Live from SXSW: AudioHouse Panel Discussion about Trust in Media from Barometer and Oxford Road

For everyone who could not make it to Austin this week for SXSW and our special event, AudioHouse, where we announced the launch of Barometer for Brand Safety and Suitability, this episode is for you. A narrow view of the AudioHouse event would be to focus on the features and benefits of a new AI-Driven SAAS Tool that helps marketers bump into less controversy in placing ads. On its face, that’s what Barometer does. However, if we take a 30,000-foot view of the situation, our trust in American Institutions from media to government has plummeted, and we’re all suffering from the consequences in real life.

This week’s episode is a recording of a live panel discussion about the state of trust in Media, where it’s gone, and our plan to repair our broken system.

“Maybe we could do better than just call people out for the things they were doing poorly. Maybe we could incentivize people to contribute more positively to this crisis.” – Tamara Zubatiy

“Media needs an objective third-party representation of its contents.” – Dan Granger

Eric Shurenberg, former CEO of Mansueto Ventures (owner of Inc. Magazine and Fast Company) explains why he stepped down after January 6th from his post to fight misinformation. Eric moderates our panel discussion on media, truth, and overturning the outrage industrial complex, alongside our very own Oxford Road founder and CEO Dan Granger, Barometer founder and CEO Tamara Zubatiy, and Bloomberg Senior Software Engineer Kevin Kells.

Bringing nutrition labels to Podcasts, Barometer has teamed up with Oxford Road on a mission to score every podcast marketers might consider sponsoring, using AI, and to provide consistent nutrition labels based on Brand Safety frameworks established by GARM, with support from the 4As and the IAB. Our thesis is that what is measured improves. By giving the marketplace unbiased, third-party information about the content itself and the associated risk levels for brands based on criteria such as violence, sexuality, and sensitive debated social issues, marketers can make better choices, while publishers and creators are incentivized to shift their focus from chasing attention, to earning trust.

Tune in to hear:

Listen to the Interview

The difference between glamorizing, dramatizing, and informing in true crime podcasts
How to train an AI you can actually trust
How the FDA was established to bring quality standards and nutrition labels to food and beyond, and the parallels to our current environment
What faith, hope, and charity have to do with the state of misinformation

The Classifieds

Baker and Her Bestie Get Body Positive

Every millennial woman remembers the early aughts, a time that saw the curse of low rise jeans, rail-thin socialites plastered on magazine covers, and always present diet foods in our mom’s pantries. Great British Bake Off star Laura Adlington and her best friend Lauren Smith are working to undo a lot of that adolescent internalized trauma and come out the other side happy and healthy. Audioboom’s newest show will cover topics such as mental health, dating, fashion, and giving zero bit of brain space to the toxic and unhelpful societal norms that lend to women’s daily unhappiness. The hosts are funny and real, and listening to their conversations feels both like a relief and a delight. This is highly recommended for female skew clients and those in the mental health space. Exercise a bit of self-love and click below for more information.

Get The Deal

Professional Athletes Nurture Proteges Via Podcast

Part of the newly announced network, Audiorama with founders Vince Vaughn & NFL Stars Greg Olsen & Ryan Kalil, comes a fresh podcast from one of its founders. Former Carolina Panthers tight end Greg Olsen wanted to create the podcast to follow the trajectory of student-athletes after his own father coached him in his youth, and he now has children of his own. The show’s first episode launched March 9th, and throughout its upcoming season, Olsen will ask his professional athlete guests a range of questions about the state of youth sports in America and how to properly set goals, expectations, and proper guidelines to ensure happiness and success. The show will also delve into the psychology behind winning at any cost and the power of stardom and widespread recognition. Guests will include Shawn Johnson, Cooper Manning, Jerry Rice, and Russell Wilson. In addition to Olsen, Audiorama was launched in partnership with Ryan Kalil and Vince Vaughn. Wait for your competitor to jump in first? No. YOU lock it up.

Get The Deal

In Case You Missed It

Marketers Throttle Podcast and Streaming Spend

The radio propaganda site, Insider Radio released a report from Advertiser Perceptions that interviewed 300 media agencies and marketers to get their perception of the current media landscape. According to the report, 53% of ad buyers expect to increase their podcast spending in 2022, and an additional 46% plan to hold the line with 2021 levels. The outlook for streaming audio is roughly the same with 54% of buyers planning to increase spend on the platform this year. “In a relatively short time, podcasts have become a viable medium for brand awareness, storytelling, and performance. Instead of fighting for slivers of a niche budget, podcast ad providers now compete for significant pieces of advertisers’ digital budgets”. Despite the increased interest, advertisers say measurement and attribution remain their top challenges. The good news is that the industry is making strides in these areas specifically, and while we’re not quite there yet, it’s not the wild west anymore. As ad dollars continue to pour into the podcast space, measurement and attribution efforts will improve by leaps and bounds.

Forbes Breaks Down The Pandemic Podcast Paroxysm

The pandemic rocked the advertising world, and while many advertising mediums suffered, the podcast industry had an increased interest not seen since Serial launched in 2014. A recent article from Forbes breaks down the five reasons they believe helped the podcast industry thrive through the pandemic.

The Power Of Podcasts To Connect And Engage
Ease Of Listening
Ease Of Podcast Creation
Greater Awareness Of Podcasts
Investment Of Ad Dollars

If you still haven’t unleashed the power of Podcast for your brand, or have tried in the past and couldn’t really breakthrough, we would love to chat. CLICK HERE to set up a free consultation

Boldly Going to Where No Ad Has Gone Before

Here’s one for the geeks and radio nerds alike. The Pirate Radio YouTube Channel is chock-full of radio nostalgia like; station jingles, promo bumpers, and old radio ads. This radio commercial from 1966 is advertising the new series “Star Trek” on the NBC network in color! While the ad doesn’t do very well on our Audiolytics scorecard (it’s missing 4 of the 9 main components), for radio nerds and Sci-Fi geeks, it’s strange music to our ears.

For Crying out Loungewear

You know you’ve got a winner when the hosts say they love the brand a total of four times within the first ten seconds of the ad read. True love like this can’t be faked, so when Lynette Carolla and Stefanie Wilder-Taylor tell you how enamored they are with Tommy John loungewear, on their podcast For Crying Out Loud, you can be sure loungewear is not something they’re crying about. From its breathability to its buttery softness, this tv exec and comedy writer duo explain why Tommy John is their one and only when it comes to comfort. We dare you to find another pair of hosts who can be this expressive about a brand, while also being silly and vulnerable all in the same show.

Listen Here

OXFORd In The News

Podnews Shares Pod News

We teased it last week, and word is starting to take off (expect more next week). Oxford Road has partnered with Barometer to create a platform for marketers to assess the risk profiles of podcasts in alignment with their brand values and inform their advertising choices. Last week, our friends at Podnews broke the story saying that we’ve “launched a tool to help advertisers understand what content is in the podcasts they’re considering advertising in. The tool allows advertisers to filter podcast shows and episodes that do not align with their brand values and safety requirements; and also monitors for positive messages, like tolerance.”

Thank you Podnews for your help in sharing the message, this is just the beginning. Click here to schedule a demo of this new product.

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!