NPR Sponsorship Leads Spoken Word Audio Innovation for Brands

NPR's Path to Expansion

For Osher, the Spoken Word Audio Report results confirm the success of NPR's efforts to "explore how NPR can continue to reach new audiences, younger audiences, while still servicing and providing a great content experience for the people who have always loved NPR and have been here from the beginning."

"The major takeaway from the study is that the time spent with Spoken Word Audio has increased 30% over the past six years and in just the last year it has grown by 8%," commented Megan Lazovick, vice president at Edison Research,. "When we looked closely at who is listening more, that the highest levels of growth were coming from women, African Americans, Latinos and the younger age group age 13 to 34." Notably, as spoken word has been increasing, music share of listening has been decreasing, "almost 8% over six years." She added that 75% of all Americans listen to Spoken Word Audio each month with 43% tuning in daily.

"It's a balance but it is something that we are very excited about," Osher added. This has led to great experimentation, "seeing what sticks and then see about how to make it sustainable. NPR has come a long way in the last decade or so in achieving that."

All of this focus on the listener experience across the array of present and future platforms makes NPR a must-have for sponsors. Osher noted that, "We were ahead of the game when it came to brand safety and trust, protecting the user experience, having an authenticity and respect for your audience - all of those things that are really on trend. The way we do sponsorship on NPR really lends itself to conveying that trust to our sponsors and in their messaging as well. And that, beyond anything, is our biggest value proposition."

But it is not just the environment that provides value. She explained that "We have also developed some interesting, different products," in areas of product offerings and research. "As NPR has grown and distributed to more platforms, we have iterated and grown more and more new products and evolved with the technology to offer custom audio sponsorship experiences that really invest in storytelling and branding, but also more data tools and attribution technologies and better targeting." There is also the effort to "craft the way we deliver and create those sponsorship messages so that they are resonant on whatever platform they are on and with whatever audience is engaging on it."

Sponsorship Opportunities

For those marketers who seek the advantages of NPR's content, audience and measurement tools, there are a myriad of opportunities for sponsorship. "It really depends on what your campaign needs," she began, "and that is what I like best about this. When we talk to clients, the first thing we ask is 'what are you trying to achieve in your campaign, who are you trying to reach and how are you measuring success?' You have to understand that before you can come up with a media plan and suggest creative options."

From a more direct sales brand which may gravitate to a digital platform to a brand seeking scale with audience targeting with less focus on storytelling or a branding campaign with a social responsibility message that seeks to engage via audio with a deeper user experience, all options are available. "What we have tried to do is to create that range," she stated. "And to make products that work no matter what the brand is looking to achieve for their campaign and then, because of the breadth of our platform and the diversity of our audience, it puts us into a really good position to be able to craft the plan and to target that audience to create the right assets to go with that brand."

Arguably one of the more compelling value propositions with NPR is lack of clutter. "We've always had a very low sponsorship load which benefits the user experience, it sticks with the aesthetic and mission of NPR and it also offers sponsors more value because there is less distraction," explained Osher.

The Audience is Key

Respect for the audience, gleaned through careful research, gives NPR a clear brand message opportunity for marketers. "From my perspective, it really comes down to what the audience is most interested in and crafting the right creative to fit the audiences' interests. I think the one common denominator across all of our platforms for our audiences is that they want it to be authentic. They're curious minded so they want to be informed and they don't want it to be overly promotional. They want to hear messages based in fact rather than a list of huge claims," Osher concluded.

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