Alex Cooper Talks Podcasting, Advertising Growth and Unwell’s Expanding Ambitions.

Alex Cooper sees podcasting entering a more competitive, platform-fragmented phase — one in which creators need to be everywhere, while media companies face an escalating race to sign the next generation of talent.

Speaking at Cannes Lions, the “Call Her Daddy” host said podcasting has changed dramatically since she began nearly a decade ago, when the format was audio-only and video was largely limited to social clips. Today, she said, video podcasts are increasingly taking the place of traditional late-night and daytime talk programming, while creators must distribute across platforms to avoid limiting their reach.

“When I started podcasting, it was just audio,” Cooper said. “And now it feels like a lot of podcasting is just replacing night and day talk.”

Cooper thinks the biggest strategic mistake for creators is committing to a single platform. She said the audiences consuming “Call Her Daddy” on YouTube, Apple and Spotify are distinct, meaning exclusivity can limit a show’s potential audience and business upside.

“The number one goal I believe for creators is you need to be everywhere,” Cooper said. “If you are sectioning yourself off and going to one place and your consumers can only find you in one location, you are essentially cannibalizing your business.”

That multiplatform strategy has helped “Call Her Daddy” continue to grow nearly a decade after its launch, Cooper said. She noted that audiences differ across YouTube, Apple and Spotify, arguing that a creator restricted to one outlet can miss a significant portion of the potential audience.

For Unwell, the strategy also means building a broader media company rather than simply signing as many podcasts as possible. Cooper said the company is focused on premium content and selective expansion, not volume. She said Unwell has been weighing how to balance investment in emerging talent with the need for greater scale, and said acquisitions are “definitely” in its future.

“The goal right now is to keep building Unwell,” Cooper said. “We have so many different ventures that are about to be revealed very soon.” 

The company’s expansion has increasingly put it in the advertising business. Cooper said Unwell Creative Agency emerged after the company concluded that outside agencies often did not understand its audience or create ideas that fit naturally with the Unwell brand. In some cases, she said, brands ended relationships with their outside agencies and asked Unwell to handle the work directly.

Cooper described Unwell as a one-stop shop combining creative development, distribution and production capabilities. The company has a podcast division, film and television studio, live events, consumer products and a charitable foundation, she said. That mix, combined with an audience Cooper put at 100 million followers across the network, allows Unwell to offer more than a conventional agency assignment.

“You’re not just buying a creative agency,” Cooper said. “You’re buying the flywheel effect of what Unwell is.”

She said Unwell is targeting a limited number of larger, multi-year client relationships rather than trying to accumulate a large roster of short-term assignments. The goal, Cooper said, is to work with brands across categories and help them develop campaigns that can run for years.

The broader pitch to advertisers is that Unwell can help brands reach Gen Z women without relying on the type of influencer marketing Cooper said has become overused. She argued that audiences are tired of creators simply holding up products and telling followers to buy them. Instead, she said, brands need to be integrated into storytelling from the outset.

“When you start from the very beginning, thinking about how does the brand make sense for the storytelling, that’s where the true magic happens,” Cooper said. “It’s not like, ‘Here’s the product, can you force a post, and hopefully people will think it’s organic.’”

That thinking is shaping Unwell’s consumer-products ambitions. Cooper said the company’s Unwell Hydration line was designed to fit naturally into the lives of its community, rather than being launched simply to capitalize on the creator-product boom. The line began with hydration products and has expanded into caffeinated and non-caffeinated energy drinks, she said.

“It was less about going into the space for money,” Cooper said. “It was more about going into an authentic lane that felt right for the community that we’ve built.”

Cooper said the beverage business is profitable but acknowledged that product development creates strategic questions for a company that also works with outside brands. Unwell executives regularly evaluate whether a potential category represents an opening the company should own itself — or an area better suited for a brand partnership. Each decision, Cooper said, has to work across the company’s larger “flywheel” of media, advertising, events and consumer products.

The Cannes appearance also marked Cooper’s public response to reports alleging a toxic workplace at Unwell. Asked whether the allegations have created concerns among clients, Cooper said the company has remained busy and that Cannes had produced a full schedule of brand meetings.

She said Unwell is still experiencing the growth challenges of a startup but defended its culture and said many employees are happy to work there. Cooper also suggested that criticism of her company has been shaped by a double standard facing women in the industry.

“Unfortunately, being a woman in this industry is extremely difficult, because you’re held to a complete different standard,” Cooper said. “Whether it’s a smear campaign being created for someone’s narrative, whatever it be.”

Cooper said she has developed “really thick skin” and intends to continue moving forward. She also doesn’t expect to step away from “Call Her Daddy” to become a behind-the-scenes executive.