This is The Download from Sounds Profitable, your daily source for the essential news of the business of podcasting brought to you by Speaker from I Heart, I'm Gavin Gattis. Here's what you need to know for today, Tuesday, October 22nd. First up, Insignia Buys Veritone's podcast agency for up $204 million. This article from Bloomberg announces investment firm Insignia Capital Group LLC has announced the acquisition of two podcast advertising agencies purchasing Veritone One and Oxford Road.
Dan Granger, CEO and founder of Oxford Road is now CEO of both companies which will remain separate for the time being, but will eventually combine over time. While Veritone One and Oxford Road are Insignia's first step into podcast advertising, the company's public portfolio shows several e-commerce, retail, and marketing agency investments that could easily dovetail with podcast advertising. Next up, Americans are warming up to advertising
says Cantar. The latest Cantar Media-US Media Relations report finds respondents are becoming more receptive to advertising than previous editions of the study. In 2012's version of the study, 28% of consumers had positive reactions to video ads, now that numbers up to 54%. Cantar notes a misalignment in how marketers spend their dollars with podcasting and radio seen as lower priority for marketers, despite consumers having positive attitudes towards
audio advertising. Though the gap may be closing as the study found 31% of marketers grew their podcast ad spend in 2024 and are expected to grow that spend 41% by 2025. Next up, Top Podcast Advertiser September 2024 Rankings, Magellan AI has published their monthly roundup of Top Spenders and Podcast Advertising as tracked by Magellan AI data. T-Mobile Better Help and Amazon make up the Top 3 between $5 and $7 million in podcast ad spend tracked in September.
Sports remains an incredibly popular genre for ad spend with 10 of the Top 11 spenders preferring it as their favorite category. For top movers and shakers, companies with the most significant increase in month-over-month spend, Uber, IBM, and Betterment top the chart. Next up, Saturation and Cost Concerns push brands to concentrate influencers spend on fewer creators. According to a survey of 200 marketers by influencer agency LaKinja, there is a growing
preference in work with influencers who have sizable followings. Those are defined as influencers with over 500,000 followers, but this leaves micro influencers feeling left out. Agencies interviewed by Digidae encourage a multi-front approach using large audience influencers for brand influence while still dedicating money to small to mid-sized influencers to drive
sales conversions. Podcast influencers bridge that gap even with sizable following shows they retain strong parasocial relationships between the hosts and their audience, allowing for leaned in engagement on scales, influencers with the same number of followers and social media platforms can't match. And finally, Help Podcast Advertising helps brands connect with audiences.
The official Shopify blog breaks down podcast advertising to its core components to provide an educational overview of what podcast advertising is, including explanations of terms like mid-roll and host-red, as well as why podcast advertising works. Blogs like this are assigned the efforts of the business of podcasting is working as companies like Shopify are able to see the benefits of podcast advertising and easily find the information necessary to write
a beginner's guide on their own. And Shopify is no stranger to podcast advertising, both through running ads on their own and with integrations through their platform, such as Code ADX's integration to access Code ADX's promo code marketplace. As for the rest of the new Steve Razies EVP of podcasting and audio up paramount teased a new project focusing on finding solutions to the most common issues facing the podcast industry, Adolishes has signed the UK Financial Podcast
I'm Rich Euripore with Shabbaz Ali. I-A-K-A Shabbaz says, Veritonic has made significant updates to its brand-lift tool with the focus on streamlining and enhancing customization. AdLarge has added circle this with Andrea Bendeval to its forward network. And Slipstream has acquired Anthem Production Music Group, making it reportedly the largest independent music licensing platform in operation.
Be sure to check out the links to every article mentioned right in your podcast listening app or it sounds profitable.com where you can also subscribe to the newsletter version. The download is written and produced by Newton Shuttlecodding myself, Brian Barletta, and Tom Webster. This episode is hosted on Speaker. For Sounds Profitable, I'm Gavin Gattis, download us again tomorrow.