With podcasting allowing advertisers to better target their audience, Veritonic, the industry’s comprehensive audio analytics and research platform, and Acast have partnered to analyse commonalities and differences in how this advertising plays out worldwide. Assessed were the US, Australia and New Zealand, and the EMEA markets.
Podcast ads were assessed across various industries including: automotive, tourism, retail, healthcare, entertainment, and more. Then examined using themes like ad length, number of voiceovers, gender of voiceover, use of sound effects and call to action placements.
Acast Managing Director for Australia & New Zealand, Henrik Isaksson said,
“Acast has pioneered automated buying in podcasting for a long time and it’s an area of our business in Australia that is growing very fast. There is no difference in quality in an audio ad bought directly via our sales team or one that is traded in an automated fashion. A large share of digital ads are traded programmatically in Australia and as we continue to invest in partnerships and technology we stay true in our mission to support podcasters’ hard work no matter how big or small they are.”
According to this research, across all markets the majority of ads were a minimum of 30 seconds in length. The Australia and New Zealand markets showed the most willingness for a shorter commercial with 44% 15 seconds in length.
In terms of voiceovers, the US had 86% of programmatic ads using a single voice for the voiceover. In Australia and New Zealand it was 68%.
There was more differentiation in gender usage. In the US, half of ads analysed featured a female voiceover, 47% of ads featured a male voiceover, and the remaining 3% featuring both male and female. In Australia and New Zealand, 53% of the creatives featured a female voice over, but just 27% a male voice, and 20% contained both a female and a male voiceover.
The three regions all used sound effects in slightly less than the majority of programmatic ads, indicating that this may be a newly emerging trend in the space.