I am Brian Conlon. I am president of DAX US.
I run the day -to -day operations here for our
US business. I was employee number one of Audio
HQ 11 years ago when our founders Matt Katera
and Jeff McCarthy started the business. Now I'm
overseeing the next phase of DAX and kind of
taking us into the future of programmatic audio
and especially podcasting as an area of focus
for us as we go forward. So you're part of Global,
which owns radio stations and podcast companies
and out -of -home advertising and DAX. What's
the elevator pitch for what DAX is and what DAX
does? DAX is an audio SSP that connects why with
brands and makes curation of inventory easy for
advertisers to activate campaigns and measure
outcomes, I think would be elevator pitch. The
challenge we have is DAX US is slightly different
than DAX UK because they operate with all of
the owned and operated radio stations that Global
owns. Here we are a reseller of inventory. So
right now we partner with 20 different Cure Clay
partners and about 400 radio stations in the
US market. that are 100 % exclusive to DAX. So
the DAX US elevator pitch is, we have access
to over 40 million monthly uniques that are exclusive
to the DAX US team. And that makes up about a
fifth of the streaming audio marketplace. So
by not buying DAX, you're missing out on a fifth
of the potential consumers for your brand. Yeah,
my notes tell me that DAX reaches more listeners
than Spotify or Pandora or iHeart. So where are
those listeners? Those are subscribers that pay
for the... free version without the ads. And
I think what we try and lean into is that Dax
is an advertiser first organization, not a subscriber
first organization. Andorra and Spotify are great
platforms, right? There's no combating that statement.
They are where brands want to be. But I think
in reality, the actual ad supported audience
is much smaller than brands may perceive the
platform to be in the overall landscape. One
thing that we really leaned into is If you look
at Spotify, Pandora, and iHeart, they only account
for about 55 % of the digital audio ad spend
currently. So there is a large portion of consumers
you are not reaching by only buying those three.
So those three absolutely have a seat at the
table. But what DAX looks to do is become that
reach and efficiency advertiser or audience at
that scale, essentially, is really what we try
and do here and be that reach extension and efficiency
play to bring in the overall buy and help them
fill that untapped gap of audience. DAX is clearly
a very big company in terms of the amount of
audience that you are reaching and everything
else. I'm wondering why... I've not written an
awful lot about DAX, and I'm wondering why we
haven't heard more. You know, it's almost like
a sleeping giant, isn't it? Why is that? I think
that's why we're talking today, to be honest.
Is it my fault, Brian? No. Is it my fault? I
don't think it's your fault. I think when we
first started the company at Audio HQ, we tried
to do a lot of press releases, talking about
our exclusive partnerships. Post -COVID, we just
kind of let the business run steady course, right?
I don't think we did a lot of news flashes post
-acquisition. But now in my role, I think this
is a big opportunity for us to lean in now and
start to get some recognition in the marketplace
because we do have a tremendous value prop for
advertisers. We've built a lot of loyal customers
over 11 years in business. You're not going to
succeed for 11 years if you're doing something
wrong, right? I mean, we built these relationships.
We provide ROI for advertisers. We've got a lot
of these Fortune 500 brands that have come to
us. We've gotten verbal approval. And then we
go to the client phase and they're like... Who
is Dax, right? To your point, we're a giant that's
a little bit invisible. So I think what I'm trying
to do is just get our message out there and let
people know that we are here to help with monetization
and then help brands find unique audience that's
added to their media plan. When we were setting
up this interview, I was told that you would
tell us why audio is broken today. And that sounds
interesting. So Brian, why is audio broken today?
We don't get a proper seat at the table, right?
I think there is a lack of measurement to get
audio. It's proper recognition on a media plan.
That's why I think it's broken. Something that
I've spoken about, I think it last time was with
Brian Barletta, the podcast movement was around.
If you look at these media plans, it's very easy
for audio to be the first one that gets thrown
off the planet because it's just not performing
in these MMM models within the industry holding
companies. But for me, we know it provides tremendous
value for brands. We know it provides reach.
It's providing an ROI. It's just not being measured
the same way CTV and display and search are holistically
on these media plans. So there's no way for these.
these agencies to kind of talk about the value
prop and get brands to commit to it. So I think
we've solved for measurement attribution, but
it's still within our ecosystem with companies
like Claritas and PodScribe providing great benefits
to advertisers, but that's still in a siloed
fashion, right? We're not talking about it holistically
across the budgets and how do we take budget
from social and convert it to audio dollars?
Like there's no way to really do that easily
now. And that's why I feel like our industry
is broken. One of the things that drives me personally,
frustrates me personally, is the statement that
we've heard for five or six years now where audio
is 30 % of a consumer's day, but it's still 5
% to 6 % of the budgets. We've talked about that
for many years in a row, and we're still not
figuring out how to properly change that. So
I think that's something that we need to holistically
come together. competitors, frenemies in the
space and put our heads together about how do
we actually drive impact and change to allow
audio to get proper recognition, drive more dollars
for everyone in the space. Yeah, there was a
report recently from Oxford Road saying that
podcasting is missing a billion dollars in ad
revenue because it doesn't have good enough measurement.
