Bubbler Podcast Builds ‘Bridge’ Between Marketers And The Market.

Chief marketing officers have a steady influx of data and market signals to help them make decisions about how to market their brands. But how often do they sit down and listen to what their prospective customers are saying about their messaging and activation? “Market Says,” a new weekly podcast that dropped its first episode Thursday (April 23), offers clues about how concepts and campaigns are landing — or not — with coveted young consumers. 

It’s the third podcast to launch as part of a partnership between iHeartMedia and Bubbler Media Group, founded by former iHeart CMO Gayle Troberman and media executive David Alberts. Bubbler’s premise: marketing needs more meaningful conversation.

In a reality check for brand advertisers, University of Michigan marketing students talk candidly in an unfiltered back and forth with the “Market Says” hosts about what brands and advertising mean to them.

“The podcast is meant to be a vehicle of discourse, a bridge between what the market says, particularly young folks, and what marketers need to hear,” says co-host Marcus Collins, a marketing professor at U-M. “They're taking us to school, which is pretty eye opening for a professor.”

Two or three students appear in each episode. Rather than drill down into specific campaigns, the show discusses broader shifts in the marketplace, like the feverish way marketers want to weave their brands into live sports. “We're trying to get to the broader provocations to help inform the micro executions,” says Collins, a former Chief Strategy Officer at Wieden + Kennedy.

U-M students Cammy Escobar and Daniel Streike, guests on the first episode, which delves into sports marketing, offer some honest appraisals. Bounty’s 2025 Super Bowl commercial, which promoted the paper towel brand for tackling messy chicken wing sauce-covered hands, got a thumbs-down for relevancy. The Gatorade shower tradition at the end of games got a robust thumbs-up. 

Troberman, who co-hosts the podcast, says the conversations with Gen Z-ers serve as a “a great wake-up call” for marketers to get out of the conference room and into the real world and talk to people. “There's no substitution for hearing the nuances of real people talking about an idea, a campaign, a program that you've put — or are thinking about putting — into the world,” she says.

The conversations young people have about brands often aren’t the same as those taking place in boardrooms and on Madison Avenue. “As marketers, it's sometimes very easy to get lost in the data, trends and insights as abstract concepts,” Troberman says. “But when you talk to the students, you realize they're not spending the same amount of time on marketing as we are. There's a chasm between what people care about and what marketers think people care about.”

Case in point: The big hoopla in marketing circles last summer around Cracker Barrel’s new logo went virtually unnoticed by the students. 

A ‘Great Match’ For State Farm’s Audio Strategy

While younger consumers aren’t often in an insurance mindset, “Market Says” title sponsor State Farm believes it’s important to continuously identify the channels where they spend time and connect. “As a brand known for authentic marketing and cultural engagement, ‘Market Says’ was a great match for State Farm,” says Head of Marketing Alyson Griffin. “Sponsoring this conversation allows us to expand our presence in a highly engaged environment and stay grounded in how young adults consume and interpret culture.”

To drive awareness and consideration, State Farm uses radio, music and podcasts as part of a holistic audio strategy. “Audio is a listener chosen channel where consistent presence can build familiarity over time, and we can tailor messaging and placements to the context and audience,” Griffin explains. “We use performance and brand signals to refine our mix over time, ensuring we stay aligned with how listening habits are evolving, especially among younger consumers.”

Based on conversations with students, Troberman says audio — podcasts in particular — is a growing part of their daily media diet. They use it to fuel interest in things they’re passionate about. “The podcast phenomenon has really been hitting on campus,” she says, while big radio shows are listened to on demand. “They're consuming long and short form audio, on demand and live.”

‘Subversions To Conventional Wisdom’ 

What are some of the top takeaways for marketers from the podcast’s mini focus groups? “There are some subversions to the conventional wisdom of how we typically think about marketing,” Collins explains. Marketers may walk away realizing their thinking about something has been “all wrong and they come away with a different perspective.” 

Collins has long had one foot in academia and one in practice. At Wieden + Kennedy, he was also a full-time prof at U-M. Were he back in the agency world today, he says he would create a market research system directly with major universities around the country “where we are engaging students in the discourse to understand what the brand stands for and what these conventions that have shifted in the cultural zeitgeist mean for how they consume.”

Troberman hopes Bubbler, which also spans solutions and experiences, can put back the fun and excitement that’s been sucked out of marketing in the digital era by data, synthetic audiences and AI. “We went into marketing because it was fun and creative, very human, alive and interesting,” she recalls. But eventually the field became dull and over dependent on data. “We want to ask questions that get you thinking because that's how the fun and joy of this industry comes back. We really want to bring joy and celebrate ideas again.”