Imagine a time in the not so distant past where connection and communication is not yet instantaneous; where a cutting-edge new medium is just evolving into a global public sphere. The power it exerts is unusual and therefore expectations are dramatic. It promises to democratize information and spread knowledge to vast populations. It will flatten the world by drawing people together as never before “instantaneously linking great cities”. Like any other tectonic technological shift, there are no shortage of fears and fantasies. Piercing the sanctity of every home equipped to receive it could allow corrupt minds to corrupt the masses! Established ethical institutions fear it will erode civic involvement and anesthetize the mind. The NY Times called it “the great unknown force”. The internet? TV?? No. Radio at the turn of the 20th century.
I’ll spare you the history lesson, but shortly after Guglielmo Marconi developed long-range transmission technology and successfully sent electromagnetic waves across the Atlantic, the commercialization of Radio was under way. It exploded during the 1930’s and 1940’s as “The Golden Age of Radio” became the primary form of entertainment in the United States. An entirely different genre from what it became after the introduction of television, big budget scripted shows like The Shadow, The Lone Ranger, Inner Sanctum, The Kraft Music Hall, Straight Arrow and The Mercury Theater On Air (infamous for the panic inducing 1938 ‘War of The Worlds’ episode), epitomized cutting edge ‘content’ and helped Radios’ popularity spread like a blaze. By 1934, 60% of American households had a radio. Everyone, everywhere, sat glued to their favorite broadcasts which in turn were touchstones of everyday conversation. “The microphone transmits an intimate voice to the individual; it is not a megaphone shouting at a crowd” wrote Hilda Matheson, director of the Talks Department at the BBC in the late 1920’s. Intimacy at scale proved to be a winning formula that left an entire society wanting more of the arts, drama, comedy, fiction, government, business, music, news, information, sports, crime, talk, interviews, narration, commentary, round table discussions, expert advice and fiction. If we are drowning is a sea of content today, the Golden Age of Radio was just moments after the levy broke. It was nothing short of a technological and cultural phenomenon.
Without having lived through it, we’ve no conception of what all the excitement was about back when radio was King, until now. Those artifacts of entertainment, it turns out, were but a quaint prologue to their wild great-grandchild, Podcasts. A point of intersection for radio’s vintage utility and the internet culture of “permisionless innovation”, Podcasting has taken off like a rocket fueled by intense enthusiasm to talk and listen in a new way. Establishing itself almost out of nowhere as an essential new medium, 155 Million people (20 Million more than the entire US population in 1940) are listening to 60 Million episodes of 1 Million Podcasts. On a macro level, podcasts have the unique ability to simultaneously promulgate cultural expression and cultural diffusion. On a micro level, they appeal to the “twin modern manias for constant enrichment and constant escape”, says Adam Sternbergh. “The shortest golden age in history”, as radio producer Norman Corwin called it, never really ended. The ‘blaze’ was merely stomped into a smoldering ember by TV and pop radio, only to be re-ignited almost a century later. Airwaves have turned into light waves. Olympic radio’s the size of small refrigerators have turned into smart phones. But the power of the spoken word which transcends both time and technology has us glued once again. It is nothing short of a technological and cultural phenomenon. A chip off the ol’ block.
Just pop in your earbuds, pick your passion point and start dreaming with your eyes wide open. You might encounter sasquatch, aliens, an apparition, or worse…a malevolent entity (screech!). Be a fly on the wall as you witness small town murders that shock the world. Travel to the far reaches of the Universe. Listen to your favorite directors, athletes, actors, writers and musicians express themselves in ways you’ve never heard. Learn how science can be applied to just about anything or discover the hidden side of everything. Laugh along with people making fun of bad movies. Expand your consciousness and connect to the deeper meaning of the world. Listen to soothing sounds that help you relax and fall asleep. Ride shotgun in a stock car. Podcasts “deliver one thing the internet and all its attendant gizmos haven’t proved to be very good at: intimacy” (Vulture, 2019). In an age of megaphones shouting at us from every direction, Podcasts speak to our deepest interest intimately, leaving us wanting more of the arts, drama, comedy, fiction, government, business, music, news, information, sports, crime, talk, interviews, narration, commentary, round table discussions, expert advice, fiction, and more.
