Podcast Movement Evolutions Underway In Los Angeles

Evolutions

PODCAST MOVEMENT EVOLUTIONS is underway in downtown LOS ANGELES, getting started with an orientation session and cocktail party on WEDNESDAY and a full day of presentations on three tracks plus keynote talks TODAY (2/13). The conference is new this year, a spinoff of the annual late-SUMMER PODCAST MOVEMENT convention, scheduled this year for DALLAS in AUGUST.

The sessions for TODAY are in three tracks, Creator, Industry Professional, and Professional Podcaster, with topics including AI, SEO, measurement and attribution, direct response ads, ad tech, data, brand building, storytelling, and many other issues. Keynotes scheduled for THURSDAY afternoon include iHEARTMEDIA's BOB PITTMAN and CONAL BYRNE and podcast producer MISHA EUCEPH ("THE BIG ONE," "TELL THEM I AM").

Among the morning sessions, CLARITAS' MATT DRENGLER and MARKET ENGINUITY's DANA ELMQUIST offered an overview of how they are addressing the attribution question, from the pitfalls of the standard direct response/coupon code/vanity URL method to tracking IP addresses and matching the households to postal identifications after excluding commercial locations. "Household (identification) is the best that can be done right now" despite some drawbacks (including having all members of the household represented by a single IP address), DRENGLER said.

SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT's EMILY RASEKH and THREE UNCANNY FOUR PRODUCTIONS COO LAURA MAYER followed with a discussion of SONY's move into podcasting and its deal with MAYER's company, with RASEKH discussing SONY's evaluation of the prospects for podcasting (looking at "what value can we bring to the industry?" And concluding that it could offer its marketing and distribution expertise to a "new set of creatives") and MAYER explaining how the SONY deal relieved her company from dealing with business issues, allowing it to focus on the creative. As for the future, RASEKH pointed out that for high budget, highly produced podcasts, "the economics are still tough."

"DISGRACELAND" host JAKE BRENNAN and iHEARTPODCAST NETWORK COO WILL PEARSON offered their perspectives on scaling podcasts, with plenty of stories about BRENNAN's unexpected success, including iHEART setting him up for an interview with ELTON JOHN in MILAN tied to iHEART's broadcast promotion for "ROCKETMAN." BRENNAN credited cross-promotion on iHEART broadcast radio for his show almost doubling its audience and for helping him scale up to a full production company, DOUBLE ELVIS PRODUCTIONS, creating additional podcasts.  Following that, a presentation by MEGAPHONE's MATT TURCK explained what his company has found in its experiences with dynamic ad insertion, from the value of frequency caps and using third-party measurement and the NIELSEN Marketing Cloud to the importance of testing creative via VERITONIC.

FUTURI MEDIA's ZENA BURNS pinch-hit for DANIEL ANSTANDIG with a presentation on podcasting and content marketing previewing FUTURI's new StoryMint product for content marketers. Key to the use of audio for content marketing, she said, is having a story and wanting to tell it to drive customer loyalty and revenue. She added that audio can be more cost effective than other media for marketing, but also noted challenges in the medium, starting with whether the client has something to talk about on a regular basis that the target customer actually cares about, how to craft the content to be more compelling, and proving ROI. Radio, BURNS said, offers some lessons for content marketers, like being able to match the right "brand ambassadors" with the brand, experience with planning and structure (as in plotting the roles talents play on morning shows), and maintaining forward momentum.

THE PODCAST EXCHANGE's BOB KANE, STITCHER's SARAH VAN MOSEL, and WONDERY's late-arriving DECLAN MOORE discussed the growth of international ad sales for podcasts and the differences in sales methods and markets overseas versus U.S.

In her keynote, EUCEPH warned that the window for low budget, low-barrier-to-entry podcasts to succeed has closed ("anyone who tells you the barrier to enter podcasting is still low is lying"), pointing to more well-financed competition filling the market. She told her career story of making the "taking the back door" decision to take a job making podcasts at SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PUBLIC RADIO News-Talk KPCC/LOS ANGELES rather than an internship at THE NEW YORK TIMES and then striking out on her own to create new podcasts, including her next project, "DUST-LIKE," about which she remained mum about details.

The iHEART keynote was a conversation between BYRNE and PITTMAN, with PITTMAN telling his career stories from his youth in MISSISSIPPI, his early use of research to program radio stations, how he used radio principles when he was working in television and AOL, and his return to radio at iHEART leading the company's move into podcasting and digital. PITTMAN described iHEART's philosophy as "Be where our listeners are," and, on the prospect of digital affecting the broadcast audience, added, "If you're going to be cannibalized, cannibalize yourself."

BYRNE praised radio's "mindblowing" reach and the promise of cross-platform synergy, noting that his son in ATLANTA is an avid listener of iHEART's NEW YORK-based syndicated broadcast radio show THE BREAKFAST CLUB via podcasts heard over an AMAZON Alexa device.

PITTMAN related his shock at how, in television, "process came before content," with the technical being valued over the story; the opposite, he pointed out, is true in podcasting.

Look for more coverage throughout the day TOMORROW from ALL ACCESS' PERRY MICHAEL SIMON at the MILLENIUM BILTMORE in LOS ANGELES.

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