Lydia Chan sits down with Cliff Chiet, Chief Integrated Marketing Director at iHeartMedia, America's largest audio company, to explore audio marketing, discover why podcasts are twice as trustworthy as any other medium, and dive into the neuroscience behind audio's emotional impact.

The discussion covers targeting strategies using psychographic data to reach audiences in their preferred content regardless of topic relevance. Cliff walks through compelling case studies, including Marriott's pandemic strategy that combined geographic targeting with lifestyle interests for maximum effectiveness.

As podcasting has officially hit the mainstream, discover why this intimate medium achieves engagement rates that other platforms can only dream of, and learn how smart brands are leveraging these insights to connect with audiences in ways that actually drive results.

For marketers and business leaders, this episode provides actionable insights into leveraging audio for brand building, understanding attribution challenges, and connecting with audiences through real dialogue in an increasingly crowded media environment.

 

09:17 Why radio listenership has never dropped below 90% since the 1970s and how audio consumption habits are actually growing, not declining

15:16 The neuroscience behind audio's emotional impact - how brain activity spikes when hearing human voices and why audio drives search behavior better than other mediums

12:50 How brands can leverage podcasts and audio to capture audiences throughout the entire marketing funnel, from awareness to action

18:53 Why podcasts are twice as trustworthy as any other medium and how the authentic, parasocial relationships between hosts and listeners create powerful brand connections

27:57 Advanced targeting strategies using psychographic data - the Marriott case study and why brands should focus on audience behavior rather than content vertical alignment

 

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Lydia Chan (00:00)

Okay, today we are talking about all things audio and who better to talk about the topic than Cliff Chiet, ⁓ Chief Integrated Marketing Director at iHeartMedia. Cliff, it's great to have you on the show. Welcome.

 

Cliff Chiet (00:15)

Lydia, thank you so much for having me. ⁓ I hope I can do justice to all the exciting things happening in the audio industry.

 

Lydia Chan (00:25)

Sweet. All right. So let's just start with a brief intro on your background for our audience and really what drew you to audio specifically.

 

Cliff Chiet (00:36)

Well, ⁓ it's ironic because a lot of people say I talk more than I listen. ⁓ So for me to be in a listening world was probably very therapeutic for me. My background, I've always been in media. I've had a long career in publishing. So back in the days when there were these newspapers that got black ink on your fingers ⁓ and ⁓ magazines, ⁓ you know, I really... ⁓

 

look back to my college days where I actually studied radio and I was doing radio back in the days when it wasn't as technologically savvy. But it's like fast forward all these years later, I end up in something I studied in college. ⁓ And I think what happened is people started changing their habits with publishing, ⁓ know, reading newspapers, reading magazines. They were choosing different ways to consume their content.

 

and I wanted to go where the ball was being thrown. ⁓ So I had a little bit of concern about going from kind of one dying media to another. And the first question I asked ⁓ when I came over to iHeart was, you know, people still listen to radio? And the answer was there are more people listening now than there were 20 years ago. And ⁓ they showed me actually a third party chart.

 

survey that had been done that basically showed the trends of radio have never dipped below 90 % since the 70s. That people have been listening and ⁓ they have been engaged with radio contrary to what people might think. You know, with other things like Sirius and ⁓ Pandora and streaming ⁓ devices, people always come right back to radio.

 

Lydia Chan (02:32)

Yeah, it's really interesting, right? Like I, I listen to the radio on, my drive to, um, you know, whatever it is, the gym or to work. And I kind of feel like an oldie, like, uh, you know, I'm aging myself because I listened to the radio, but really, you know, there's, it's like, uh, I guess.

 

Cliff Chiet (02:48)

Old cell.

 

Lydia Chan (02:52)

In my mind, it feels like a resurgence, but sort of what you're saying is that it's always been around and it's actually never dipped and is a growing segment. Like how, yeah, what, what, I guess what was causing that perception maybe? Can you talk a little bit about the audience perhaps?

 

Cliff Chiet (03:03)

It is in here.

 

Yeah, well, I think that there is a lot of ⁓ people that feel because of their own habits that everyone else has the same habits. And so therefore, ⁓ when you look at, ⁓ you know, serious, you would think, everyone has serious. Well, there's a cost to it. And the fact of the matter is, is that only 4 % in their cars, you know, are listening to serious. You know, people would think that everybody's listening to it because they do.