Do you agree with Dan there? Yeah, I do. I think
they definitely are onto something there and
I think... One of the things we have to worry
about as an industry is YouTube is this big,
great partner for a lot of people from a podcast
reach standpoint. But what does that do for the
audio strategy long term, right? We're leaning
into video so much. You're seeing Spotify and
iHeart do these Netflix integrations. And there's
a place for that from a reach extension standpoint.
But if they're not providing the backend measurement
to holistically tell the story of the episode,
is it really helping your audio budget? grow
right and the perception of audio it's really
it's helping the video component of it grow not
the audio side and i think podcast is such a
interesting medium because you're getting that
one -to -one connection in your headphones with
the host that you trust every single day and
i think the video component is because that's
how consumption is shifting in the landscape
but Again, audio is the core of what a podcast
really is. I was in Norway about 10 years ago,
and I remember going to one of the radio stations,
and they were explaining how their research works.
And they used exactly the same system, the same
sort of automatic pager thing as TV. did. So
the TV numbers and the radio numbers were identical
and that enabled advertisers to see total impressions
and all of that stuff right across broadcast
media, which I thought was an interesting model.
Are we talking about measurement in terms of
just measurement of actual audience or are we
talking about the ROI part of that as well? The
ROI part of it for sure. I mean, again, I think
years ago I was talking to some bigger brands
that said we weren't providing ROAS on the audio
channel based on DCM reporting. But that measurement
is holistically tied to display banners, right?
It's not tracking it off of audio. And I know
there's been enhancements to that over the years,
but still, I think just it's holistically looking
at their media plan and DCM and looking at ROAS
as the, here's the ROI, but they don't truly
understand the challenges or limitations with
those metrics for audio. I think that's maybe
something that we can be doing better as an industry
is. socializing what those challenges and limitations
are so that way people are more educated. Again,
I don't know if we're going to change agencies
or advertisers' minds given the scale of the
budgets on the other channels, but at least if
they do understand the limitations going into
it, it can help us a little bit just get a different
look at the true ROI for audio as a channel.
Yeah, I mean, it certainly sounds as if working
together is a good plan and working together
with competitors right now is a good plan because
actually, you know, a rising tide gathers all
boats, as somebody said a long, long time ago.
It's true, though. Yeah, but that's absolutely
right. And I think probably calling things the
same name is also useful. One of the things that
has... You know, after eight years of writing
about this industry, it is fascinating seeing
how different people who sell different bits
of podcast advertising call what they sell different
names. It's very frustrating to work out what
is a sponsorship? What is an ad read? Yeah. So
all of that is a little bit weird. Are there
other mechanisms in place to help you work together
with others? I think the IAB is doing a good
job of trying to facilitate this. Again, I think
it's just doing it more frequently and making
sure you have the right people in the room to
help facilitate that change. But I know that
this has been a topic of conversation at some
of the last few audio days. So I personally am
going to try and get more involved in some of
those events to share my thoughts on it. But
I think that's probably the best way to do it
right now. And I think trying to lean into...
what Brian's doing now with podcast movement
and these new event schedules of just getting
people in the room for a dinner around these
events when you have the right decision makers
there and keep this conversation moving in the
right direction because it's not going to, one
day a year is not going to move this thing forward.
It has to be consistent and a combined effort.
So what's the one thing that you wish the industry
could do now that would help grow the industry
further? collectively figuring out the measurement
piece is what will grow us to a whole different
level. I mean, again, the YouTube is the thing
we talked about earlier today around a lack of
measurement and attribution on YouTube. And Dan
said it's a billion dollars sitting out there
that we really can't measure. But you know that
that audience is converting. So it's just really
just happening behind the scenes without any
recognition for the work that these creators
are doing. So I think that's really the holistic.
uh, solution I think would help grow everyone
right now. And, uh, more events like podcast
movement and others, um, to, to actually help
get, uh, industry leaders like you together would
certainly help as well, I guess. Yeah. And I
think it's also about how do we get more brands
into the room? And this is something we've talked
to Brian about, right? It's like, it's definitely
a lot of the same supply partners, podcast creators
that are showing up to these events and it's
great to do it two, two times a year, but, How
do we get the decision makers with the dollars
that are controlling audio budgets to be in that
room, whether it's comp tickets or having sponsors
bring certain brands into the room? But we need
to hear from them what the pain points are, not
just what we think the pain points are, right?
Because I think they're on the front lines every
day. talking to clients, putting together these
media plans so they know where the challenges
are and what the opportunities are to scale budgets.
So having them in the room and up on stage to
present those findings and learnings is really
impactful, in my opinion. Brian, it's been great
to talk. Thank you so much for your time. Yeah,
nice to speak with you as well, James.