Spotify Throws Another Curveball; Big Brother & Sleep Terror Podcast Comfort Fans and Sponsors; Podcast Movement Recapped

Oxford Road’s Creative Director, Stew Redwine, has never stopped studying the art of advertising. He’s a student of the greats; Goodby & Silverstein, Rory Sutherland, Mark Pollard, Louis Grenier, and countless others, yet he just keeps going. He’s a curator of wisdom, a teacher, an expert in the field, and this week, he gives you a peek behind the curtain to see how it all works.

A few weeks back, we shared Stew’s interview on the Sounds Profitable Podcast, where he broke down the individual elements that make a great podcast read. This week, Stew rejoins the show to speak to how to make the copy you send to podcast hosts deliver maximum results.

According to Bill Bernbach, “Creativity will become the last unfair advantage we’re legally allowed to take over our competitors.” Many say the great art of advertising has been lost, with more attention paid to click-through than creative. At Oxford Road, we believe they’re both critical to performance, inseparable, and deserve time, attention, and effort to get right.

Join Stew as he breaks out the mechanics of getting the most out of your podcast creative by dissecting five actual podcast ads in real-time, pointing out not just the good and bad but the nuances provided by hosts that make all the difference. It’s part art, part science, and part entertainment, a balance that Stew has mastered. We invite you to dive in.

Listen to the Interview

The Classifieds

1984 Never Sounded So Cool

From West Wing Weekly to 9021 OMG, TV show watchalongs and recap podcasts are all the rage. So what’s one more to throw into the mix? Former Big Brother winners Derrick Levasseur & Cody Calafiore not only teamed up inside the Big Brother house, but now they’ve teamed up on their new podcast, The Winner’s Circle. Every Friday after the live TV eviction episode, the former contestants will provide a recap of what happened in the house that week, their opinions on the remaining houseguests, and take questions from fans. Big Brother has a massively dedicated fan following, and podcasts that provide a deep dive into TV content generally work extremely well for advertisers looking to reach female consumers. Bachelor podcasts, for example, generally fall into our top performance category for female-targeted advertisers, so The Winner’s Circle has all of the markings for success. Click below to learn more.

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Just What You Need Before Bed

Here at Oxford Road, we love when two top-performing podcast genres collide. Nighty Night is what you get when you put a True Crime podcast with a Bedtime into a blender and see what pops out. Nighty Night is an anthology series where famed attorney, author, and podcaster Rabia Chaudry delivers bone-chilling bedtime stories that will be sure to keep your subconscious wide awake all night. These creepy tales will mix both original fictional stories and lesser-known classics, all delivered with a modern spin. For marketers looking to reach female audiences, this is a chilling new opportunity.

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In Case You Missed It

RHOF 2021 Inductees Announced

The Museum of Broadcast Communications announced their selections for the RADIO HALL OF FAME, 2021 earlier this week. Inductees include many of our tried-and-true performance hosts like; America’s Digital Goddess®, Kim Komando, the sports guru (and Adam Sandler Movie Stand-In) Dan Patrick, and the Golden-Oldies super DJ, “The Real” Don Steele, plus dozens of other radio legends that nobody in the top 5 radio markets would remember. Regardless of whether or not you’ve enjoyed these radio hosts, they’ve undoubtedly paved the way for the legions of TikTok influencers who are undoubtedly making more money than any of them ever did. Radio fans and industry professionals can find more information, including photos of the inductees, at www.radiohalloffame.com.

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5 Things Learned From The Podcast Movement

The annual Podcast movement happened earlier this month in Nashville, and while we’re still compiling our learnings into a concise breakout for readers of The Influencer, EVP of Podcasting for Amaze Media, Matty Staudt shared her hot takes last week. The takeaways?

1. The Podcaster Community Supports Each Other
2. Podcasting for Brands is Becoming Big Business
3. Monetization is Key
4. Everyone Wants to be Clubhouse
5. Radio is Serious About Being Taken More Seriously

If you’ve been a reader of The Influencer, you already know that most of Matty’s points have been addressed years ago, we encourage you to stay tuned for our outtakes on what happened at this year’s event.

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Spotify’s Subscription-Only Content Rolling Out Internationally

This week, Spotify announced that they will be allowing content creators across the globe to charge extra for exclusive podcast content. However, since this paid subscription platform launched in the U.S. last quarter, the option has been activated by just 100 podcasts. But while the current impact of podcasts moving to a premium subscription model and effectively blocking out advertising is relatively small for now, as companies like Spotify seek to further monetize their podcasts, and more shows opt-in, sellable inventory will undoubtedly become tighter. For podcast advertisers, this means more demand, longer lead times, and inevitably higher prices.

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