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| | The Podcaster Central Network is not currently active and cannot accept new posts | | NYT article on advertising and podcasts | Views: 438 | | Jul 24, 2007 2:51 am | | NYT article on advertising and podcasts | # | 
Danielle (Dani) Cutler | | July 23, 2007
E-Commerce Report
Podcasters Unite to Figure Out a Role for Ads
By BOB TEDESCHI
The term “podcasting” has perplexed consumers ever since it was introduced.
Confusion has reigned on the business side of podcasts, too.
Few consumers will pay to receive podcasts — audio files that exist on the Web, and can be automatically sent to a person’s computer. Advertising, the other potential revenue source for producers and publishers, does not work when marketers have no way of tracking how many times their advertisements are being heard or swapping out old advertisements once they have run their course.
Industry executives say they have closed in on a solution in recent months, which means that consumers may have a much wider array of free audio (and video) content coming to them, if they can stand a little advertising to go along with it.
The effort is a multifront initiative, starting with improvements in technology. Companies have begun distributing media files that stay connected to publishers, giving them a way to track the number of times that advertisements have been heard or viewed, or replace old advertisements.
At the same time, about 15 companies, including Apple and NPR, announced last week the formation of a new industry group, the Association for Downloadable Media, that will help executives improve methods for creating, distributing and tracking advertisements in podcasts.
“The idea of creating an association to focus on this is great,” said Brian Haven, an analyst with Forrester Research. “It’s going to help companies monetize all this content.”
According to a recent Forrester survey, slightly more than 10 percent of all Internet users have listened to a podcast. Emarketer, another online research firm, said that advertising on podcasts reached just $80 million last year. Mr. Haven said a lot of growth is possible.
“It’s just a matter of getting the right content to people at the right time,” he said, “and helping people overcome some obstacles like, ‘What the hell is a podcast?’ ”
Mr. Haven said publishers are “dying to get more involved with advertising and podcasting, especially if you include video, but they just don’t know how.”
Susan Bratton, who helped form the Association for Downloadable Media, said her experience as the chief executive of Personal Life Media, which produces audio podcasts on a range of subjects, helped convince her that more industry cooperation was needed to make podcasting a viable business.
Among other things, Ms. Bratton said that technology companies, marketers and publishers need to agree on standard methods for packaging and delivering advertisements, and tracking the number of times an advertisement is heard. Also, there is no consensus on how best to design an advertisement within a podcast. As a result, marketers, advertising agencies and publishers cannot efficiently implement big campaigns across multiple sites.
Ms. Bratton, who is an online advertising industry veteran, said she believes she has found at least one good format for running advertisements within podcasts. In addition to placing a sponsor’s advertisements at both ends of a show, she also inserts an advertisement in the middle.
“Say you’re listening,” Ms. Bratton said. “You’ll hear an ad about sponsoring the show from the Omega Institute at the start. Then you get into the show, and halfway through there’s a commercial break, where you have more detail on Omega’s summer programs. Then at the end of the show the final commercial says, ‘Find out more at eomega.org.’ ”
Ms. Bratton added, “I have the ability to not just have a single ad in front and end, but a series of them that’ll tell the story.”
Advertising agencies are also tinkering with formats. David Herscott, president of MEA Digital, an Internet marketing agency based in San Diego, said he agrees with the logic of including three advertisements in a longer podcast. But the advertisements, he said, should build in length as the show develops, and as the listener is more deeply invested in the show.
Technology companies are improving in the meantime. Vendors like Podbridge, Podtrac and Kiptronic have in recent months rolled out new podcasting-related services. Podbridge, for instance, recently introduced a service that allows video podcast producers to insert advertisements into various parts of their shows.
Murgesh Navar, chief executive of Podbridge, based in Mountain View, Calif., said producers can change advertisements once a marketer’s campaign has finished, without the user knowing that Podbridge has essentially visited his computer. The only potential snag is that users must download an application that allows Podbridge’s technology to work.
“It’ll take some time for consumers to adopt it on a broad scale,” Mr. Navar said.
More than 85 percent of the people who recently clicked on a show about professional wrestling on Sports Byline USA (sportsbyline.com), he said, downloaded the application.
Advertisers are interested in testing the podcast waters. Dakota Sullivan, chief marketing officer of BlueLithium, an online advertising network, said the company had recently started to design an advertising campaign around audio podcasts, to generate interest among prospective business clients, and to understand how such advertisements could help those clients in their own marketing campaigns.
“It’s a nice opportunity to use ourselves as a guinea pig,” Mr. Sullivan said.
And even if video content has stolen much of the spotlight from downloadable audio files, Mr. Sullivan said he sees no signs of a slowdown in audio downloads.