Podcasting’s ‘classic Radio’ aesthetic doesn’t end there. During the time Marconi was tinkering with electricity and magnetism, it was practically considered sorcery, as if scientists were pulling back the veil of reality and exposing some weird supernatural phenomena. But as mind melting as the new technology was, it was soon overshadowed by something equally as mysterious. Like reading, the absence of any corresponding visual que forces one to use their most unique of human facilities, imagination. Ask anyone who ‘sat glued’ to those original radio programs about their experience. You will likely trigger a torrent of excitement as they recount colorful stories painted with such vivid recollection that they may slip unknowingly and say they “watched” radio. Mundane details like the names of horses in the popular Westerns of the era will flow effortlessly some 75 years later. Champion! Blackjack! Silver! Trigger! Fury! Audiences will never forget when they shuttered at the sound of a stake being driven through the heart of Dracula in one 1938 broadcast. Goodness knows what lasting image was burned into their mind, but it definitely wasn’t Orson Wells taking a crack at a Watermelon with a hammer, which was how the sound effect was created. Guess what else they recall? The ads. “N-a-b-i-s-c-o. Nabisco is the name to know. For a breakfast you can’t beat, try Nabisco shredded wheat!”, one old-timer sang to me unprovoked with pep. When the images you conjure up are uniquely yours, they are highly impactful. Memory and mental imagery, often equated with imagination, have been shown to be affected by one another. I’ll leave it to the lab coats to situate imagination and memory in the process of influence, but one thing is obvious… the most immersive platform is the one between your ears and is therefore the most ideal advertising environment to create relevance and long-lasting recall. The foundations of mega brands that are woven into the fabric of America today were caste in those early broadcasts that had the power to excite the imagination and include the audience as part of the creative process. Podcasts act in the same way – as a vehicle on which marketers can hitch a ride to the deepest recesses of the consumer mind.
But this vivacious descendant, although true to its roots (popular, beloved, intimate, inspirational) is more genetically advanced (portable, niche, idiosyncratic, flexible) than its progenitor. Thanks to the internet’s ability to link up and encompass other media, what is old is not only new again but better! If you were to collapse all the best aspects of traditional and digital media into a singularity, it might just be the Podcast; the sweet spot between enriching people’s lives and enriching advertising strategies.
Infinite subject matter begets mass appeal; 48% 12-34, 32% 35-54 and 20% 55+. 51% Male and 49% Female. This hyper engaged audience is affluent, upscale, attentive and ready to take action. Thanks to a phenomenon known as a Para-social Relationship, where one person extends emotional energy, interest and time to another party completely unaware of the other’s existence, loyalty to a programs host “whose product recommendations they trust and whose work they want to support” is strong. Podcasts are like pizza; a ‘snack’ or a meal. They’re like dogs; a companion that will be by your side no matter what mood you’re in. We can listen while cooking, cleaning, exercising, at home or in the car. It’s the 4th largest online activity behind email, search and video, but on its face that stat doesn’t do Podcasting the justice it deserves as a marketing tool. Usage does not equate to effectiveness. Email for example, is in constant use but like the land line (before the smart phone) didn’t do much for marketers except make people annoyed at them. ‘Video’ as a category includes a lot of auto play, pixel stuffed, in-banner junk, creating a long tail which might as well be invisible (or worse, not brand safe). With Podcasting, messages are welcome within content curated by the consumer.
One thing digital advertising has struggled with is becoming a destination for Brand advertisers. Cheap ads often showed up out of place and creeped consumers out. OBA (online behavioral advertising) enabled AdTech to put a bullseye on you after visiting a site of interest and later shot you with an ad downstream. Usually that downstream site had nothing to do with the first one, resulting in a loss of leverage the relevant content had to offer (creativity was also a casualty). Then, consumers began scratching their heads when ads started crossing the internet/brain barrier as it became clear they were being stalked. In a turn of good fortune for digital advertisers, Podcasts offer a place for targeted ads in premium content that isn’t overly intrusive or personal. Consumers stalk their favorite Podcasts, making each of the 1 Million premium. With that, marketers are getting back to the tried and true notion that the brand of the channel defines the advertising, are closely aligning their messaging to the content folks love and ensuring that love connection extends to their product or service. By dynamically inserting creative in the spirit and the style of the vertical/genre (example copy for a true-crime vertical: “It’s murder to work, so stay on top of your game with Joe’s Cup-a-Joe”) effectiveness is exponentially better than anything the web has produced up until now.
Marvelous for consumers and miraculous for marketers, Podcasts are cozy electric crossroads for communication and commerce. That first transatlantic message sent by Maroni (a Morse-code signal for the letter “s”) was picked up by a receiver in Newfoundland but what escaped the ionosphere broadcast our existence into the void and is just making its way past HD 162826, a star in the constellation Hercules about 110 light-years away from Earth. During the intervening 119 years, Radio has continued to evolve; its current most popular state being not merely a variation on its past but perhaps the past versions’ chance at immortality. Maybe history will look back on this time as the Golden Age of Podcasting.
I’ll bet there’s a Podcast about that…
