The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Edison Research teamed up to survey American adults about their sentiment and response to podcast advertising. The study adds to a growing body of research that helps demystify and educate marketers about the marketing opportunity of podcasting. The new research was unveiled at the IAB Podcast Upfront yesterday in New York, which was presented to an auditorium filled with advertisers and agency buyers.
Edison conducted 953 interviews with U.S. listeners at least 18 years old, identified as “podcast listeners.” The survey happened in August.
After running through previously released podcast metrics from Edison’s Infinite Dial and Share of Ear projects, company president Larry Rosin moved into the new survey results.
First, Rosin established the key listener value of podcasting’s on-demand aspect. Seventy-six percent of respondents consider it very important that they can listen to a show whenever they want. A smaller but still substantial group (58%) agreed that the availability of unique content which can’t be found elsewhere is very important.
The research presented a listener profile which is generally favorable to advertisers, and regards podcast sponsorship messages in a friendly way.
Apparently the right companies are putting their marketing campaigns in the right shows, because 70% of respondents said that the products and services they hear are generally relevant. Well over half the group (65%) expressed willingness to consider products/services after hearing about them on a podcast. Advertisers also gain a more favorable opinion among 63% of Edison’s sample.
Many sponsorship messages a host-read commercials, the most effective of which (most experts agree) sound like personal testimonials. the survey discovered that 52% of listeners believe that podcast hosts are the actual users of advertised products. (In many cases that is true, but we are not aware of any percentage measurement.)
What about follow-through action? You might think that the prevalence of discount codes in direct-response podcast advertising would make that action the most reported. But Edison’s study says that 45% of people visit a sponsor’s website, and that is the most-taken action in the survey. Only 28% reported using discount codes.