What She Said: AdLarge on the Advertising Week Stage
Recapping our conversation about how brands can show up for underrepresented voices in podcasting.
Advertising Week New York 2022 | The Market Line, Lower East Side
The team at AdLarge was thrilled to have the opportunity to be a part of the ‘Future is Female’ track and bring an important conversation to Advertising Week New York—one of the leading events of the year for the marketing, advertising, and tech community.
In case you missed ‘What She Said: How Women in Podcasting are Changing the Game for Brands,’ here’s how the discussion unfolded and the major truth bombs that were shared.
The theme for the week was ‘Great Minds Think Unalike,’ so our goal was to get brands to think differently about how they approach podcast advertising. How can they better support underrepresented voices? How can they authentically connect with this audience? How can they align with content creators who are doing good and fighting the status quo?
We assembled a panel of four individuals who have each taken different paths into podcasting and who happen to come from traditionally male-dominated fields—finance, journalism, audio production, and home renovation—to tackle these important issues. Tori Dunlap, founder of Her First 100K and host of the top business podcast Financial Feminist; Reena Ninan, TV journalist, founder of Good Trouble Productions, and co-host of Ask Lisa: The Psychology of Parenting; Steph Colbourn, founder of editaudio; and Mina Starsiak Hawk, star of HGTV’s Good Bones, co-founder of Two Chicks and a Hammer, and soon-to-be podcaster.
With a lot to cover in a span of 30 minutes, we kicked off the session with a look into why these already successful entrepreneurs felt compelled to pursue podcasting. The main consensus was that podcasting gives creators the space to go deeper into important conversations and lets them connect with followers wherever they may be listening.
“With Tik Tok, it is such a very limited platform for the show (Good Bones) and social media as well also being so visual, the podcast really for me was just a way to talk about the things that people are asking about in a more extensive conversation.”
-Mina Starsiak Hawk
Getting right into the heart of this discussion, our panelists dug into this revelation from The Creators study put out by Sounds Profitable and Edison Research: less than one-third of creators are women-identifying and only 2% are non-binary. This stat didn’t surprise anyone, but the fact that the industry is now officially tracking this information is a huge step forward in addressing the lack of gender diversity in podcasting.
“In that study, 2% self-identified as being non-binary too, which is cool because it’s showing how the industry is getting more information and soon will be able to hopefully translate that back into advertising and back into more targeted ads for different genders.”
-Steph Colbourn
Female creators may be in the minority right now, but the female listening audience is very much there and they’re paying attention. Putting on her financial hat, Tori noted that women make 50-60% of household spending decisions. Being at the forefront of discussions in which women are at the center is good for business. Podcasting’s younger reach also cannot be ignored. Gen Z is incredibly savvy and knows when they are being sold to.
“One of the things that we do with our ads is that we don’t accept ads that we don’t truly believe will transform the lives of parents and are meaningful to us personally when we read them and we talk about them.”
-Reena Ninan
A key takeaway for advertisers was addressed—don’t rely on scripts if you want to connect authentically with listeners. Scripting the call to action is fine, but ads perform best and are the most ‘sticky’ when it’s coming from the host’s perspective and experience.
“Please don’t make me read an ad that’s scripted. It will sound scripted every time…I think the first thing is giving us some flexibility, trusting that we know our audience better than the brand does. You’re hiring me or the podcast to talk about your product to our community. We know how to do that best.”
-Tori Dunlap
Diversity in podcasting can come in many forms, extending beyond gender to include voices from different ethnicities, different economic backgrounds, and different abilities. Are the podcasts you’re supporting giving opportunities to these voices? Tori and Mina know the privilege they hold, so they feel responsible when it comes to making sure they bring on guests who can authentically speak to the big issues today and help educate their audience.
The future looks bright for these creators and all of podcasting. Brand alignment is more important than ever. Our CEO Cathy Csukas said it best in her open remarks: “By supporting these voices in podcasting, brands have a tremendous opportunity to accelerate their own growth while illuminating important conversations.”