The other day I wrote about a possible boom on podcast advertising(what is podcast?). Well it seems others are following suit after General Motor’s successful endeavor with the latest machine. Volvo is paying $60,000 to autoblog for six-month promotional program.
In this context Stephen Bryant delivers a strong opinion on podcasting and advertising.
First take a look at how traditionalists are taking this up. They are more than skeptical I would say about the concept. Off course they can’t be anymore in line with the newest innovations. Because they are old (school of thoughts).
Naysayers, Luddites and purists will offer you a hundred reasons why Podcast advertising won’t work. Here are a few of their more popular profundities:
1.You can’t click a Podcast advertisement
2. The most likely Podcast advertisers will be current radio advertisers, and 85 percent of radio advertising is local
3 There’s no way to measure Podcast listening
4. There’s no way of efficiently buying ads
5. There’s no way to effectively place adsAnswers to
1. You can’t click a Podcast advertisement
This reasoning relies on the fallacy that Podcast ads should function like banner ads because you download Podcasts from the Internet. No. If anything, Podcast advertising resembles radio ads (but on steroids). Besides, you can’t click on any other form of ad except Internet ads, so why should this be a delimiter?
2. But 85 percent of radio ads are local
Yes, that’s true. But why? Because radio stations are local. And there are many national and niche advertisers that find the Podcast medium attractive. Home Depot, for example, employs a significant amount of radio advertisements because, presumably, customers are more likely to visit a store if they’re listening to the advertisement in their cars. Likewise, Podcast listeners are often on the go.
Niche advertisers who are not attracted to radio advertising because of its broad audience will be attracted to Podcasts because the listeners share similar interests. In Podcasts, they will find a critical mass of geographically distributed consumers.3. There’s no way to measure how many people are actually listening to Podcasts
True. There’s also no way to measure how many people are actually listening to the radio. (Don’t try to convince me that the Arbitron actually works.) And again, Podcast listeners are engaged with what they’re listening to. They want to listen to it. They’re a dedicated audience.4. There’s no effective way to buy ads
Maybe not yet. But there are certainly quite a few players getting into this space. And as advertising and search giants like Google and Yahoo aggregate more and more Podcasts into directories, they’re laying the foundation for selling and placing ads. Is there any doubt that Google will be a big player in this space?5. There’s no way to effectively place ads
A lot of companies are rolling out services to place Podcast ads. Take for instance Fruitcast, the Podcast advertising service launched last week that offers automated ad insertion. Or RadioTail, a similar service that will launch this week.
Many advertisers have already begun placing spots in Podcasts or buying sponsorships. As far back as February, Volvo agreed to pay $60,000 for a six-month sponsorship of Weblog Inc.’s Autoblog.
Some producers are experimenting with different ad rates, most of which rely on the only available metric: downloads.
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