Cheez It Cracks DTC! IAB on News Ratings; Amazon Hearts Advertising; China Goes Podcasting; And SO MUCH MORE!

This week, The Influencer is going to shock the world by touching some topics you’ve never heard us cover: Brand Safety, Suitability, and Polarization. I know, I know, but if you haven’t heard our spiel, this is a great way to get a taste or to go deeper on the topic.

Brands are running scared from the news ecosystem because they don’t know who to trust, and as dollars run out with it, the fourth estate is weakened. This week, Industry veteran Eric John of IAB Media Center moderates this discussion for IAB. There with Oxford Road’s Dan Granger and Ad Fontes Media Founder and CEO Vanessa Otero. Through their Media Bias Chart, brands now have a much-needed packaging label on news.

Topics covered in this interview include:

The problem of polarization and how it impacts brands pursuit of safety and suitability
The need for News Ratings
Overcoming the misconception, “They are biased, we’re not.”
When silence is better than “virtue signaling” and why
How content bias ratings work
Why does the 4th Estate Matter?
How your ad dollars fit into stakeholder efforts like DEI and ESG

Watch the Interview

The Classifieds

Primordial Goop

Pulling The Thread with Elise Loehnen is the new podcast from former Chief Content Officer of Goop and co-host of The Goop Podcast. In this sizzling new, thought-provoking series, Elise will sit down with experts, thought-leaders, scientists, doctors, and theologists to seek answers to some of today’s most pressing questions; Why do we do what we do? How can we come to know and love ourselves better? How can we address the ills of society on a personal level? How can we build a better world?

Smells like stakeholder capitalism.

Get The Deal

**Guess Who’s Hosting First, But Not Last, With Billie Jean King?**

With the Olympics over, we’re excited about First, But Not Last, With Billie Jean King, hosted by Billie
Jean King – so it’s not just a clever name. Each week, King and Marsai Martin (the youngest exec producer in Hollywood) discuss the popular female figures and how their struggles, accomplishments, and legacies are shaping the future for all women to come.

Self-improvement and inspirational content are strong ingredients for podcasts that perform. You want the perfect cocktail of brand safety, suitability, and likelihood for performance? Take a sip.

Get The Deal

In Case You Missed It

Amazon’s Smartless Math

Why would this internet bookstore pay $80M for a weekly podcast? Ad revenue, sort of. It’s unlikely their latest acquisition of Smartless, will pay for itself, according to the aforementioned IAB VP, Eric John, “Advertising is the fastest-growing part of Amazon’s business. Their approach to content like this is [that] it creates an on-ramp for loyalty within the Amazon universe”. In other words, it’s a loss leader. Incidentally, the boys of Smartless have scored a TV deal as well. Hopefully, Amazon gets some affiliate revenue for this one.

Audio Evolves into… Visual?

Quu Up The Visual: In-Vehicle ‘Billboards,’ Synched To Radio, Driving Value For Broadcasters. “Visual Audio” may be an oxymoron, but in this case, it makes sense. Following in the steps of what SiriusXM has been doing for years, traditional broadcast radio stations are beginning to display simple visual messages on in-car dashboards that coincide with the radio ad that you are hearing. This is great for direct response advertisers to get their promo codes out there – but scary for the rest of us on the road since it’s one more thing to distract drivers. Voice commands and pixel attribution anyone?

China has an Experimental Lab for Podcasts, too.

This year, the number of podcast listeners in China is set to reach almost 86 million and to continue with double-digit growth through 2025, second only to the USA. For China, experimentation is the name of the game, and the particular allure of podcast is its ability to portray people’s lives in a personal and emotional way. Podcast is just one more way that China is creeping up on US dominance, taking the number two position, for now.

Can you use a Quip to cut your hair? “No. It’s just for Teeth” Says Shane Pittson

Oxford Road friend and Media Roundtable Partner, Shane Pittson talks about building a retail brand off the strength of their D2C effort in this article titled, Quip’s VP of Growth Talks D2C models, Podcast ads, and making a toothbrush as cool as Nikes. An easy read featuring an industry pioneer with one of the biggest brains in the business.

You’ve Got to Cheez-It to Believe It

Internet privacy regulations are depriving brands of valuable consumer data but a DTC model gives mature brands a way to get that data back. When Oxford Road launched in 2013, shipping razors by mail was novel. Today, DTC natives are now in or chasing retail distribution and mature retail brands are building DTC models! Thanks Covid.

If you’ve read this far, thank you!

The Influencer is a production from the team at Oxford Road.
If you like our sometimes sassy, mostly informed POVs on the wonderful world of audio advertising, you should see what we do for our clients.

Interested in seeing how we could help your business?
Contact us at influencer@oxfordroad.com!