Dive Brief:
- Pandora is streaming the hit podcast Serial with Warner Bros. and Esurance on board as sponsors.
- Warner will sponsor season one and the first half of season two, while Esurance will advertise on the second half of season two.
- Season one will be available on Pandora next Tuesday, and when season two kicks off it will be available simultaneously with the podcast download.
Dive Insight:
The podcast streams will have branded ads at the beginning and end of each episode, and a display ad will run during the entire podcast.
Lizzie Widhelm, svp of ad product sales and strategy at Pandora, told Adweek, "The benefit is that we're streaming real-time, and the listener can clickthrough on the audio ad or the display ad. In a [traditional] podcast environment, it's more branding-centric."
"This was a really neat opportunity for us to expand into podcasting with a partner that we have a relationship with and have seen success with in the past," Cyndie Beckwith, vp of marketing at Esurance, told Adweek. "The traditional podcast companies, unlike Pandora, lack deep measurement."
Warner is using its sponsorship to promote “In the Heart of the Sea,” a Ron Howard directed film about the real-life sinking of the ship that inspired Moby Dick. The ad will feature 15 second audio content voice by Howard.
Not all podcasts are created with the intent of making money, but those that are monetized are usually done so with native ads where the podcaster names a sponsor sometime in the podcast.
In other recent Pandora news, the streaming service acquired competitor Rdio giving it, and its advertisers, access to Rdio’s 80 country global market reach and data.
