Dive Brief:

• Yoga-inspired apparel brand Lululemon launched “Breath It All In,” its holiday campaign featuring a series of meditation and mindful breathing podcasts, on Nov. 10, according to a press release made available to Marketing Dive.
• The five-part audio series is hosted by influencers including an author, musician, peace ambassador, "spirit junkie" and several yoga instructors. Each part focuses on one area of mindfulness, such as peace, generosity, connectedness, calm and nothing, per the release.
• The content is free on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Connect, Soundcloud, Facebook and the Lululemon app.

Dive Insight:

In its latest move, the athletic apparel retailer is upping its content marketing game with an audio series that aligns with the brand's wellness message. This strategy comes just ahead of the busy holiday season, when Lululemon aims to give its consumers a quiet break for meditation and breathing. By leveraging influencers in the space to host the five-part series, the retailer adds an element of expertise to the audio content that fits with its larger efforts to provide relevant, practical content for its consumers while helping it get in front of the influencers' followers. 

Other campaign content, available on the Lululemon website, includes blog posts, instructional articles for yoga best practices and lists of the top meditation apps. This content provides value for customers while also connecting them with the brand.

Audio content has become a popular way for marketers to reach an increasingly on-the-go audience via smartphones. Podcasts, in particular, have grown to the point that the Interactive Advertising Bureau released its first-ever IAB Podcast Playbook in August as guide for advertisers. IAB research forecasts podcast revenues to pass $220 million this year, representing an 85% increase over 2016.

Lululemon is taking a hands-on approach to audio marketing by creating its own content rather than advertising in third-party podcast. While most industry research on audio content is based on third-party podcasts, marketers are also taking control by creating their own content, similar to Lululemon's holiday campaign. The appeal of podcasts for brands is that it is an intimate format that requires no distracting visuals, Hollie Wegman, VP of marketing at Envoy previously told Marketing Dive.