“There are more iPods and other MP3 devices in more places today than there have ever been,” he said. “It seems this notion of personally programmed media, whether video or audio, is the way of the future, and if podcasts are part of that, it makes a lot of sense for us to be there.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/business/media/23ecom.html
Interesting article. It does make one wonder, is there any sort of monetary benefit to advertising in podcasts? Will there ever be?
~Dani
http://truthseekers-network.ryze.com/
http://www.truthseekerscast.com
Voicemail line: 206-337-1026
Skype: tsdiva Email: tsdiva@gmail.comPrivate Reply to Danielle (Dani) Cutler | | Jul 24, 2007 6:39 am | | re: NYT article on advertising and podcasts | # | 
Shane Matsumoto | | Hey, sorry for not participating in a long time but I would venture to offer my proverbial "humble opinion" from my own experience... I would say most of us that are making money in podcasting fall in one of 2 camps:
1) Using podcasting to establish ourselves as authoritative experts on subjects, attracting loyal listeners/watchers and creating a trusted relationship with our audience, then promoting our own website, products and services related to the subject matter being podcast.
As an example, my most successful podcasting client is a recording school that interviews recording experts that come in monthly anyway as special speakers at the school and attracts prospective students to enroll in 7 month audio-recording certification course. The client/school credits the podcast I host for getting $14,000 it may not have previously received for each incoming student surveyed that indicates they heard of the school through its podcast. There were dozens of such students out of the last 880 students surveyed that were initially attracted to the school through its podcast. In the year and a half I have hosted this podcast for them they haven't spent as much producing or promoting the podcast as the money they have received for a single one of those students that ended up enrolling after hearing the podcast and visiting their website or calling the school for more info.
or
2) Earning money as consultants, setting up initial podcast feeds, installing PHP scripts that automatically generate RSS feeds, or simply teaching others how to podcast.
I know that podcast advertising is listed in this article as an $80-million dollar industry, but I would guess that most of that money is generated from a much smaller cross-section of podcasts and sites. I bet that most of the Podcasts that have made some kind of money and directly benefitted the producers and content providers fall into the category #1 listed above.
I had a podcast that revolved around the paradigm of ad revenue. Strangely, it had more subscribers than all my other podcasts combined. However, it was the first podcast I gave up because it was the least profitable. I got more in "tip-jar" type of donations than advertising revenue.
I had tried revenue ad-sharing podcast directories (though I admit, not recently) and even built a podcast on such a site to 1500+ subscribers verified via feedburner.com. But I never got but a very small handful of ads played on it and didn't make a significant amount of money. Granted, I may have given up too early and my podcast subject matter may not have lent itself to attracting advertisers on that podcasting directory, but time is money to me and I had to cut and run sometime when the trend didn't appear to be changing anytime soon.
So I am curious... anyone out there have a totally different experience out there? Perhaps someone who has given this a more recent effort?
I would imagine that partnering with a product or company you truly believe in that is directly related to your podcast and revenue-sharing with the company providing the product or service on leads generated through the podcast might work better than trying to get an upfront fee for ad "air time". The guy from KathodeRay.com seems to have done this kind of revenue-sharing thing successfully with other book authors as an example. Anyone here do this successfully and be willing to share their story too?
Shane Matsumoto
ProAction Media
602-277-2011
www.proactionmedia.comPrivate Reply to Shane Matsumoto | | Jul 24, 2007 10:30 pm | | re: re: NYT article on advertising and podcasts | # | 
Penny Haynes | | Shane, welcome back! I totally agree with you about the 2 ways to make money. That's what works for me and what I teach my students and customers.
But I haven't advertised other people's stuff on my podcasts. The whole reason I have done my podcasts were to advertise MY BUSINESSES, not someone else's. And it has done well for drawing clients and establishing me in the podcasting sphere.
I'd be interested to hear from others about how much money, if any, they have made from advertising. I know that Blubrry does advertising through its podcasters. Anyone here make money with that?
Penny Haynes, Podcasting Consultant
Own Your Own Podcast Directory OR Online Community Magazine
http://OnlineCommunityMagazines.com, http://1stPodcastPublishing.com
Private Reply to Penny Haynes | | Jul 25, 2007 6:56 pm | | re: re: re: NYT article on advertising and podcasts | # | 
Donna Papacosta | | Very informative post, Shane, and a great discussion, Penny.
The sponsor of my podcast is "me." I have been offered ad spots but I have turned them down because they weren't in the best interests of my audience. Would I accept an ad in the future? Maybe, if the fit were right.
Like you, Shane, I have produced podcasts for clients that have boosted their visibility and credibility. That's a good thing. Private Reply to Donna Papacosta | | |
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