 

So the main population, because when you really think of the United States, know, you know, we on the East Coast or those on the West Coast, you know, might consume media differently. But everyone in between the earmuffs of those two coasts, you know, are like having something they can go to that they don't have to get charged for and that they can be entertained and they could have companionship. And I think that's really the the ⁓

 

Lydia Chan (04:06)

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (04:09)

Misperception is that, you know, because these streaming devices are out, you know, I don't go, I don't need to go to, you know, or have an appetite for radio anymore. I always say everyone's favorite radio station is WIFM, what's in it for me? And I think a lot of people love to get something out of their listening experience and not have to work too hard and not always listen to the same, stuff that they always listen to habitually gets old after a while.

 

Lydia Chan (04:24)

Mm.

 

Cliff Chiet (04:36)

and they want to be introduced to new things. So new stories, new content, new music that's coming on the rise. I don't care what anybody tells you, but you haven't arrived as a musician until your song is on the radio. To this day, you know, you could stream, you can have all these followers, you can have all these downloads, but to legitimize yourself as a recording artist, just like Elvis, when your song plays on the radio, there's nothing more validating.

 

Lydia Chan (05:00)

You

 

Cliff Chiet (05:06)

you know, for an artist. And 70 % of all new music is discovered on radio.

 

Lydia Chan (05:12)

Yeah.

 

So maybe talk a little about that generationally, right? So, you know, we have a lot of ⁓ brands, lot of clients, a lot of corporations ⁓ trying to engage with say Gen Z, right? So ⁓ is there a generational difference in the listener profile when it, not even radio, right? Or rather music when it comes to podcasts or, ⁓ you know, ⁓ audio stories, is there a separation of like

 

in regards to who's listening.

 

Cliff Chiet (05:47)

Well, the fastest growing listeners are the young audience because, you know, again, you know, people are on budgets, tight budgets. And, you know, when you start adding up all these streaming services that, you know, they add up. So if you can find a way to consume your ⁓ your audio experience without having to shell out the money, I think a lot more are gravitating towards radio. And remember, radio is just one

 

Lydia Chan (05:51)

Mm.

 

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (06:17)

platform of audio. So what's evolved is that there's no other medium in the world that you can go from device to device to device and listen and continue to consume on the go. know, everything else is very difficult to do that. And you shouldn't be watching TV when you're driving. You know, it's hard. I know, and it's very, very scary.

 

Lydia Chan (06:32)

Hmm.

 

No, though I see some people in their cars doing that.

 

Cliff Chiet (06:46)

⁓ But the fact of the matter is, is that ⁓ you can, you can listen to radio and here's what's really changed the radio industry, that you can be listening in your car and you're stuck in traffic. There's no shortage of traffic in this country. It's gotten worse than pre-pandemic levels. And people want to feel like ⁓ my daily commute.

 

which is now like all day long. It's no longer just morning and afternoon. Midday is just as busy. But that I can have a companion that I can drive with that becomes a ritual. Like, I like this person. This person makes me laugh, puts me in a good mood when I go to work. But ⁓ for those people that are working from home, they can easily go to their Alexa or their Google Home.

 

and play any radio station in the country. And they could say, you know, if you're in Chicago and you moved from Dallas and you still miss your Dallas morning show, you can listen to it and stream it live. It's crazy that you can do that. But I think that people ⁓ now know that, you know, most people don't have an FM radio sitting in their house anymore. I might be an exception. ⁓

 

Lydia Chan (08:04)

Yeah, I do.

 

Cliff Chiet (08:08)

But for the most part, the ⁓ invention, the technology that has come about, like the smart speaker, or smart TVs, or game consoles, you can stream audio. So whatever your favorite device is. So the fact that you can continue to listen when you're not in your car has opened up the field of people because of that easy access with technology.

 

and the abundance of content.

 

Lydia Chan (08:40)

Yeah, for sure. I mean, it makes it just so much more accessible, right? ⁓ I would love to pivot a little bit to talk about the experience of audio and really the neurological effect of it, right? Like, why is audio so uniquely immersive in your opinion, right? Just from a cognitive and perhaps even an emotive perspective, again, when you think about audiobooks, right? Or... ⁓

 

podcast, right? What, what makes just that medium so immersive?

