In one of its most imaginative studies to date, Magellan AI has released data showing how the two main party presidential campaigns have used podcast marketing. The quick summary is that both campaigns have advertised in podcasts, but on different schedules and in different ways. (See Magellan’s post HERE.)
magellan narrowed the discovery field by grouping podcasts which discuss five key issued chosen by Magellan: voting, the economy, coronavirus, the Supreme Court, and healthcare. In the cohort of 3,000 top podcasts analyzed by the company, about three percent to about 17 percent appeared on the radar of discussing those issues. Coronavirus and voting both rose in frequency over time, becoming the top two issues of the five target issues in October.
Unsurprisingly, the News category contained most of the action in the five key issues, by a wide margin. The Comedy category also had a healthy appearance on the issues radar — it’s important to remember that some popular serious shows are classified in comedy, including The Joe Rogan Experience and WTF with Marc Maron. (A distorting problem in Apple’s podcast topography, in our opinion.)
The Trump campaign jumped into podcasting in a concentrated June-July burst:
The Trump ad placements were exclusively in two categories: News, and Society & Culture.
The Biden campaign joined the fray after the Democratic National Convention:
The Biden campaign was one of Magellan’s “Movers and Shakers” a couple of weeks ago, joining a list representing the most increase in podcast advertising month-over-month. The placement strategy has been different from Trump’s, with Biden commercials landing in the Comedy category primarily, with strong secondary placement in News, and over a dozen more categories receiving Democratci campaign buys.
As a side note, Magellan tells us that both campaigns launched original podcasts. biden’s show was a conversational format, started in the spring and ended when Biden became the Democratic nominee. The Trump campaign also launched a show (on May 30), in which the candidate did not appear except via recorded soundbites. It has continued with host Lara Trump.
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