“In a world where more podcasts are being released than anyone can listen to in a lifetime, the content needs to be highly compelling to attract and retain listeners.”
This was a recent observation from Alex White, VP of content at Pandora.
As of April 2019, there are over 700,000 unique podcasts on iTunes, with over 29 million episodes. That’s an spike from 550,000 podcasts reported at WWDC last June. The podcast bandwagon is in full swing, with brands large, small, and tiny sponsoring series and creating original podcasts. Anyone with a relatively small investment can start a podcast. Starting a podcast is an action item in many a marketing plan.
The state of podcasting reminds me of the content marketing phenomenon Mark Schaefer defined in 2014 as “Content Shock”: “the emerging marketing epoch when exponentially increasing volumes of content intersect our limited human capacity to consume it.”
Mark predicted diminishing returns as the volume of content grows. Podcasters are increasingly paying for ads on other podcasts to try to get listeners to pay attention to their own podcasts. Are we headed toward a Podcast Shock, particularly in relation to brands and marketing?
Pandora’s Alex White said, “The brands that win here will not just be releasing copycat content or thinly veiled advertisements but will offer their unique point of view tailored to the podcast medium. With lots of great content to listen to, podcasts that are perceived in any way to be an extended advertisement will likely not perform well at all.”
Marketers can’t break through the clutter by adding to it.
Here are a few related cartoons I’ve drawn over the years:
“Content Marketing Overload” March 2017
“Content Marketing Engagement” October 2016
“Trojan Horse Marketing” March 2016
BC says
April 29, 2019 at 8:38 amCertainly not an observation exclusive to podcasts — oversupply of ALL content everywhere. Emails & social media for sure. Proliferation of cable channels is certainly old news — shows defined as popular and successful are lucky to score a very small percentage of the viewing audience.
The volume of streaming content coming from multiple directions is making things even “noisier.” When Netflix or Amazon releases something of interest to me, I am usually not done working through the LAST release of something of interest to me… only so much mental bandwidth available!
And the worst part of all this is that we’re actually absorbing only a share of all the content because we’re (kidding ourselves into believing we are) taking some of it in all at the same time. Looking at my phone while watching a TV show means one or the other or both are suffering. Or perhaps the others in the room are the real victims as we (repeatedly) rewind to miss something because we were studying our phone during an important scene… 😉
This issue of there being too much content is certainly not new — just keeps coming up again and again (and again) as the number of channels for delivering content increases.