Podcasts outperform traditional media, digital display on brand awareness, study says

Brief:

Podcasts can lift brand awareness between 24% to 79%, or as much as 30 times the lift rates of other media channels such as digital display, print and linear TV, which average about 2.6%, Claritas announced. The consumer insights company published its findings in a report released this week.
Retailers had the highest average podcast campaign lift of 79%, ahead of B2B (77%), consumer goods (63%), pharmaceuticals (37%), automotive (30%), telecommunications (26%) and insurance (24%). Claritas analyzed 834 million podcast impressions among 158 campaigns over 36 months.
Claritas used a methodology called "incremental lift analysis" that lets marketers measure the effectiveness of media channels such as podcasts. The company conducted the research on behalf of Entercom, a creator and distributor of podcast content.

Insight:

Claritas' study suggests that podcasts are highly effective at raising brand awareness compared with other media channels, making them a compelling platform for mobile marketers.

Podcasts are a portable, on-demand format that capture audience attention in a variety of settings, and the growing menu of programming appeals to a diverse group of audience segments. The number of podcasts surged 80% to 1.44 million in the past year, per Apple Podcast data compiled by My Podcast Reviews, and the number of podcasts on other platforms adds to that total.

Brands are taking notice, with ad spending on the channel forecast to rise 15% to about $1 billion this year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau and consulting firm PwC. The portion of advertisers that added podcasts to their annual media plans nearly doubled to 47% in the past year as more marketers sought to reach the channel's growing audience. Business interest in podcasting was exemplified in Omnicom Media Group's July announcement of a groundbreaking deal with Spotify to spend $20 million by the end of the year on podcast ad placements.

Growth in ad spending is, in turn, fueling investments in podcast programming among a variety of audio platforms that seek to differentiate their services in a crowded market. Spotify in the past two years has been more aggressive than other companies in building out its library of podcast content through direct investments and licensing deals.

Most recently, the company started a multiyear sponsorship deal with Riot Games that makes Spotify the exclusive streaming partner for "League of Legends" events. Spotify in June partnered with Warner Bros. and DC in a multiyear deal to carry scripted podcast series based on the comics imprint's superheroes. Those agreements followed an exclusive deal to stream popular podcast "The Joe Rogan Experience" and the acquisition of Bill Simmons' The Ringer network earlier this year.