 

Cliff Chiet (09:17)

You know, if you go back to when your parents used to read you bedtime stories, when you hear somebody else telling you a story, it's human nature to love to hear stories and have somebody share stories with you. That's the basis of human existence is, you know, people love to learn and hear from other people. And I think that

 

The first connection that you have when you're not even born in your mother's room is the voice of your mom and your dad talking to you, right? And ⁓ so there's been neurological studies that have showed how the brain activity spikes when they hear the human voice. When people hear the human voice, there's music.

 

and you can see the brain activity engaging. But as soon as you hear that human voice, you see the brain activity spike because of the fact that it's instinctual for us to listen. And I think that the fact that you're doing it and not being distracted by, you can't really listen. Like you could look at 50 things at one time, right?

 

But when you, in case in point, when you're watching Netflix, you'll probably have your laptop here and your iPhone here. You'll keep pressing rewind because you missed what they said in the movie or whatever. But it's screen overload. When you're listening, you have to be paying attention. So it becomes more of a one-on-one experience for you to engage. it's also

 

the retention level is extremely high ⁓ because of the fact that what is said stays in your head. And most people will say, I heard that, I heard this. And it's funny when you think about how people share information. When somebody goes to a restaurant, very visual.

 

the food, the gourmet, the layout of the food. ⁓ So much care has been put into it to create a visual experience and a taste experience. But what's the first thing you do when you go to a great restaurant? You want to tell people.

 

about that experience and you do it by audio. You don't sit there and start showing them videos. You might show a couple of pictures, but you always back it up with the story. Like, my God, the service was amazing and then the guy came and he lit up, the whole thing went on fire. You're kind of getting all excited about it. people forget that usually when you tell someone about anything, a movie, you're describing this movie. You're not really sitting there showing them a trailer.

 

Lydia Chan (11:57)

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (12:08)

So I just think it's really the storytelling aspect of audio that will always ⁓ bring people around. And I think with audiobooks, it's just the fact that I don't have to work too hard. You I don't have to think too hard. I can just relax and let somebody share a story with me. And that's why podcasts have just exploded to the degree they have now.

 

Lydia Chan (12:31)

Yeah,

 

yeah. Talk a little bit more about podcasts, right? And how, I guess how brands can really leverage podcasts ⁓ and, you know, any, any other kind of audio medium to, to engage with their audience or, or really as part of their marketing mix.

 

Cliff Chiet (12:50)

You know, it's interesting if you think of marketing 101 and you think of the funnel, you know, with the consideration, awareness, consideration, and you know, all of the things that happen in the journey of a consumer. Audio captures all those opportunities to work people through the funnel. Not to mention that the national inclination of audio for a brand.

 

Lydia Chan (12:55)

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (13:16)

is when you say something to me about a brand and you peak my interest, my inclination is the search, either organically or directly. So ⁓ a lot of people don't think about this, but audio drives search better than anything because it's that again, it's like, okay, you're hearing about something, you peak my interest, you're in my head now, and now I wanna check you out. So it automatically has a one-two prong there.

 

Lydia Chan (13:31)

Hmm.

 

Cliff Chiet (13:43)

But what's interesting about audio is the fact that you have this mass, one to many, ⁓ start to audio where you're influencing all these different people. So in other words, you might be looking at colleges, but your mother hears the ad.

 

and she hears about a special scholarship or whatever it is and all of a sudden she's telling her son and she's influenced her son, you should check this out. Now she's not the direct person that would be going to the school but she's influential or there might be a recruitment ad running for a company and you know your best friend has been looking for a job. you know so it's really important to have that one to many that has to be part of the upper funnel.

 

Lydia Chan (14:04)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (14:31)

marketing. but then with digital audio now, just like display audio, display advertising, a brand can use data to really hone in on the eardrums of the people that have the highest propensity to be their be their customer. And that can be down to zip codes. It could be down to, you know, women who have kids that are in elementary school.

 

Lydia Chan (14:50)

Mm. ⁓

 

Cliff Chiet (14:58)

it could be, ⁓ down to where, where they shop, where do they go? What do they, are they, are they gym enthusiast? Are they sports enthusiasts? You know, so you have all these data points now with audio that never existed before where you can do one to one. So when you combine the one to many and the one to one of audio, ⁓ a brand, basically we can create that, that likeability, that engagement, but then really drive down.

