Gobble Up The Best of Media Roundtable Season 4; A Great Recipe for Life Hacks; Spotify Goes in For Seconds; The Perfect Nightcap? Prisoner Wine

In this season of gratitude, Jennifer Laine, Head of Marketing at Oxford Road and Executive Director for Media Roundtable, joins for this single episode recap of our Fall Season of Media Roundtable. Together, we look back at the changes we’ve made to the series, how we’re living out the Media Roundtable Values within the Ad Industry, and debate/recap/highlight all ten guests from the last season. For a quick refresher, here are the guest episodes we discuss:

9/8 Rudy Giuliani– Host of Rudy Giuliani’s Common Sense – Self Produced
9/15 Lindsay Graham– Host of American History Tellers – Wondery
9/22 Amy Westervelt– Host of Drilled – Critical Frequency
9/29 Patrick McGinnis– Host of FOMO Sapiens – Self Produced
10/13 Nick Leighton and Leah Bonnema– Host’s of Were You Raised By Wolves? – Self Produced
10/20 Megyn Kelly– Host of The Megyn Kelly Show – SiriusXM
10/27 Dave Mays– Host of The Dave Mays Show – Breakbeat Media
11/3 Bridget Phetasy– Host of Walk-Ins Welcome – PodcastOne
11/10 Julio Ricardo Varela– Founder of Latino Rebels – Self Produced
11/17 Metta Sandiford-Artest– Host of Mettaphorically Speaking – PodcastOne

In reflecting on this season, the key takeaway for me is that there are many, many hosts of great programs that are living out the values of The Media Roundtable, advancing truth and civility in journalism, through content that is not just highly entertaining, but seeks to understand people at a deeper level, with compassion and empathy across differences. Most of our guests are doing EXCELLENT work in this regard and have given me renewed hope and confidence in our ability to overcome the challenges of polarization in this country. For those of us in the Media and Marketing business, we do have agency to promote content that aligns with our values and grow our businesses in the process.

I’m so grateful for the time you’ve taken this year to read our newsletter, listen to our podcast, and support our work. From all of us at The Influencer, The Media Roundtable, and Oxford Road, thank you for your support, and may this gratitude grace your homes over the holidays as we prepare for a bright new year.

Thank you and as always, Influence Responsibly.

-Dan

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The Classifieds

Grove Founder Helps Clean Up Your Messy Life

Ever hear the mantra rise and grind and just want to rest and refrain? Then you must need a good life hack. Grove (not to be confused with Oxford Road Partner, Grove Collaborative) and Milk founder, Chris Hutchins, hosts a weekly podcast to find the best life hacks for all your qualms, whether that’s upgrading your travel plans, solving your inattentiveness, or solidifying your romantic relationship. This life hacker and financial optimizer connect the gap between business, lifestyle, self-improvement, and education with intriguing and informed conversations with experts in their fields. If you’re interested in any of the aforementioned genres, take our performance hack and test today.

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True Crime Network’s New Home No Longer a Mystery

For those of us who have not blocked out the memory of their years in junior high, it’s probably not listed among your favorite periods of time. Lemonada’s new fiction podcast tells the story of 13-year old Noa, a less than popular misanthrope who is trying to stay out of the crosshairs of the social elite. Boasting a talented voice cast, including Rob Huebe,l The Descendants, and June Diane Raphael, Grace and Frankie, as well as actual teenage actors, the entire listening experience feels like an all too familiar recollection of public humiliation and awkward teen romance. Many of our clients have seen success on similar fiction genre shows, and limited custom content packages are still available. If you’re interested in getting nostalgic see details below.

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In Case You Missed It

Personalization Is The Main Course

In their recent Personalization 2021 Report, McKinsey & Company reveals that companies who excel at demonstrating customer intimacy generate faster rates of revenue growth than their peers. And, the closer organizations get to the consumer, the bigger the gains. We’re big advocates of McKinsey’s work and their findings are interesting, to say the least. But this does raise the question, when everyone you don’t really know starts calling you by your name does the value of someone using your name lose meaning?

Not Exactly Home For The Holidays

COVID has changed the work-life balance forever and now we’re starting to see how these new routines and behaviors are affecting retail, both online and in-person. While online commerce exploded due to the pandemic and shows no sign of slowing, many hybrid workers, no longer bound to their cubicles, are now taking quick trips to go shopping during the workday boosting brick and mortar retail sales. While the changing routines during the pandemic were largely very easy to see en masse, this shift is more subtle, but also more interesting long-term. How do you and your customers win in this new routine?

The Meta Mashed Potato Casserole

Another week, another metaverse piece. Facebook might aim to build an all-immersive digital matrix, but Niantic CEO John Hanke told Wired that what he plans to do is take reality—and make it better. Hanke views the metaverse as augmentation and in his view, it’s a world of ubiquitous computing where computing becomes smaller and less obvious and more embedded in your person or in the environment. If Hanke’s vision of the future holds true, it will make visual search VERY big in the coming years. You heard it here!

Spotify Wants The Head Seat at the Audio Table

Spotify continues to push the boundaries of audio as confirmed by their CFO, Paul Vogel last week. Spotify’s ambitions are in the billions. It’s clear they want to rule the “galaxy of audio choices”. Vogel says, “In the next five to 10 years there’ll be 3 [billion] to 4 billion smartphone-enabled phones – why shouldn’t every one of those phones have a streaming audio app [READ “Spotify”] on it?” And they’re not just focused on consumers, it’s all about making it easier for creators too. Spotify’s clear ambitions are not without a cost, however. As they work to make podcasts easier to discover for listeners, and easier to produce for creators, advertisers may quickly see a future where podcast looks a lot more like radio than it did 5 years ago.

A Sandwich, Some Lovin’ and Prison Wine

One of the tricks to nailing a great personal endorsement is getting the host to capitalize on their preexisting love for the product. Authenticity is what draws us as the audience to join hosts on their journey of appreciation. For a prime example of this, we look to A Sandwich and Some Lovin’s recent ad read for The Prisoner Wine Company, a recognized Napa Valley favorite with its variety of smooth and rich blends. Host Kellie Rasberry, an established name in the radio game, boasts about Prisoner Wine’s many gifting benefits during the holidays, along with her co-host husband Allen Evans. The spot runs just over four minutes long, and by the end of it, they’ll be sure to have you updating your holiday gift list.

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