The first-ever Sounds Profitable Business Summit in New York City started in the dark. Opening presenter Ira Glass, host/creator of the long-running This American Life, asked for the obscurity in order to focus the audience’s attention on his voice and the sounds he would be sharing.

Speaking to, “Things that Podcasts Do Better,” he took us back to his early career as a public radio reporter in Chicago some three decades ago, interviewing young gang members on the street. The voice of a young woman came over the speakers, recounting a confrontation that quickly escalated to threats of deadly violence. Still sounding shaken, she talked through her thoughts, wondering if this moment would be the end of her short life, only in her early teens. It was difficult not to be moved, as Ira demonstrated the intimacy of audio that would be mentioned countless times on stage over the following two days.  

With a unique format allotting just 10 minutes to each presentation, the audience of industry insiders, ad buyers and brand marketers were treated to 26 sharp and focused sessions touching on recent controversies, data dives, strategic guidance, and content explorations.  I pretty much filled my notebook with way more takeaways than I can share in a readable blog post. So here are a few throughlines I followed. 

Podcast Talent on Supporting Vital Civic Discussion

Ira Glass was also not the only well-known voice to be heard from, as hosts like The Splendid Table’s Francis Lam, Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams, Serial’s Sarah Koenig, Crooked Media’s Jon Lovett and Nina Parker, Kenny Malone from NPR’s Planet Money, and endurance athlete Rich Roll addressed the crowd of industry insiders, ad buyers and brand marketers to detail many different advantages of podcasting for both audiences and advertisers. Shows touching on civic life were a strong thread.

Several touched on new shows. Serial’s Koenig was accompanied by producer Julie Snyder to unveil their new collaboration with the New York Times’ Metro Desk, Metro, an always-on weekly aimed at bringing “the vastness of New York City” to a “more human scale.” Though the show itself won’t be simulcast in video, they will be producing separate video content for their social channels. 

FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver joined his new Crooked Media colleagues to discuss the recently-launched Still Counting, where the prominent political statistician covers the numbers behind politics. Previewing the kind of topics he’ll be digging in to, he shared some thoughts on prediction markets which some are looking to as indicators for election outcomes. Though he finds them,“very interesting,” he said they can be subject to “group think,” and “can become less useful… when they get more hype.” His team endeavors to help audiences “disentangle all this stuff,” to understand where those predictions come from, what the assumptions are, “and how the assumptions might be wrong.”

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon made an impassioned case for advertisers to support independent journalism podcasts. He said brand safety is one of the barriers, observing that some brands are wary of having their ads appear near politically charged stories. He countered that, with U.S. political leaders expressing opinions about nearly every facet of life, “everything is politics today… that is the zeitgeist.”

Insights on Podcasts from 90,000 Media Consumers

Measurement, metrics and insights from claimed a fair proportion of the stage time at the Business Summit, delivering findings gathered from some 90,000 media consumers in total.

Signal Hill Insights’ VP of Research Matt Hird was joined by Triton Digital’s Gabrielle Montana to share, “The Audience and Performance Insights You Wish You Had.” Triton’s Demos+ provides detailed demographic and consumer behavior for individual podcasts, well into the long tail, driven by contributions from Signal Hill Insights’ annual surveys of 12,000 listeners, analyzed with data science. 

To exemplify the value to advertisers, Gabrielle showed the top podcasts and genres that overindex for automotive intenders, quick-service restaurant diners and people who plan to switch wireless carriers. Having this kind of info helps to improve campaign targeting, increasing efficiency. Matt then presented brand lift benchmarks – based on results from 35,000 podcast consumers – for how podcasts drive outcomes with these audiences.  (Look for fresh benchmarks later this fall.)

Sounds Profitable’s Tom Webster dropped 10 key findings from the organization’s 35 audience studies in the last four years. 42,000 consumers were surveyed for these reports, and the Signal Hill Insights team took care of 40,000 of the surveys. Among the datapoints, he reported that podcasts have the lowest perceived ad load, the top advertisers get more brand lift from podcasts than TV or radio, and the brands advertising on comedy and true crime podcasts – genres that sometimes raise brand safety concerns – are readily welcomed by their audiences. 

Hot Topical Conversations About the Future of Podcast Ads

Recent controversy over Spotify’s introduction of a “skip” button for podcasts prompted a discussion between the ad buy and sell side, bringing together Krystina Rubino, General Manager at the Right Side Up advertising agency and Greg Glenday, CEO of podcast publisher Acast. Immediately, assessing the possible risk for podcast advertising, both came to an agreement that this situation is, “not the apocalypse.” Krystina elaborated that “a skip button is a symptom,” while Greg added that the industry is getting better at measuring the outcomes of podcast campaigns, which helps move the focus away from mere impressions. The key for the industry, Krystina implored, is, “don’t race to the bottom,” as happened with display, making the content so overwhelmed with ads that it’s an impediment for the audience.

Krystyna returned to the stage accompanied by two more agency executives –  Oxford Road CEO/founder Dan Granger and Adopter Media CEO/founder Glenn Rubenstein – to have ostensible competitors “send a unified message to the market,” as Dan put it, around YouTube’s recent decision to count video views from the very first frame delivered. This has resulted in the views displayed on a video’s public page to jump much higher than before.  

Krystina said that transparency on audience metrics needs to lead the day, while both Greg and Dan emphasized it’s important for the industry to “defend” what makes podcasting unique.  All three confirmed they’ll be basing their decisions on “engaged views” which YouTube still displays on the Creator Dashboard, rather than the new public count. 

Annalise Nielsen heads up podcast strategy and development for the branded podcast agency Lower Street. She shared the challenges faced as a podcast ad buyer, provocatively asking, “why is it so hard to give you my money?” Annalise detailed five roadblocks she encountered trying to book spots to promote one of her client’s podcasts, from not getting answers to her inquiries, being directed to use a third-party platform instead, and not knowing where to even buy a show’s ads.

The two days of the Business Summit were followed by two days of the premiere New York City edition of Podcast Movement later in the week. Look for our impressions and takeaways in a future post.