 

Lydia Chan (15:03)

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (15:27)

to the audience that has the highest propensity to care about them. So when it comes to podcasts, know, if you have this ability to reach people who are the audience, as opposed to targeting a podcast, you target that audience, it doesn't matter what they're listening to. So one of the mistakes that a lot of brands make is they figure, okay, we're a financial company, so therefore we're only gonna market ourselves in financial podcasts.

 

Lydia Chan (15:47)

Hmm. ⁓

 

Cliff Chiet (15:57)

But sometimes you got these. Right. Well, the thing is, is that a lot of people who are thinking about finances, you know, they're your target audience, but they also like crime podcasts and they like comedy and they like sports and they like music. So if there's somebody that has a certain net worth and you're a money manager and you want to reach somebody that has, you know, a household income of a half a million dollars a year.

 

Lydia Chan (15:57)

Everyone needs finances.

 

Cliff Chiet (16:24)

then we can reach those people and it doesn't matter what they're listening to because they're the right audience for you. So that's the one thing that we educate brands on is that don't just focus on your vertical. Focus on the audience that has the highest propensity and the wherewithal to be a client of yours. And then I always describe it as catch them in their happy place, you know, in their favorite podcasts. And you know what? There's a truth to this.

 

Lydia Chan (16:30)

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Hmm.

 

Cliff Chiet (16:53)

If you support things that I like, I like you.

 

Lydia Chan (16:57)

Yeah, yeah, no, that's really great, right? And I think what's really great about podcasts as well is just, they're these kind of highly engaged micro segments, or they're highly engaged micro audiences. When I think about the podcasts that I follow, I I'm almost listening to every single episode, right? That's being dropped, and there's this kind of...

 

You know parasocial connection with the host and you know all this stuff that really creates

 

a audience that is very curious, is very trusting, I would say. So how would you advise brands to, if they're trying to build an audience with audio, how would they go about it? How would they go about building this really highly engaged sort of group of individuals?

 

Cliff Chiet (17:54)

Well, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said trust. There is so much distrust with marketing, with AI, with social media. Audio is two times as trustworthy than any other media out there. Okay? It's just the nature of the media. Okay? So right there, just by doing audio, you're kind of sifting through to an audience that's engaged and that trusts what they're listening to.

 

I would assume that the podcast you listen to you trust the host. Okay. Because you trust the host. If that host starts talking to you about something, there's going to be a higher likelihood that you're willing to look into something that the host had recommended. In fact, it's as high as 68 % would take a recommendation from a trusted host. So it's very important to know that in finding an audience for your brand,

 

Lydia Chan (18:28)

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (18:53)

You want to reach people that are engaged without a doubt. But you also want to be able to be reaching people in in trustworthy, you know, podcasts, you know, and and with I Heart in particular, every podcast we do is is really the best in its genre, the best comedy, you know, like we have partners in sports and that we do the NFL's podcast.

 

Lydia Chan (18:57)

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (19:21)

Bloomberg Financial, we do Bloomberg's podcasts. ⁓ Hollywood Elites, Paris Hilton. ⁓ If you talk about multicultural, Charlemagne the God or Enrique when it comes to, or...

 

Lydia Chan (19:27)

Yeah.

 

Yep.

 

Cliff Chiet (19:40)

Eva Ligoria. Yeah, she she works with us on the Cultura, Cultura podcast suite that we do of all the ⁓ Latinx podcasts. So we have all these ways to engage multicultural, ⁓ women, men, know, ⁓ millennials, Gen Z's, Gen X, everybody.

 

Lydia Chan (19:51)

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (20:04)

with the nature of the podcasts that we have. And I think that people have realized that iHeart, ⁓ our podcasts are the real deal. What most people don't realize is that you're not losing audience because ⁓ we're not making people go to the iHeart app to listen to our podcasts. Our podcasts are agnostic to platform. We do a third of Spotify's podcasts. We're in Pandora.

 

We're an Apple. Most of our podcasts are listened to on Apple. So we made a very good decision early on that we don't want to make people switch from their favorite platform to listen to our podcast. A lot of times people don't even realize they're listening to an iHeart podcast. But because we're at the publisher level, we own the inventory on all these platforms and we're able to, you know, have people, brands reach their audiences no matter what platform they listen to.

 

Lydia Chan (20:36)

Mm.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think it's so hard to adopt a different app.

 

Right? mean, we're just all creatures of habit. So, you you have to make it as simple as possible for your listener or your audience to engage with your brand, your podcast, your TV show, whatever it is, right? It has to be really seamless and easy. ⁓ Cliff, I want to go back to something you said, ⁓ podcasts being two times as trusting. I think that's the kind of the stat.

