Eliminating friction in the expanding audio marketplace
We believe in the power of audio and the podcasting space to generate engagement for marketers with their audiences. Audio fits with modern life where people are prone to multitasking, on the move, busy doing. A powerful relationship develops between the listener and the host of the content and marketers can, for a brief moment, enjoy the halo to showcase their products in this engaging story. And this medium is most effective when ads are served in the unique, recognizable, voice of the podcast host.
We see the US podcast advertising market growing fast. It is the fastest growing media segment of them all, forecast to go from $4B today to $5B+ by 2028. Not to mention the growing international marketplace. Brand advertisers are building their content strategies to include audio and more and more national advertisers are entering the space.
Within the advertising environment there were only two ways to buy ads - programmatic and host-read. If you listen to podcasts you know the difference. Programmatic ads are prerecorded and inserted through DSPs at scale, and host-read are the ones where the host of the show creates an ad in their own voice and style, talking about the product, usually dynamically inserted in that one podcast. Programmatic is less expensive but far less effective than host-read.
In this environment of two extremes, programmatic vs host-read, there was friction. Marketers were divided on strategy and larger brands entering the space require scale. This is the problem we are addressing through the power of generative ai at ekoz.ai. We have developed an industry wide solution to the friction facing marketers in this dynamic and expanding marketplace, introducing a new class of “host-read programmatic ads.” With ekoz.ai host-read ads are now served at the speed and scale advertisers need. Programmatically efficient with host-read attributes and efficacy.
