Keeper Experience, APPLE TREE‘s influencer marketing agency, has organized the first edition of ‘The Podcast Era’, a meeting between brands, platforms and content creators to analyze the impact of podcasts as the new star format for connecting with different audiences. The event, held at the Sala Equis in Madrid, was attended by podcasters and content creators Ana Brito and Xuso Jones; María Jesús Espinosa de los Monteros, Director of PRISA AUDIO; Bernardo Casp, Marketing Director of DRUNI; and Sergio Barreda, CEO and founder of Keeper Experience.

According to IAB Spain’s Audio Digital study, 60% of the Spanish population listens to podcasts on a daily basis, a consumption that has multiplied since the pandemic and continues to grow.  To analyze the impact of this format, Keeper Experience, APPLE TREE’s influencer marketing agency, organized the first edition of ‘The Podcast Era’, a meeting between brands, platforms and content creators to analyse the impact of the podcast as the new star format for connecting with different audiences.

During the meeting it became clear that Spain has become a pioneering country in the birth of this industry. According to the Digital News Report study by the international agency Reuters, Spain leads the way in podcast listening in Europe with 45% of listeners among the population – nine points higher than the average for the first twenty-four countries in the world (36%). According to María Jesús Espinosa de los Monteros García, Director of PRISA AUDIO, the big trend currently being seen is the video podcast. ‘This is very interesting for brands, as they have always been more familiar with video, as the integration of the brand is very powerful. And what it is allowing us, if we compare it with traditional media, is the rejuvenation and feminization of audiences,’ said the Head of PRISA’s Audio Strategy during the colloquium.

Opportunity for brands

The podcast is also gaining ground as a format for brands, both as a space for collaboration and for the creation of branded podcasts, i.e. podcasts created ad hoc for the communication needs of a brand. Thus, during the meeting ‘The Podcast Era’ it was made clear by both brands and creators that brands that are committed to the podcast have more recognition, as there is still much room for brands to participate in this format. An example of a successful branded podcast is ‘The DRUNI Podcast’, a space created by the cosmetics distribution brand to connect with its audience through audio.

According to Bernardo Casp, DRUNI Marketing Director, the most difficult thing was to get the company to trust this format, which in a short time became a success, ‘To gain notoriety, if we only talk about our product, there comes a time when you burn people out, you have to offer other types of content, even if it’s just to be top of mind. In this sense, the podcast offers you a lot of content that you can then use on TikTok, reels, Apple Music… and so, from one piece you can share on many social networks”, said the DRUNI marketing manager during the conversation.

The Podcast Era’ also discussed the relationship between podcasters and brands and how the latter can actively participate in these spaces. For Xuso Jones, Content Creator and Presenter of the podcast ‘Poco se habla’, the key to this relationship between brand and creator can be summed up as ‘you can’t force a person to speak in a different way when they mention a brand’. Similarly, his podcast partner, Ana Brito, stresses that the podcast ‘is very versatile’ and ‘allows the creation of things from scratch with the brand’.