iHeart Presents Podcast Influencer Summit
• The iHeartPodcast Network announced an industry-first Influencer Summit on Wednesday, April 26 at iHeartMedia’s corporate offices in New York City. The hands-on educational event will feature diverse podcast authorities like Charlamagne Tha God, founder of The Black Effect Podcast Network; the woman behind the successful Stuff You Missed in History Class podcast, Holly Frey; and esteemed journalist, author and co-founder of Pushkin Industries, Malcolm Gladwell, who will be joined by today’s biggest marketers to explain why podcasting is growing rapidly and how brands need to adapt, invest and create audio advertising that resonates with podcast fans.
Conal Byrne, CEO of the iHeartMedia Digital Audio Group, noted, “Podcasters are the most creative, fastest-growing, diverse wave of influencers to hit content and marketing in years — just as influencer marketing more generally was becoming a key new way to reach audiences. This event came together because our podcast creators are deeply invested in the brands and advertising that become part of their shows, that they asked us to give them a chance to sit down with marketers at scale and talk about what makes host-read creative work. This is a chance to roll up our sleeves and co-create, collaborate and showcase the simplicity, speed and creative potential of podcasting.”
Malcolm Gladwell remarked, “Audio storytelling has shown itself to be such a powerful medium over the past few years. At Pushkin Industries, in partnership with iHeartPodcasts, we’ve been able to be a part of that — developing and empowering some of the best creators at work today in podcasting. Connecting those creators with exactly the right brand partners is the other side of the coin — a critical part of our role — and we can’t wait to focus hard on that as part of the iHeartMedia summit.”
Charlamagne Tha God noted, “Podcasting has been such a great space for Black creators and the Black Effect Podcast Network to make an impact while retaining creative vision, especially when it comes to working with brands. Across the past two years, while we’ve built the Black Effect, iHeart has always been an awesome partner, collaborating with us to help brands learn how to start conversations that are important to our listeners, and to find ways to uplift and inspire new, diverse audiences in this amazing medium.” iHeartMedia CMO Gayle Troberman added, “This will be a breakthrough moment for the ad industry to see why podcasting is the fastest-growing medium with the lowest ad-skipping rates of any medium.”
Marketers interested in joining the April Influencer Summit at the iHeartMedia HQ in New York City can reach out to b2bmarketing@iheartmedia.com.
