My name is Stu Redwine and I am Vice President
of Creative Services at Oxford Road. So what
is Oxford Road? Oxford Road is the leading privately
owned audio agency here in the United States
where we work with companies like Shopify, Oracle,
Indeed, Masterclass, Babbel, and Tommy John.
to achieve their goals in audio and beyond. So
I was looking at you on LinkedIn once I got past
the recipes, obviously, and it says, we just
want the ads to work. What does that mean? It
means what it says. And the question is, well,
what does it mean for an ad to work? And that's
like I was saying, achieve our advertisers' goals.
We come alongside them to test and then scale
within audio. That's where we started in podcast.
And they've got certain goals that they want
to achieve. And a lot of times it's about getting
clarity on exactly what that is. What's their
entire comm strategy? How do we fit into that?
How do we take the biggest... picture possible
and the ads work when they achieve those goals
and those may be long -term goals they may be
short -term goals but that's what we want the
thing that we do is help our advertisers bring
their message primarily in audio to millions
and millions of people every day and however
they're looking at that to measure did this work
was this investment in advertising worth it that's
how we're going to measure ourselves to go did
these ads work so it sounds as if one of the
most important parts of writing podcast ads is
actually getting a good clear brief what does
your brief look like It absolutely is. I think
that that's critical for all of this business
of advertising, right? Like what is advertising?
That's a question that I like to bandy about
and look at different sources. And Sir Martin
Sorrell's answer to it is it's a solution. So
really a brief, the best brief and our brief
is to get back to what is the problem that we're
trying to solve, right? Or the opportunity that
we're trying to seize and getting really clear
about that. And I find that more succinct briefs
are better. The podcast that I host, Ad Infinitum,
that is focused on audio ads and critiquing audio
ads and discussing them. The most recent guest
is Mark Pollard, a strategist, an advertising
strategist. And he talks about this a lot, this
idea that you can have so much information and
so much data and get a nine -page brief, but
it's sort of like, So what? If I were to boil
a brief down, it's like, how can I most succinctly
answer what is the problem or the opportunity?
So what? Why is that important? What do we know
about our audience? What are the different market
forces that are at work? What now? How then are
we going to achieve that strategic objective?
So there's lots of data out there about podcast
ads and their effectiveness and data about pre
-rolls and post -rolls and all of that kind of
stuff. I don't see that much data about the actual
creative. How important is the creative in this
whole process? It's massive. There's been several
different studies just about the importance of
creative overall and how much impact that has
on an advertising campaign. I think it's Cumulus
that put out these different studies of like
perception versus reality of what impact marketers
think the creative has on an advertising campaign
success and what impact it actually has. And
I want to say the perception was... much lower
than the reality. Like I want to say it was 10
or 20%, something like that. And the reality
that they discovered is the impact of the creative
is number closer to like 47, 50%. You know, so
it has a massive impact. I think it's just intimidating
for folks on how to even approach that question.
How are we going to measure that? And then particularly
in podcast, you're relying so heavily on the
hosts. customizing and putting their own spin
on it that you go are we looking at a case -by
-case basis of how individual hosts delivered
the creative or can we actually look at the copy
points that we handed over to them but in general
the the impact of the creative on the campaign
is massive How, I mean, does a good podcast ad
need to be funny? I think that it definitely
helps for podcast ads to be funny. I think what
you get with humor, right, it's the same root
word as humility, the same root word as humanity.
Oh, interesting. I think it, yeah, it breaks
down the wall. Yeah. Right? It makes a person
feel, it's... It's an element or a dimension
of the pratfall effect. Like this is a human
and humor then makes me feel something. And then
once I'm emotionally invested, once the heart
decides, the head will follow. I guess I would
back up one level. Like the takeaway from using
humor to connect is really that you're connecting
emotionally. So if we can connect emotionally,
then we're able to get in the door and start.
also connecting to the rational mind as well.
Is there a difference between an ad that you'd
make for the radio and an ad that you'd make
for podcasting? I mean, it's just audio, right?
Yes, it is just audio. They're both audio, but
it's like, man, you know, the big screen is a
screen. The little screen is a screen. There's
vertical, there's horizontal. I think it's really
important on your what, right? And then so what?
And then what now is, Which type of audio are
we doing here? Are we doing a smart speaker?
Are we doing radio where we're going to be? This
is a produced spot and we're going to be in breaks
against a lot of other produced spots in podcasts.
Are we going to be primarily doing host read?
Or as I'm experiencing, I'm sure you are too.
Their ad load is increasing. The number of breaks
is increasing and more brand dollars are coming
into podcasts. So you're hearing more spots that
are like what's on the radio. I think it would
be very easy to just port over what you're doing
on the radio right over to podcasts, but it's
a different animal. And I think they, to do it
well, to do it the best requires a different
approach. Again, depending on. how exactly is
this audio going to be delivered to the listener?
