Podcasts as a media format can generate a high level of attachment and loyalty among their users; reinforced by the "inner voice," they can even bring about changes in behavior. This opens up great opportunities for companies. However, the appropriate podcasts and forms of advertising must be carefully selected. This is the result of a study by the rheingold institute together with AS&S - ARD-Werbung SALES & SERVICES and Ad Alliance. rheingold psychologist Nicole Hanisch explains what advertisers need to pay attention to.
Podcasts know only one direction in the growth curve and that is up. One in four Germans is now an active listener, and the trend is rising. The media format is particularly strong when it comes to problems that shape and determine people's everyday lives - so the pandemic has given podcasts an extra boost. Between January and April alone, more than 1,400 podcast episodes bearing "Corona" or "Covid-19" in their names were published worldwide and downloaded more than 27.5 million times, according to podcast platform Acast. Podcasts are the format of the hour.
But what makes this medium so special and how can these special features be cleverly exploited? To find out, the rheingold institute conducted an in-depth psychological study together with Ad Alliance and AS&S - with surprising results. Particularly astonishing is the immense potential of podcasts on the one hand, and the great drop-off on the other, since both the closeness of users to the medium and their sensitivity to interruptions and interference are very high.
Seductive multitasking
What is the motivation to listen to a podcast? One of the success factors of podcasts is that they address problems of contemporary culture. They help with self-optimization, alleviate loneliness, provide encouragement, and offer a seductive multitasking experience: escaping everyday life while continuing to function. Many subjects complained about a flood of media stimuli, news and private messages. The constant accessibility and permanent supply of stimuli are experienced as exhausting and tiring. At the same time, there is pressure to keep up and not lose touch. Loneliness is also a major issue - a deficit of social contacts, intensified by the corona period - intensifies the need for closeness and touch in a figurative sense.
Podcasts are often listened to via headphones or directly via the smartphone - this direct access via the cell phone strengthens the personal relationship with the presenter, creates closeness to one's own thoughts and intimacy. Via headphones, the content of the podcast becomes a 'voice in the head'.
Two directions of need - efficiency increase and everyday filtering
Podcasts are particularly good at meeting two needs: the pursuit of efficient multitasking as well as enhancing one's performance as well as escaping from the daily grind. Underlying both of these constitutions is a feeling of being "stuck," which podcasts pleasantly relieve. This can be, for example, a carousel of thoughts due to worries or overwork or a tightly scheduled lockdown daily routine in the home office that does not allow for breaks. Here, podcasts offer a little escape, for example, when cooking or cleaning up, while still being able to function.
But you can also get stuck literally - in a traffic jam, for example. Such unproductive situations can be charged with meaning and inspiration through podcasts. Podcasts can also be helpful companions in temporary phases of life such as caring for a baby, an unfulfilling single life or professional reorientation.
Two ways of using podcasts - the inner ear and the open ear
The closeness that podcasts offer their listeners contributes to a completely new quality of opening and bonding. Podcasts are often understood as a relaxing encapsulation from the visually stimulus-flooded everyday life due to a feeling of being lifted up like in the placenta. Pure listening is more reduced and thus more intimate than video and has a special urgency: the sense of hearing is one of the earliest senses, it is less distanced and critical than seeing and appeals to the unconscious.
"She means me personally. It's as pleasant to hear as a long voicemail from my cousin, with well-intentioned advice."
At the same time, podcasts are also a liberation from the dictates of everyday life by allowing multiple activities at the same time - psychologically, they open up a world in the 'in-between': Listening with only one ear and thus being inside and outside at the same time.
"I run the podcast in the morning when I'm getting ready. It tells me how to be a good salesperson, and it also keeps saying that anyone can be a good salesperson."
They foster a great loyalty and fidelity to the format and the presenters and are even described by subjects as being like a modern relationship: He is always there for you and there is a feeling of social togetherness without risk or demands.
With the 'coach in their ear', users experience encouragement and encouragement. This makes it easier to overcome limits and development hurdles and even bring about changes in behavior.
What does this mean for podcasts as an advertising environment?
"If the fan gets the opportunity to buy something they need anyway through the show, but gets a benefit through the code and the podcast gets something out of it too, that's actually nice and fair too."
Basically, the specific podcast constitutions result in a higher sensitivity to advertising content - this opens up great opportunities for advertisers, but also requires a high level of attention to the particular mental state in which the listeners find themselves. The sense of the immediate impact of what is heard 'right in the mind' raises concerns about being exposed to advertising content without protection. In addition, advertising interruptions are easily perceived as a disturbance of the state of 'immersion and encapsulation' - the fantasy bubble in the head 'bursts' or the advertising content enters the unconscious uncontrolled, according to the fears of the test persons.
At the same time, the perception of advertising content differs significantly depending on the different formats. Formats with a more intimate connection to the listener (for example, from the areas of entertainment or life coaching) basically offer great potential and a high degree of openness. Here, advertising is also accepted embedded as a friendly tip from the presenter. Advertising content in formats with a distanced relationship to an authority (knowledge, management training, crime), on the other hand, is reacted to much more critically. Doubts about seriousness quickly arise here. The guiding principle here should be to clearly distinguish between advertising and content.
"Sponsors come who also have something to do with it thematically and then they complement each other... it's like a partnership. And that also has a much more authentic effect!"
Sponsorship has proven to be the ideal type of advertising for many formats. Clearly demarcated and made recognizable as advertising, it has little disruptive effect and maximum transparency. Younger people in particular see it as part of the influencer logic: For them, it is a matter of course that the podcast must also finance itself. At the same time, positive reverberation effects on the brand could be determined, which was perceived as a supporter of the 'beloved' podcast.
"Honestly, I was expecting different content with a branded podcast. I would have thought that there would be more promotion of itself. I'm really pleasantly surprised by that."
Branded podcasts can also work very well for brand reinforcement if the transparency requirement is met and the podcast is not primarily for sales. What is built by a good podcast is first and foremost valuable trust and customer loyalty. There are no patent recipes for companies when it comes to creating podcast content; it's all about fine-tuning the brand essence and the content concept, which psychologically addresses the heart and brain of the user in equal measure.
