iHeart purchases fake podcast downloads thru mobile games

[HerbNero]

Podcasters Are Buying Millions of Listeners, Raising Questions About Marketing Tactics

... Jun Group’s main podcast client is IHeart, the maker of shows from Will Ferrell, Charlamagne tha God and Shonda Rhimes. According to a person familiar with the effort, the radio company, which bills itself as the top podcast publisher globally, has shelled out more than $10 million and gained approximately 6 million unique listeners per month through these ads since 2018. The company primarily runs its in-game campaigns at the beginnings and ends of months. The impact can be seen on the publicly available charts produced by Chartable, a podcast marketing company owned by Spotify Technology SA.

Podcasters Are Buying Millions of Listeners Through Mobile-Game Ads

 

[TheBigA]

Somewhat misleading, since the gamers are choosing to click on the ad. This isn't much different from casual radio listeners, who are primarily interested in the content, and not the advertising.

Each time a player taps on one of these fleeting in-game ads—and wins some virtual loot for doing so—a podcast episode begins downloading on their device.

The moral of the story is: be careful what you click.

 

[DaveBayArea]

Somewhat misleading, since the gamers are choosing to click on the ad. This isn't much different from casual radio listeners, who are primarily interested in the content, and not the advertising.

The moral of the story is: be careful what you click.

Definitely a good rule of thumb. Even on this site. The end result here is slightly different though. In this case the podcast is downloaded to the game console but never necessarily played back, right? In fact, I would venture to say that most of the downloads are never heard by the prospective customer. In contrast, the casual radio listener will hear the ad - at least subliminally.
Dave B.