Tell me about the kinds of ads and advertisers that work the best on Starglow. 

Baker: Almost all of our market is brands that have never advertised on audio before because there was never anyone with enough scale to do this. Over the last year, we had a 90% brand renewal rate. The average podcast brand renewal rate is like 33%. The conversion really has been working. 

To the point of TV versus audio, we talk about the nag factor, and that was initially something that really got going on Saturday morning cartoons in the early ‘80s, when cable was on the rise. Part of that was because parents and kids were watching television together, and that doesn’t really exist anymore. TV viewership, whether it’s OTT, fast, YouTube, actual linear streaming, it’s so fragmented. The one common thing is that kids and parents aren’t necessarily watching together. The TV isn’t the common hearthstone of the family anymore. A lot of these brands spend an enormous amount of money trying to directly reach children, but they’re not getting the parent as well. 

That’s where audio has now become the shared experience. It’s replaced what television used to be. Kids and parents listen to these podcasts together, during drives to the grocery store and from school, at breakfast, at bedtime, after school. It’s always a shared experience. 

But to go beyond that, the ability to do host-read ads is incredibly impactful. Right now, if we have a podcast that families love and it’s a part of their daily routine, this podcast host becomes a trusted member of their lives. And so when they go on their show and talk to the families about a product or service that they are loving, it’s more of a familiar recommendation. In television, you don’t have Dora the Explorer telling kids and parents about this new [cleaning] product that she’s loving. It’s a very different form of messaging, frankly.

If you can get your message into a family’s daily routine, that is incredibly impactful as well. 

The other thing is this is a really specific audience. In TV, no matter what, you’re going to find general entertainment. You might reach 50% of your target demo, but there’s a lot of wasted impressions. Our families are all in a very specific demographic. We have shows that cater to different age groups, so a brand knows which age they’re going to be talking to, and there are no wasted impressions.

Lastly, [television is] a lot less active of a viewership experience. Parents and kids will listen to these podcasts really intently, and especially when they’re in the car together, there are no distractions. It’s not like you’re doing a million things. They are really paying attention to the episode. They talk about the episodes afterwards. And because you’re removing these distractions, you truly get a one-on-one moment with this audience, as opposed to just white noise from the television.

How is it different to do a podcast ad for this audience than a more general audience that’s mostly adults?

Families respond well to certain products. Our families have two times the purchasing power of most adults, so when there’s a product that really aligns well with our audience, they have no problem buying. 

Going beyond that, the biggest thing here is that if you’re advertising to adults, you’re advertising to one person. When you’re advertising to kids and parents, yes, you’re advertising to the parent, but you’re also advertising to that kid who’s going to continually pester that parent. [About] 87% of parents say that their children have a major impact on the brand they decides to purchase—especially in categories like toys, household products and travel, kids have an outsized say. 

Parents don’t think about ads as much because they’re so inundated with ads in their daily lives. They see ads everywhere. Kids don’t get ads as much. 76% of kids ask for things that they see advertised, and 46% of those sales are attributed to the influence of the kids on the parents. Our audience buys more.

You’re speaking to such a coveted demographic. What advice would you give to other marketers who are trying to speak to that demographic in any medium?

The most important thing is establishing trust, feeling like the messaging is authentic, and doing anything they can to remove distractions. When you advertise over Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, you are catching people in a moment where they are frantically scrolling on their phone, not really paying attention to your message. Being able to create an environment where you have a true one-on-one non distracted and trusted moment is the most impactful thing a marketer can do with our demographic, or any demographic.