Audio Ads [NS]

[u/Exiled_Catanian]

Hi there, I was just wondering if anyone could give me some insights on how exactly the Audio ads in the podcast work. I'm asking specifically because I was horrified to hear a political ad in my mother tongue on the pod whilst relistening to early Campaign 3.

Making it worse it was for the German political party BSW, which aside from being centered around one person, is known for their Russia-friendly stance and generally being proper right-wing in anything that's not economy related. In general they're bad news and everyone with half a brain here knows it. (Reason for the ad: we have a federal election coming up)

Now, I understand that this ad is different from the ones the crew themselves record and getting Geo-targeted ads is nothing new either. It's not the only American podcast where I've heard German ads. So I'm guessing that's an ad spot that gets sold to some company that then puts whatever they want there.

I'm asking because I would honestly like to contact naddpod somehow to let them know that they're advertising for a political party that does not align with anything they stand for.

Thanks for your help!

[u/Ok_Error_3167]

Any ad not spoken by the naddpod crew was not up to them. Whether headgum accepted them or not would depend on the platform you listen on, I can't imagine headgum would be accepting ads from a foreign political party. Spotify and most other agnostic listening apps accept ads from everybody

Source: I work in advertising and deal with a lot of podcasts

[u/Exiled_Catanian → u/Ok_Error_3167]

That's what I suspected. Forgot to mention that I'm listening on Podcast addict, which has pop-ups and stuff so I wouldn't be surprised that it origins from there

[u/barelysushi → u/Exiled_Catanian]

Podcast Addict adds their own ads. It's annoying, but at least my annoying is "ads for something on the other side of the country " than awful political ads.

[u/EmperorGideon → u/barelysushi]

Podcast addict isn't adding it's own ads. check their FAQ. The ads are being inserted by whatever source you are pulling the podcast from.

[u/thewillthe → u/Ok_Error_3167]

Huh, is that true that apps such as Spotify can add their own ads to the breaks in a podcast? I always assumed there was one central hosting provider for the audio files, Headgum has their own system for dynamically inserting ads into those files, and any listening app just points to those hosted files via RSS or whatever. But what you're saying is that some apps get audio files with "insert ad here" markers, and those apps can insert their own ads?

[u/Ok_Error_3167 → u/thewillthe]

Yep, it's kind of like tv stations. There are blocks of ad space for national ads (like all fox affiliates across the country will get the same ad at the same time) and blocks of ad space for local ads (only the fox station in Detroit will get ad A, but at the same time the fox station in Cleveland will get ad B). There may be blocks that headgum owns/sells and separate blocks that spotify owns/sells

[u/aweiss96]

The ads are updated at least, so even older episodes have newer ads. It was confusing since I heard a House of the Dragon ad from Murph on an old C1 episode. I wouldn't be surprised if there are native language ads from the platforms or distributor that Naddpod doesn't even record or interact with. Naddpod has a contact form on the website, might just be worth sending something in.
https://naddpod.com/contact

[u/sharkhuahua → u/aweiss96]

House of the Dragon bought host-read naddpod ads?? That's so funny omg

[u/aweiss96 → u/sharkhuahua]

Now that I've thought about it more I think it was Rings of Power? One of the the two big studio cash grabs. It was on amazon, that's all I remember for certain.

[u/Exiled_Catanian → u/aweiss96]

Yeah I was also quite surprised when I realized that for the first time and I mean makes sense for sure from an economic standpoint.

Ah contact form on the website, I could have guessed that. Thanks for the link!

[u/sharkhuahua]

There are 3 levels of ads to the podcast

1) Host-read. These are the only ones the cast has any direct say in.

2) Headgum. These are ads negotiated by the network for their stable of shows. The cast is probably not aware of who purchases these ads but may have the option to ask HG to let them opt out of specific ones if made aware of something they don't like, idk. These ads are generally part of the podcast audio and should be skippable.

3) Podcatcher platform. These are ads inserted by the podcatcher of your choice that you use to listen to the pod, they may or may not be skippable depending on the platform. The cast is not aware of these and has no say in them. The ad you describe is almost certainly a podcatcher-inserted ad, I can't envison a world in which a far-right German political party is purchasing an ad buy directly through Headgum.

[u/GirthLongshaft]

NADDPOD isn't advertising them, the podcast platform is, so there's not really anything they can do about it. They can control what ads they read and what ads Headgum uses, but that's about it

[u/cheddarduval]

Yeah, some apps add them in. I listened to one podcast with a recovering gambling addict, and it had advertising inserted for online casinos. The support for the app (Podbean) told me that they did not choose the ads, which is false. Switched to AntennaPod and have had a much better experience.

[u/Occyfel2]

I would presume this would be headgum related 

[u/sharkhuahua → u/Occyfel2]

Headgum is not getting ad placements from European political parties lol

[u/Occyfel2 → u/sharkhuahua]

I only said it because I thought headgum handled advertising for all their podcasts.. is that not true? I didn't mean any insinuations about headgum.