Daily Archives: October 13, 2015

Podcasts and Care-Abouts.

0

WNYC, a NYC public radio station, just announced it will open a new $14 million facility to create and distribute podcasts. It’s a brilliant marketing idea. I’ve always had a soft spot for radio and podcasts feel like a smart new media content play. The brilliant investigative series “Serial” by Sarah Koenig last year sparked the podcast movement.

Podcasts are also a good content play in the marketing arsenal. Companies create lots of words and video to hanging off their websites to drive traffic, action and sales — a tactic mostly born to feed the Google Algorithm. And lately content has been championed by ad agencies looking to make more creative buildables. Podcasts have been overlooked.

Smart companies will begin to delve into podcasts. What’s the Idea? has been recommending podcast creation to clients for years.  Here’s how it works. The brand planning rigor at What’s The Idea? drives clients to care about what their customer’s care about. The nexus of customer care abouts and brand “good ats” (Thanks Robin Hafitz, for the wordsmithing) drives the organizing principle that is the brand plan. And the care abouts are where we mine for podcast development.

When you create content people find interesting (versus content about yourself), you connect. People found “Serial” interesting. If you are in the tooth whitening business how do you decide what consumers are interested in? How do you keep it fresh? How do you make deposits in the brand bank? These are good, tough questions. Questions with answers. Questions for a new medium.

Peace.