 

Why is that? Can you dive a little bit deeper into the why?

 

Cliff Chiet (21:41)

You know, I think that ⁓ when you have a friend and you really get to know a friend and you get to hear their your friends life their stories you hear about their kids and you just Develop this this person's real, you know, they're authentic I think that's that authenticity and that bearing your soul and like

 

You know, you know, you might know more about the person's podcast that they listen to. They don't know who you are, but you know everything about them because they pour their heart out. Right. So therefore you just kind of become vulnerable to ⁓ to, know, I know this person and when this person speaks, I have respect for them. And therefore I take I take their, you know, what they're sharing with me as as the real deal and not bullsh*t.

 

Lydia Chan (22:16)

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (22:38)

people listen to them, it's like they're listening to like a trusted friend. And I think one of the things that our CEO, Bob Pittman, who was also the founder of MTV, who's been legendary in media, ⁓ when he describes it best, it's like everybody

 

wants a companion. They want to feel like there's somebody that they can hang with. And that's what audio does for people. They feel like, you know, this is my friend. So I think that's where the trust comes in, is that, you know, it's just like, I feel like I really know this person. And you go back to newspapers, think about when people would read certain columns in the New York Times, like they would like this columnist because they

 

Lydia Chan (23:01)

you

 

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (23:27)

They love the style of writing. They love their storytelling. And it becomes a ritual. And I think audio in the same way is a ritual where it becomes that habit and something that you feel safe. It's your safe place. I think that's that. So I don't know if I'm ⁓ answering the question the best I could. But I mean, that's my that's my take on

 

Lydia Chan (23:34)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, for sure.

 

No, no, for sure. think there's just a level of like...

 

authenticity and unfiltered-ness that comes with audio, right? You know that the person is just speaking freely in a way. ⁓ I don't think a lot of the podcasts I listen to, or at least I hope not, right, are edited too much, right? You kind of let the conversation flow. You let sort of, yeah, just kind of, see the way that they think too, right? I think that is like a really beautiful thing about the medium is that you get to see the thought process, right?

 

as they're kind of speaking ⁓ or people are sharing and telling their stories rather than something that's highly kind of controlled and edited.

 

Cliff Chiet (24:37)

Well, and when you listen to them, again, going back to the one on one, you feel like they're talking to you.

 

Lydia Chan (24:44)

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (24:45)

You don't you don't think about how many other people might be listening to this because when you're when you're streaming a podcast, you know, that's that's you. It's on demand. You don't have to listen to it. You want to listen to it, right? Like you said earlier, you know, you're there because you want to be there. And I think you're you know, again, you feel like you're the only one listening. And I think there's something endearing about that. But I'll give you an example. Even with radio, we had a morning personality who ⁓

 

Lydia Chan (24:56)

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (25:14)

after years lost his dog and had to put his dog down and he knew that day would come. But I mean, you were tearing up hearing him talk vulnerably about how he's hurting and how, you know, it's like I've lost my best friend and you get choked up just thinking about it. But it's like, you know, anybody that was listening to that, I don't care if you have a dog or don't have a dog.

 

Lydia Chan (25:18)

Hmm.

 

Cliff Chiet (25:43)

It's like he just kind of validated that connection, that unconditional love that you have for a pet that becomes such a part of your life for so many years. I mean, we think about 14, 15 years of somebody's life. I mean, that's a journey, a big piece of the journey. But again, everybody was connected in a way with that person because it was so real and so vulnerable.

 

And I think that that's really the key of anyone who does audio, to be able to break through and make that connection with somebody is a skill set. And I think that those are the people that are the most successful, and those are the people that brands gravitate to.

 

Lydia Chan (26:21)

Yeah.

 

Lydia Chan (26:30)

know, if we look at if what was kind of the advice, right? If we're looking at ⁓ a brand who, you know, you're you're part of the marketing department of a brand and you you really want to step into audio, whether that is creating your own podcasts ⁓ or again, running.

 

you know, audio advertisements, what's kind of the advice or the roadmap plan, right? That you can kind of give a little bit of a high level first steps.

 

Cliff Chiet (26:58)

Well, I always equate it to being a.

 

having a lemonade stand in the middle of the Sahara Desert.

