Why podcast advertising doesn't usually work...

We've all been there. Listening to a well known podcast and the host says 'And now a word from our sponsor', followed by three minutes of waffle about mattresses or pelvic grooming tools or NordVPN or whatever. What do you and I do?

Immediately hit the 'skip 30 seconds' button a few times in our podcatcher, until our ears detect that the advert slot is over. So we hear perhaps the first few seconds of the advert and maybe the last few, if we're unlucky.

So what's the point? Annoying those listeners who don't have a hand free to reach out and hit the skip button?

It beggars belief that there are still companies willing to pay significant money for multi-minute ad spots on podcasts. Isn't it just a big waste of their money?

The same applies to video podcasts and embedded sponsor slots in videos too, since the timeline bar has a handle and it's trivial to slide this over a few minutes to miss out anything that's not core content.

So what's the solution (if you're an advertiser)?

I argue it's for the podcast to be sponsored, sure, but do it like this:

Start of show: "This episode of XXX is brought to you thanks to [insert company or product name], the best way to [do whatever the product does]". 

Less than 10 seconds, which makes it not worth anyone skipping because they'd miss actual show content. I remember one of the TWiT network podcasts which had a seven minute sponsor slot, which followed on from a five minute introduction to the show. Read by the host, so vaguely personalised, but still easy to skip in seconds by just tapping the skip button. (In fact, for that particular show, I'm used to just starting at about the 15 minute mark and rarely miss anything important!)

I honestly think that the start of show thank you, at less than 10 seconds, would do just as much for the brand recognition as something long and skippable. And if a sponsor still wanted more, then stick a longer read-through at the end of the show, perhaps with a special offer (as Myriam does on her Mobile Tech Podcast).

Do you agree? And, should a potential sponsor for Phones Show Chat be reading this, how much could you pack into a 10 second start-of-show message? Get in touch!