This Week’s Influencer: Dhar Mann & MrBallen on Going Beyond the Brief; Podscribe’s Leap in YT Attribution; Comedy's Hidden Winners; and More…

Earlier this year, Forbes released its annual Top Creators list. This week, two of its highest-ranked names share their behind-the-scenes secrets.

At this year’s Oxford Road’s CAO Summit, Dan Granger (CEO & Founder, Oxford Road) welcomed two powerhouses in the creator sphere: Dhar Mann (Host, What Happens Next with Dhar Mann; Founder, Dhar Mann Studios) and John Allen (Host, MrBallen Podcast; Founder, Ballen Studios). In this in-depth conversation, the two stars talk: storytelling at scale, the benefits of paying attention to the comments section, and going beyond the brief. Let’s dive in.

“It does seem sort of fluky when somebody goes viral. I promise you it’s not. Going viral might be fluky. Staying relevant is not.” – John Allen, aka MrBallen (Host, MrBallen Podcast; Founder, Ballen Studios)

Stories at Scale – Both Mann and Allen found success by telling captivating stories, whether they’re dark or inspirational. Their mastery of narrative storytelling helped them leap across platforms and formats, and taught them how to earn (and keep) the audience’s attention. For brands looking to partner with creators, it’s crucial to find someone who can hold interest, no matter what they’re saying, or where they’re saying it.

Read the Comments – One benefit of video that never gets mentioned: The comments section. Allen was a podcaster who started as a video native, and he couldn’t have made it without his viewers’ feedback. If fans love or hate something, they’ll let you know, and creators who brave the comments section can emerge with a deep knowledge of their audiences. Marketers: Before you partner with creators, check the comment sections on their platforms and gauge their involvement. Positive feedback is great, but the real test of trust is whether the creators engage with their audience.

Going Beyond the Brief – Marketers give creators a brief, but what they really want for their campaign is a memorable moment. For Advertising Week, Mann recruited Snoop Dogg for karaoke. That wasn’t in the brief, but Mann understood that it was his job to make memories for a brand. When your brand is looking to partner with creators, look at their past collabs and see if they went beyond the brief. If so, those are the creators you want.

For more insights from two creators at the top of their game, check out the full episode of The Media Roundtable below.

The Classifieds

Hollywood’s Group Chat, Open to the Public

Network: Hummingbird Media / Episodic Downloads: 50k

There’s a reason people flock to Reddit for advice and perspective more than traditional sources: They want to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth. Heather Locklear, Jillian Barberie, and Melanie Mancil, RN have lived exceptionally unique lives, and they’re bringing you their unfiltered opinions each week on What Do You Want?!.

They go through calls, texts, and DMs from their listeners, drawing from their own life experiences (and the wisdom of the crowd) to provide their own unfiltered takes. Topics include everything from Barberie’s breast cancer journey to true crime updates to older women’s sexual health, and they’re all covered with warmth, honesty, and humor. What Do You Want?! is a great opportunity for advertisers seeking an older female audience in such categories as health, wellness, and society & culture. Click below to queue in line for a quick chat.

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The Other Side of Forever

Network: Lemonada Media / Episodic Downloads: 30k

Divorce has a way of sorting out who your real friends are, and for Elizabeth Chambers and Marissa Hermer, their post-marriage lives have inspired a podcast. In The Dash from Lemonada Media, the two television personalities discuss such topics as new relationships, co-parenting, and the strange moments that come with being single again (like the time Chambers hired a TaskRabbit worker to retrieve her weave after a hookup).

Conversations stay warm even when they get personal, and the chemistry between the two hosts makes the show feel less like content and more like eavesdropping. The audience for The Dash is made up of women going through a huge life event, and seeking self-improvement and relationship advice. Interested advertisers are highly recommended to test in Q4. Dash to the link below for more information.

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In Case You Missed It

Podscribe Cracks Open YouTube’s Black Box

Podscribe has expanded its SmartModeling technology to support YouTube-only creator campaigns, giving advertisers a new method to estimate campaign performance when direct, pixel-based attribution isn’t available. The model uses campaign performance and video-specific signals to estimate incremental impact, extending capabilities first introduced for YouTube podcast simulcasts. Measurement has long been a barrier to brands investing in YouTube creators with confidence. While modeled attribution isn’t a perfect replacement for deterministic measurement, it’s another step toward reducing uncertainty and giving marketers more confidence to test the YouTube waters.

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Creators Thinking Beyond Their Sponsorship Origins

As creator marketing matures, brands are moving toward deeper partnerships that emphasize long-term business outcomes over one-off sponsorships. The shift is encouraging creators to think more like marketers, investing in paid amplification, creative testing, and performance optimization, thereby making them an increasingly strategic part of the marketing mix. Greater advertising diversity is a positive step, but marketers shouldn’t optimize away what makes creator marketing effective: The hard-earned (and easily lost) trust between creators and their audiences.

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Gen Z Didn’t Kill Audio -They Just Moved the Party

Edison Research’s latest Share of Ear data shows younger audiences continue to over-index for audio listening. Americans between the ages of 13 and 29 make up 25% of the population, but account for 28% of daily audio listening. Meanwhile, Gen-Xers and baby boomers consume a smaller share of audio than their respective population sizes would suggest. Younger audiences have always been heavy consumers of audio; what’s changed is the platforms they choose to consume it through. Believe it or not, radio once played a much bigger role in pop culture. Today, it’s podcasts and streaming that create those same spaces. If you want to know what’s trending, ask someone under 34.

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#SaveTheLiveReads

Fabletics – The Gold Medal Standard for Inconsistent Weather

Female phenoms Amanda Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Glennon Doyle of We Can Do Hard Things bring this week’s #STLR home with a Fabletics read that makes getting dressed for transitional weather feel like a whole lot less work. We all know the seasonal struggle of being hot outside and freezing indoors that creates a need for versatile pieces. Thankfully, these hosts deliver a perfect solution with a personal favorite: A deep green matching set that can go from a morning walk to running errands, and even straight into a long travel day.

That specific example makes Fabletics’ comfort and versatility easy to picture, while the mention of signing up as a new VIP and receiving 70–80% off gives listeners an immediate reason to check out Fabletics’ catalog. Rather than simply talking about activewear, the hosts give practical demonstrations of how one outfit can keep up with a full day while never sacrificing comfort or style. It’s a simple, relatable pitch that makes transitional dressing feel a little more effortless, and given that Wambach is a former professional athlete, her testimonial gives credibility to even the most intense use cases.

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OXFORd In The News

ORBIT Proves Comedy Podcasts Are No Joke

The ORBIT August findings continued to make news, picking up additional coverage from Podcast Business Journal, Podnews, Ads of Brands, and Inside Audio Marketing. All emphasize the same point: namely, that the comedy genre is improving, but its winners remain hard to predict. Meanwhile, Inside Audio Marketing went deeper, noting that the comedy category has delivered stronger ad performance every year since 2022 and that the latest ranking spans shows from eleven different publishers. It’s a sign that there are more opportunities for wins than the genre’s overall performance numbers suggest.

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The AI Awareness Gap Gets More Coverage

Red Tech, Podcast News Daily, and Inside Audio Marketing all followed up on findings from “The Great AI Divide,” a joint study from Oxford Road and Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group. Coverage of the report centered on several key findings, like the fact that heavy podcast listeners use AI at work at more than twice the rate of the general population.

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View the Report Here