 

Everybody wants to find that lemonade stand, but if they don't know it's there, they don't know it's there. So when you have the best podcasts in the world, you know, the biggest mistake that that publishers or podcasts make is they don't have a distribution plan.

 

Lydia Chan (27:14)

Hmm.

 

Cliff Chiet (27:29)

and they expect people are just going to find them or they don't put a lot of effort. put so much effort into the content of this podcast, right? They don't market it. And the best way to market a podcast is in another podcast. So that's why we are in the podcast marketing world, because you already have someone who is a habitual serial podcast listener. And now you're telling me to listen to this podcast.

 

Lydia Chan (27:43)

Yep

 

Cliff Chiet (27:57)

If you like this one, you'll love this one. And it's so easy to go ahead and as you know, as a podcast listener, to pick up another brand new podcast, especially if that host is talking about it, that they listen to it. You're going to, you know, be interested in listening. So what we try to do is and I guess I can give you an example of maybe Marriott, something we did with Marriott. ⁓ But during the pandemic.

 

when people weren't traveling. That was a real problem for the travel industry, like it was in so many industries. But they came out with a podcast called About the Journey. And the podcast was basically road trips that were two hour road trips that, you know, to ease yourself back into travel that you could do, whether it be Yellowstone or whether it be in New England, but basically

 

Lydia Chan (28:31)

Yeah.

 

Mmm.

 

Cliff Chiet (28:54)

These were podcasts that you didn't have to fly, you know, trips you didn't have to fly to to go on this trip that you could do it safely within your car in a two hour radius. So what we did is we came up with a plan to just market it to those people who could logistically do that drive who were in that area. Right. That two hour drive area. But more importantly, that based on what

 

the adventure was about in the podcast, you know, target people based on their psychographical cohorts. So ⁓ the one for Yellowstone, you know, not only did we target people that were in a two hour area to drive the Yellowstone, but we were reaching people that love the outdoors. You know, they, you know, through all of our data, we were able to establish that these people, you know, they drive Suburus they love the outdoor and they love rock climbing. They love hiking.

 

Lydia Chan (29:40)

Mm.

 

Cliff Chiet (29:52)

And we were able to really hone in on the people that would be most likely to have the wherewithal to do the trip, but also would have the interest in doing that trip. So we did that in, ⁓ you know, five different parts of the United States by just segmenting and targeting audience that way so that they would get people to listen to their podcast because nobody's going to be listening to it on the East Coast when they know there's no way they're getting over to Yellowstone.

 

you know, during this time. So that was just one case study, one example of how we were able to use the power of data and the power of, you know, having, you know, the right content to the right people based on who they are and their habits. So, yeah.

 

Lydia Chan (30:22)

Right.

 

Yeah. Yeah. think,

 

well, I think, you you bring up really important point, even when we look at video, right? I think it's the distribution strategy, right? We think so much about the content and, you know, what we're producing.

 

who's producing it, who's involved. And then sometimes the distribution ⁓ strategy, when we're talking about say like social or ⁓ for particularly brand communications, brand storytelling, sometimes the distribution is not as well thought out, right? In regards to how are we reaching our audience or who even is the audience, right? Like you said, like making sure that you understand like the segments and what people's kind of

 

hobby psychographics interests are.

 

Cliff Chiet (31:24)

Yeah, we have developed ⁓ cohorts of behavior. ⁓ So, you know, we've identified these lookalikes or soundalikes, you know, where if somebody says that, ⁓ you know, I want to reach this very health conscious audience, you know, we have we have, you know, we have or like I mentioned outdoors, we have a cohort called Explorer. And that basically is a person that loves adventure, loves this.

 

Lydia Chan (31:33)

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (31:53)

learn new things, you know, that kind of thing. We have one for techies. We have one for Hispanic moms. So we have these built cohorts, psychographic cohorts that really define an audience type that is our go-to for specific brands ⁓ and verticals, you know, that we know that they have a higher propensity to care. Because at the end of the day, you don't...

 

lack of a better word, you don't want to fall on deaf ears. You know, you want to fall on people that really are interested in. ⁓ And the funny thing about podcast advertising is it's so far and few between the ads. It's pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll. So you're not being inundated with ads. But let's just say somebody finds the skip button, which some people know where it is. It doesn't count as an impression against the brand.

 

Lydia Chan (32:25)

Yeah.

 

Mm.

