic slash Latino consumers index very highly as brand fans in comparison to the demographics portion of the population. 29% of brand fans have been listening to podcasts for one to two years, while 21% have been listening for three to five years. They often use YouTube for podcast consumption slash discovery and are evangelists of podcasting with 76% of brand fans recommending shows to their social circle. Meaning, like news consumers, brand fans are not just a demographic.
that eagerly consumes podcasts, they're a conduit for promoting the medium itself within their social circles. They're one of the sources generating the fabled word of mouth that podcasting has relied on since its inception. The Power Branded podcast is currently live for free download, as well as an hour-long webinar featuring Tom Webster, JAR Audio Director of Audience Growth, Liz Hames, and Andrea Marquez, Senior Producer, Host.
podcast programming at Amazon. This Thursday from Tom Webster, it sounds profitable. Sounds Profitable's next big report, data from which is set to be revealed in Chicago next month, see quick hits below, includes a thorough benchmark of podcasting's awareness to trial to regular usage statistics in comparison to other media channels.
quote, Part of this may be down to cadence, of course, unless you are a habitual consumer of daily news or sports podcasts most podcasts deliver at a weekly cadence, which inadvertently may have conditioned people to a weekly consumption cadence.
thing you are looking for is not there every day you don't look for it every day however i think some of this also has to be laid directly at the feet of the various dedicated apps we have for podcast consumption I have been talking in this space for over a year since we released Sound You Can See at the end of 2023 about how a big part of the rise of YouTube in podcasting is not endemic to video necessarily, but to the quality of the app itself.
It does a lot of things and really well that dedicated podcast apps simply aren't providing, end quote. In preparation for that, Webster highlights the podcast landscape 2024 information on that relationship, which found the conversion rate for someone trying out podcasting to becoming a weekly consumer is just 50%. He then breaks down three aspects of other daily.
driver forms of media that podcasting could adopt to increase the success rate in converting a trial user into a weekly consumer. Chief among them being the lack of a simple button to push to get something individual listeners want.
Radios have five buttons. Facebook gives you everything you go to Facebook for by simply clicking the app to open it. Library-based systems, from podcast apps to Netflix, struggle to give you immediate access to something you want without requiring an ever-growing series of buttons. pick from. A lot happened at South by Southwest concerning podcasters and content creators in general. So we're collecting it all here in one mega article.
Before diving into those articles, however, I do want to highlight a YouTube playlist we're linking in the description containing all of the panel presentations from the official podcast stage. They were recorded and edited by No Mono, marketed by Opus Clip. And they're hosted on the Sounds Profitable YouTube account. Now for coverage. On Tuesday, Digiday's Christina Monlos covered the why marketers should take note of the increased presence of content creators at South by Southwest.
as advertising and entertainment at large start to catch up to the culture's embrace of individual creators. Quote, at South by Southwest, with the conference's embrace and marketers' interest, it's clear there is a focus on adapting to the reality of today's marketing landscape and the cultural relevance of the creator economy.
What adaptation looks like, adopting creator ethos and communicating with audiences, influence on creative, working with creators, changing media buying and planning will depend on the brand, end quote. Over on Variety, Clayton Davis covered the live taping of the Award Circuit podcast featuring Hot Ones hosts Sean Evans, Mythical Entertainment's Rhett and Link, and Waveform podcast host Marcus Brownlee.
a panel that touched on the recent canonization of their content in awards consideration with hot ones in consideration for talk series and 2024 Emmy running. Rhett McLaughlin highlights a spending discrepancy that podcastings will be all too familiar with. A quote from McLaughlin in the article. If you look at where brands are putting their money in the way that they value a set of eyeballs watching The Tonight Show versus watching Good Mythical Morning, it still doesn't make any sense.
One of the reasons for that is brands and culture look at the academy to know what they think is cool, end quote. And over on the information, Kaya Urieff covered video podcasting's presence at the conference as well as the frontrunners who might buy TikTok if a sale is pressured by the administration later this year.
Last Friday from Kimiko McCoy at Digiday, while Gen Z and Gen Alpha take the headlines for influencer marketing, brands like Progresso Soup and Harmless Harvest are eyeing Gen X and Baby Boomers. Alaskan Airlines and Mountain Dew have also hopped on the silver influencer trend in recent years. A quote from the article, quote,
As these brands look to expand their footprint with shoppers from older generations, they're partnering with influencers and content creators from those same generations. Notably, these generations are shifting their consumption habits, Instagram. At the same time, the so-called grandfluencer's reach isn't limited to their age demos, seemingly pulling in fans from across generations, end quote.
While statistically older viewers are still tuned into traditional media, the 55 and up demographic is also active on social media. The simple fact is people like seeing themselves represented in advertisements, and the 55 and up demo is slowly getting more. of that outside of products specifically targeting age. And as reports like the Podcast Landscape 2024 show, podcasting has an opportunity to grow and properly recognize the 55 and up side of the industry.
Finally, it's time for our quick hits. These are articles that didn't quite make the cut for today's episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week, I've got some fun stuff for you. Evolutions by Podcast Movement has announced Sounds Profitable partner Tom Webster will be hosting a keynote speech called The Advertising Landscape Podcasting's Place in the Ad-Supported Media Universe.
in which Tom will share early data from the largest study of podcast advertising effectiveness in America. Speaking of things coming up soon, coming Tuesday, March 18th, the free webinar hosted by Quill CEO and co-founder Fatima Zaidi. and the creativity business's Steve Pratt. From You, Not About You will feature 25 minutes of discussion on steps to elevate branded podcasts from a promotion into a gift for your audience.
how brands measure success beyond downloads, and building long-term trust. How Wondery is evolving its video podcast strategy fast. F-A-S-T, all caps. With the growing popularity of video podcast viewership on connected TV via platforms like YouTube, Wondery is leaning into the fast world with Amazon Prime Video Live TV, formerly Freevi.
Jar Audio has announced their third annual Emerging Women in Podcasting pilot competition in which a winning pitch for a podcast pilot episode will be produced by Jar Audio with full IP ownership remaining with the creator. Veritonic unveils pioneering audience insight solution to deliver accurate, scalable podcast demographic data.
The company has debuted a combination of device graph tech and self-reported listener data called Audience Insights, which aims to deliver accurate, scalable, and cost-effective, forgive the wordplay, Audience Insights. And finally, measure podcast ad impact against custom audience data. A new update from Magellan AI showcasing how the platform can ingest first-party and third-party audience data to measure how campaigns reach users' target listeners.
And that was the download brought to you by Sounds Profitable. I know we went through today's stories fast, so be sure to check out the links to every article mentioned right in your podcast listening app or on the download section of soundsprofitable.com. And thank you for sticking with us as we bring you the top stories you make.
might have missed from the past week. I'm Newton Shuttlecotti. And I'm Gavin Gaddis. Our producers are myself, Newton Shuttlecotti, Tom Webster, and Brian Bartletta. And as always, a special thanks to you for joining us. Robot? Download complete.