A Million Ads

Steve Dunlop, Founder of A Million Ads
​Podcasts – the next big trend
Whether you’re commuting or exercising, having downtime from the screen or in the kitchen cooking, podcasts are proving to be a popular way to consume media, especially for young adults.
Podcasts have boomed in the UK market over recent years. Compared to 3.2 million weekly podcast listeners in 2013, there are now 5.9m weekly podcast listeners in the UK, and half of these are under-35 (Ofcom, 2018). Over 3.6 hours of podcasts a week are consumed by this audience. In the US, podcasting is more established with a whopping 73 million monthly podcast listeners, of which 62% are aged between 12-54. These listeners consume an average of seven podcasts each week (Emarketer, 2018).
An opportunity to grow
The environment for advertising in podcasts, however, is different to other forms of entertainment – it is more intimate and personal, and often consumed with headphones – so the majority of today’s podcast ads are delivered via host-read sponsorships, which take advantage of the unique relationship between the listener and host.
With 90% of podcast listening done alone (RAJAR, 2018), the opportunity to capitalise on the intimacy of a podcast setting is an unmissable opportunity for advertisers. Also, 70% of podcast listeners have heard podcast advertising, and ¾ of them have taken-action from these adverts (Acast, 2018).
Host-read sponsorship has already become increasingly popular in recent months, but what if there was a way to create an infinite number of versions of an advert, based on that users’ preferences? Well, now there is!
Introducing Studio:Podcast
Studio:Podcast combines the scale of broadcast adverts with the intimacy and effectiveness of host-read sponsorships by contextualising the creative with a selection dynamic elements. In turn, this brings scale and efficiency to the creative process and results in better performing, more effective campaigns.
Studio:Podcast dynamic elements cover:

• Name, genre and category of podcast
• Device type
• Location
• No. of times the listener has heard the message (sequence)

To trial Studio:Podcast in the market, we teamed up with Acast for the first pilot, which saw A Million Ads run campaigns for iD:Mobile and Natwest in the UK. The iD:Mobile campaign successfully served over 23,000 variations of the podcast advert across the UK, based on the podcast genre and names.
Oskar Serrander, Acast’s chief commercial officer says,“Podcasting is so unique because listeners are more engaged than any other medium. Making ads fit that super-intimate experience is crucial for advertisers to be successful, whilst keeping the environment as true for listeners as possible. Studio:Podcast from A Million Ads is truly solving this problem and we are proud to be a pilot partner, offering personalized ads in a way that podcasters, advertisers, and listeners will love.”
Steve Dunlop, founder and chief executive of A Million Ads adds: “Podcasting is such an intimate and personal medium, so ad experiences in this environment need to be too. With Studio:Podcast, we’ve built a tool and designed a creative approach that enables advertisers to respect the listener by personalising each ad to them. Acast is a great pilot partner and I look forward to driving innovation in podcast advertising together.”
If you’d like to find out more about Studio:Podcast, please visit www.amillionads.com
This article is about: World, Industry Insights, Digital, Digital Advertising, Marketing, Media, Mobile, Advertising
// In Association with


A Million Ads
For more information please contact Livia Dixon at livia@amillionads.com or call +44 (0)203 910 1880A Million Ads are the personalization experts. Think music streaming ads that know what city you are...
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 Livia Dixon

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