 

Cliff Chiet (32:50)

If someone doesn't fully listen to the audio spot, it is not counted as an impression. So you never lose something. There's only a 10 % skip through rate. That means 90 % are listening. If you think about other streaming services, you pay extra money not to hear the ads. Well, that's not helping a brand, right? But we believe that by having advertising,

 

Lydia Chan (32:56)

Hmm.

 

Interesting.

 

yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (33:18)

tastefully, you know, in a podcast and we try to make them sound like they belong there. We don't have like lots of music and sound effects and, you know, ⁓ like something that it would sound like on the radio. It's a whole different audience. It's spoken word. So therefore we want all of the commercials to the best of our ability to be spoken word that it becomes more like a story than some kind of fancy, high produced creative spot.

 

Lydia Chan (33:32)

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (33:47)

Because you know, it's just like when you think about social media platforms You can't do the same thing on Instagram that you're doing on Facebook and you know You have to or tick-tock you have to use each platform for for what it's what it's known for Same thing goes with you know, the podcast environment you run different kind of creative on streaming ⁓ Which is more like music and radio than you would on in a podcast environment ⁓ But because of who the person is listening

 

Lydia Chan (33:54)

show.

 

Cliff Chiet (34:15)

there's a very high chance that because of the data we're using that this person would be interested in what the ad is, you know, because we've done our homework. ⁓ So therefore there's less of a put off ⁓ by people. And again, because it's not back to back commercials that last longer than a minute. Yeah, it's nice. And you know, firsthand, when you have commercials in your podcasts and you talk.

 

Lydia Chan (34:25)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, it's less interruption.

 

Cliff Chiet (34:44)

You tolerate it, sometimes you know, you say, wow, I didn't know that I'm going to check that out. So, so the advertising really does work. Now you can put a pixel in a podcast ad that we use cross platform, ⁓ attribution so that we, we know that that person listening to that podcast came to your website because they heard you on a podcast. we, one thing we didn't really touch on is that

 

Lydia Chan (34:50)

Yeah.

 

Mmm.

 

Nice.

 

Cliff Chiet (35:13)

with the technology and the science behind ⁓ analytics, we can really ⁓ show complete transparency on how a podcast campaign is performing.

 

Lydia Chan (35:25)

No, that's really great. Because attribution has always been an issue, And well, really the marketing world, right? How do you attribute the dollars of say, you know, a X million dollar commercial? So be able to do that with the technology that's out there now with audio. ⁓ think it just builds the business case for marketers to invest in audio.

 

Cliff Chiet (35:48)

You know, I thought I'd share a quick story with you about when I was a little kid, how my mother used to open up the mail. And she used to do it over a trash can. And I would see my mom throw away unopened mail, just one after the other, just throw it in the trash. And I used to go, Mom, you didn't even open it. And she would say, I don't know who they are.

 

Lydia Chan (36:12)

Mmm.

 

Cliff Chiet (36:14)

And it was kind of always stuck with me that if people don't feel a comfort with you or your brand or they really don't know who you are, they're not going to click. You know, they're going to gloss right over it. But if you're in their head and they've heard of you before, there's a higher likelihood that they might give it a shot or at least open them email. And it's so true today of how people do that. So a lot of times when it comes to getting credit,

 

Lydia Chan (36:33)

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (36:42)

There's always this fight between digital and traditional about who really made it happen because it's always the last click attribution. So everybody would say, social media is killing it. It's killing it. And the social media team will take complete credit for it. But the only reason they even bothered with it is because they've been hearing you in a podcast or in some form of radio or something.

 

Lydia Chan (36:50)

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (37:10)

So, but it's very hard to get credit for those people that do that, but it makes perfect sense when you think about how all boats rise with the tide if there's a comfort level or familiarity or you're in the consideration set, you know, and you're thinking about that brand.

 

Lydia Chan (37:25)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, that's, why, mean, it's important for, I think, you know, C-suite to consider that, you know, all, all storytelling in all parts of the funnel matters, right? And that's what drives, ⁓ that click, right? And like brands should invest in all types of storytelling, ⁓ versus, know, only investing in again, just like the conversion, ⁓ you know, stuff that they're doing. ⁓ so.