Yeah, I think it was Paul Rismandel from Signal
Hill Insights who was pointing out on a Mastodon
thread that radio ads, one of their primary focuses
is to get you to listen because radio is typically
on in the background, whereas for podcasts, you're
already listening. So actually that part of the
ad's job has already been done. What do you think
of that? I think it's fantastic. I remember when
he pointed that out and I agree. It's that like,
how lean in is this audio, right? Am I on just
a music station or am I on Sirius XM where it's
in the background and I need to cut through or
am I in something like. Pivot, you know, I like
to listen to Pivot alongside with your show.
Of course. Like almost every morning. Yeah. Pivot,
I mean, your show basically every morning, you're
walking my dog with me. And it's lean. It's very
intentional. Like I am stacking up what I listen
to in the mornings intentionally. So I'm invested
and I'm leaned in. And that's very similar to
a lot of podcast listeners. And so like Paul
was pointing out. I need to keep their attention.
So if I'm using interruptive tactics like I do
in radio to try to garner their attention, I
might be working against myself. But I'd also
like to say that some stuff does apply across
both. Like there was a recent study with Veritonic
and Odyssey that found an improvement, double
-digit improvement in ad recall and improvement
in purchase intent as well. when sonic branding
is used in radio and in podcast so there's so
there are things that are similar but to your
point it's like podcast is and has been so much
more lean in where radio perhaps is something
that's more in the background unless you're listening
to talk radio a specific host or your drive time
people that you listen to in the morning where
i think the same kind of lean in stuff is at
work and how long should the perfect ad be as
long as it needs to be I'm glad you answered
the question with that. How long should a person's
legs be? Long enough to reach the ground. You
know, I would say in podcast and, you know, there
was just a study, I think it came out last week
with Podscribe that found that longer ads work
better. I think that's for a couple of different
reasons. One, like we're talking about, people
are leaned in. There's some cognitive biases
at work. Human beings, the longer they're exposed
to any stimulus, what's amazing is not only do
you get acclimated towards it, right? So it's
okay because we're surviving, right? Our brain's
just trying to survive. We also begin to favor
the thing. So the longer a person can keep your
attention and talk to you, instinctually down
deep you are going to begin to develop affinity
and so that's at play with there's also a narrative
bias humans favor stories over disjointed facts
or even just a list of items you tend to get
more storytelling in a longer ad because there's
more opportunity for someone to weave a tale
and so those are longer and they work but you
know you've got to again you got to go back to
your what? Like, who is this advertiser? How
massive are they? How long have they been doing
this? Do I perhaps need to, for instance, on
SiriusXM, the right approach might be in certain
cases, let's just try to pepper in a whole bunch
of 15s and get a whole bunch of frequency because
we know that people are already very aware of
this or unaided awareness is high. And we just
want to reinforce a particular message or particular
call to action or something like that, or just
increase their mental availability of our brand.
You could accomplish that with Shorter Spots.
But in the podcast platform, like I said, with
that Podscribe study, it seems to hold out that,
you know, the old advertising adage is the more
you tell. the more you sell. Yeah, yeah. There's
more reason to go and visit a website or do whatever
it is that you want them to end up doing. You
mentioned Ad Infinitum earlier, which is your
podcast. It's back for a new season. What's that
podcast all about? So Ad Infinitum is Oxford
Road's audio creative... podcast where we listen
to and break down current top spenders in audio
on SiriusXM, on radio, on podcast, and we have
different advertising experts on with me where
we'll drill into in the first season the nine
key components of audiolytics, which is our methodology
that we use to both audit and construct a persuasive
message in audio. And then in season two, we're
going to be digging into different aspects of
advertising. Like I said, the first episode of
season two comes out this week. And the guest
is Mark Pollard, where we're talking about strategy
and how does that apply. And then we've had on
folks like Dallas Taylor, the host of 20 ,000
Hertz, fantastic podcast about the world's most
interesting sounds. Richard Shotton, who's massive
in the behavioral science space, author of The
Choice Factory. And then like Amanda DeMarco.
Marco from Veritonic, where we're able to talk
about their platform. And when we're analyzing
the ads in that episode, we're taking the scoring
methodology. We use audiolytics and stacking
that up against Veritonic's testing platform
and the methodology that they use. So ad infinitum
is wherever you get your podcasts. Where can
we learn more about you and your work? LinkedIn
is the best place to go. stew red wine the one
and only unless like you said you if you google
stew red wine all you're going to get is recipes
uh stew it's been great to talk i learn so much
every time i talk to you thank you so much you're
very welcome thank you