Podcasters have long known that their ads are less likely to be skipped that many other mediums. Now a new survey finds that only over-the-air radio and print newspaper and magazine ads have a lower ad-skipping rate than podcasts.
The MARU/Matchbox survey finds that 29% of those surveyed said they either never skip a podcast ad or do so less than half the time. Only broadcast AM/FM radio (35%) and print newspapers and magazines (33%) did better. On the flip side, consumers were most likely to skip online video ads and online pop-ups according to the survey.
“What you see for the greatest advertising stickiness is traditional media -- print, podcasts, over-the-air-AM/FM and streamed AM/FM,” says Cumulus Media Chief Insights Officer Pierre Bouvard. On a video detailing the findings, he said that attentiveness is a “hot topic” with marketers and media agencies as more and more realize that consumers don’t necessarily pay attention to every single ad they see.
In a positive indicator for podcasts, when MARU/Matchbox looked at what radio programming scored the best in terms of attentiveness, spoken word formats did the best with sports, news, talk and NPR ranking at or near the top.
MARU/Matchbox’s U.S. Media Attention Survey was conducted Sept. 28 to Oct 14, 2021 among 1,510 people aged 13 and older.