 

Cliff Chiet (37:56)

97 % of all decision makers in business listen to podcasts because they love to learn, they love to be in the know, and they're busy. And if they can get a podcast in, much more easier than sitting down and watching television. You know what I mean? It's easy. They're traveling, right? So if we want to reach the C-suite,

 

Lydia Chan (38:05)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (38:22)

You know, we have a cohort for reaching the C-suite. So these are individuals that are in a C-suite at their companies or on a board of an organization. But it's amazing when you think about it, you know, people would never think, wow, want to, you know, they say, ⁓ I have to advertise in the Wall Street Journal. But they wouldn't think unless you really brought it to their attention how valuable it is to reach someone in the C-suite in their favorite podcast.

 

Lydia Chan (38:51)

Yeah. It's so true. mean, all, like I just all in our company, even all director level folks listen to a ton of podcasts. it's just what we love to do. ⁓ so Cliff, mean, to kind of wrap things up, where, where do you, what's sort of next, right? In, in, this industry, ⁓ you know, what do you see is, is kind of to look out for as well as maybe some disruptors.

 

Cliff Chiet (39:18)

⁓ well, mean, podcasts, what's starting to happen, you know, that, that Malcolm Gladwell, who by the way, is we do all Malcolm's podcasts. One of the smartest men there is best authors, right? Tipping point. You talk about when something becomes a, in a tipping point, which is what's happened. This now podcasting has become a mass medium very quickly, very quickly over 160 million people consuming podcasts.

 

Lydia Chan (39:42)

Mm-hmm.

 

Cliff Chiet (39:48)

in the country and growing every day. So you've got this tipping point that you've reached where now people are telling people as they would with seeing a Netflix series, what are you binging? Now people are saying, what podcasts are you listening to? It's become like part of conversation. So I think that the evolution and the growth and the trajectory of podcasts are just going up and up and up and up. ⁓ What's starting to happen

 

is these podcast hosts are becoming celebrities. ⁓ And what ⁓ I Heart came out with the first ever podcast awards that we do every year and we have we give out awards just like music awards to these podcasts, public hosts and creators. ⁓ But what's also evolving is live events. So there are now people

 

Lydia Chan (40:22)

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (40:47)

And I'm sure if your favorite podcast was having a live event in your town, you'd buy a ticket and they would do a live episode. They do a live episode. So that's really emerging that that that that these are becoming now events ⁓ of real true conversation in real time right in front of your eyes. Like almost like when you went to go see, you know, the the ⁓ Jimmy Kimmel show and you see it being taped. There's something exciting about that.

 

Lydia Chan (40:54)

Yeah, check it out.

 

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (41:17)

So I think that that's happening. I think you're going to continue to see more genres of podcasts. I think you're going to see ⁓ more fragmentation under different genres of podcasts. So if you just went into the iHeart app, for instance, or your favorite app, and you just go in there and you start doing a deep dive into wellness, you'll see it's, you know, fractioning off to all these deeper, deeper branches.

 

Lydia Chan (41:45)

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (41:46)

You know,

 

so you can really get into it's getting to the point where, like when you think back to magazines, how they have magazines on fishing, but they'd have one on just fly fishing and they have another one on deep sea fishing. So I think you're going to see these podcasts spawn off other podcasts and go and go deeper and deeper. But ⁓ I do think that it's it's for those that you don't listen to podcasts. I think it's just a matter of time. They're not early adopters.

 

Lydia Chan (41:56)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Cliff Chiet (42:16)

But if they have enough people, remember back in the day when someone says, I'll fax you something and used to say, I don't have a fax machine. Then three people tell you, I'll fax it to you. You go out and buy one. You know, now they don't even exist practically. But what I think is going to happen with podcasting is that it's going to become just eventually people are just going to look at you and you're not going to be in the conversation. You know, when people say, what podcast do you listen to? When you go.

 

Lydia Chan (42:28)

Yeah, yeah.

 

Mmm.

 

Cliff Chiet (42:45)

You know, you don't want to be that person. You want to be somebody that has something to contribute and also bring purpose, more meaning and purpose and learning to your life.

 

Lydia Chan (42:45)

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah, no, that's super great, Cliff. I think it's kind of looking at how many these, again, these micro segments, right? These sort of ⁓ maybe cultural channels, right? Specific channels of specific topics. So there's just so much more to come in the podcast space. And I think for brands, there's so much opportunity to tap into that.

 

So, Cliff, yeah, thank you so much for coming on the show. It great to have you.

 

Cliff Chiet (43:27)

Lydia, it was an honor. I'm so glad you and I are becoming friends.

 

We’ll be in touch