Podcasters Are Buying Millions of Listeners Through Mobile-Game Ads (bloomberg.com) 17
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Podcasters are always hunting for new, flashy places to promote their shows, ranging from billboards to floats in parades to airplane banners. Some networks, though, have uncovered a less-glamorous, yet highly effective way to gain millions of bankable listeners: loading up mobile games with a particular kind of ad. 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 podcast company, in turn, can claim the gamer as a new listener to its program and add another coveted download to its overall tally. The practice allows networks to amass downloads quickly by tapping into a wellspring of hyperactive video-game users. But it also calls into question who a legitimate podcast listener is and what length of time should be required to count as a download.
Podcasts typically rely on downloads as the primary metric for ad sales. When an individual taps on an in-app play button on their mobile device, an entire episode begins downloading so they can listen to it even in the absence of a good internet connection -- say, on an airplane or in the subway. An episode's ads are inserted at that moment of download, meaning that even if a consumer only listens to 10 minutes of a 30-minute show, the mid-roll ad at the 15-minute mark is often ready to be heard -- not to mention, counted by the sales team. To date, the podcast industry has said next to nothing about its embrace of this video-game strategy. "Not all impressions are created equal," said Larry Chiagouris, a marketing professor at Pace University. "I'm not saying [this tactic is] not ethical or illegal, but it raises issues. If someone is trying to play a game and that's the purpose of this interaction, they may just be eager to play the game and are not that interested in the information being shared."
Podcasts typically rely on downloads as the primary metric for ad sales. When an individual taps on an in-app play button on their mobile device, an entire episode begins downloading so they can listen to it even in the absence of a good internet connection -- say, on an airplane or in the subway. An episode's ads are inserted at that moment of download, meaning that even if a consumer only listens to 10 minutes of a 30-minute show, the mid-roll ad at the 15-minute mark is often ready to be heard -- not to mention, counted by the sales team. To date, the podcast industry has said next to nothing about its embrace of this video-game strategy. "Not all impressions are created equal," said Larry Chiagouris, a marketing professor at Pace University. "I'm not saying [this tactic is] not ethical or illegal, but it raises issues. If someone is trying to play a game and that's the purpose of this interaction, they may just be eager to play the game and are not that interested in the information being shared."
gamers are addicted to their games (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Of course they tolerate advertising - it's how they get stuff for free. After all, stuff like Fortnite and the like are free and I'm sure if you never pay a cent you get subject to advertising until you ante up for something.
And many games offer ways to get stuff without paying - you could
Secretly stealing wireless bit caps? (Score:3)
Why? (Score:1)
Why anyone would tap on an ad is beyond me.
Re: Why? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why anyone would tap on an ad is beyond me.
By accident. Happens to me all the time on my phone - sometimes I intend to be scrolling but accidentally tap my finger at just the wrong place and it's interpreted as a click and not scrolling, or because an ad is too close to something else and I fat finger the thing, and so on. I can be quite clumsy on a phone, overall.
Re: (Score:2)
Mobile ads typically block the whole screen, with a tiny x in the corner that is also often a click-through. The "mobile gaming" space is just full of scams and disappointment by design though.
Podcasting never got into it (Score:2)
So it isn't not illegal? (Score:2)
Nit picked, you can all go on about your day.
So, to sum it all up (Score:1)
The mobile game has ads you click on to get in-game loot. These ads then, without the knowledge of the person clicking on them, download a podcast to their device. This is so that the podcaster can report a higher number of downloads, because that lets them charge more for putting ads on their podcast, or have more people wanting to put their ads on the podcast. Did I get all that right?
That's what the ad industry has become. Nobody seems to care if any of it makes any sense or serves any purpose, so long a
Re: (Score:2)
That's what I got out of it. So this podcast episode just sits on your phone forever and just takes up storage space? I would be pissed if this happened and would uninstall the app immediately.
Re: (Score:2)
This is so that the podcaster can report a higher number of downloads, because that lets them charge more for putting ads on their podcast
I think there's a middle step missing here. A sharp increase in downloads will trick the algorithms on the podcast directories into featuring these as trending podcasts, making them actually popular. And then they can claim the fake listeners AND the new real listeners.
The problem is that podcasts are exactly like mobile games in so many ways. There are good ones, but there's so much shovelware out there right now that you can't find anything that's actually good by just looking for it.
Cheap content (Score:1)
I can tolerate few podcasts. Most of them sound like "Beavis and Butthead Read The News" and substitute slant for content. The right side of the Bell Curve are reading news items, and fewer of those than before because most "news" seems to be retyped press releases with a few lines of commentary from the captive opposition.
I'm saying it. It's not ethical. (Score:2)