The misunderstood media
These perceptions, I believe, are holding us all back from embracing one of the most promising media formats of our time. Podcasting is the intersection where media meets content, meets creative – all built and designed for audiences.
The elephant in the room (and on the page) is that yes, I am of course speaking from a perspective of a podcaster, and I am biased. There is also a but to this. I am also speaking from the perspective of someone who has worked more than 20 years in media, was a former CEO of a top three media agency, managed hundreds of clients, and has overseen billions of dirhams in media investments. I was pushing for digital media investment in 2010 and for e-commerce in 2013. In 2025, I am fighting for podcasting to be the next medium of choice, and I do so from a position of media logic, as well as creator passion.
Let's flip the narrative. To audiences, podcasting is a trusted, personalised, on-demand experience – where listeners feel they're in a conversation with a host who 'gets them'. It's a media space built on trust, passion and relevance. It's a space where brands can genuinely connect with engaged audiences who are actively seeking content aligned with their interests.
Globally, WARC reports, audio accounts for 31 per cent of media consumption, yet only 8.8 per cent of ad spend is allocated there – an undervaluation by a factor of nearly three. In MENA, this gap is even more pronounced: there are more than 13 million unique listeners in Saudi Arabia alone, with 67 per cent of reachable audiences having access to podcasts, yet less than 1 per cent of digital ad spend is directed toward podcasting platforms.
The disparity between audience size and investment in this medium is stark and telling and, frankly, seriously disconcerting. Let's talk media in the MENA versus in the US. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PwC's Podcast Advertising Study, podcast advertising revenue in the US was $2bn in 2023. Up from $1.4bn in 2022. To put it in perspective, $2bn is approximately 33 per cent of MENA's total digital spend. The first sensible counter argument to be made is that the audiences are different. The Middle East podcast audience is bigger, at 445 million compared with the US's total audience size of 338 million. A second argument could be that the platforms used to access podcasts are different.
However, this is not the case. YouTube, Apple Podcast and Spotify are all available here and in the US and remain the biggest three platforms for podcast consumption.
This raises a critical question: Are the listening audiences not the right ones for brands? To me, this is not the case. According to Statista, podcast listeners tend to have higher-than-average incomes and spend approximately 20 per cent more on consumer goods and services. They are a valuable demographic that brands should be eager to reach.
And what about results? Are podcasts ineffective for marketing? Far from it.
Next Broadcast Media's benchmarks reveal that brands advertising on podcasts experience an average 27 per cent increase in brand interest, a 24 per cent boost in consideration, and a 26 per cent rise in consumer action intent. The same study in the US reports that 80 per cent of US podcast listeners listen to all the ads that come along with an episode, with 70 per cent taking action. These are incredible response rates and, frankly, no other media comes close.
With advanced programmatic targeting and brand-safe technology, there's no logical reason for marketers to shy away from this medium.
We are at a pivotal moment. The question isn't whether to include podcasting in your media mix – it's how to do so effectively.
The biggest takeaway tip is to deploy strategies that support and amplify the voices and faces that audiences love. This ensures your investments are meaningful, long-term and sustainable. The audiences are there. Brand metrics and ROI metrics are better on podcasts than on other channels and supply side platforms (SSPs) and demand side platforms (DSPs) provide the scale. Everything is present except the MENA advertiser. The fight for digital budget and the fight for e-commerce budget now look like a distant memory. The fight for podcasting investment is now upon us, and ironically perfectly linked within the e-commerce and digital ecosystem. How marketers and agencies navigate this medium in the coming months will go a long way to deciding whether brands can deliver relevant, differentiated and integrated propositions that audiences can get behind.
Podcasting is my passion. But the other side of me can't help but want to do more to support and protect the future of this incredible but unappreciated and misunderstood media.
By Luca Allam, Host of Luca's Insight Track and Creator of MasterPitch – a training platform for public speaking.
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The misunderstood media
When I talk to marketers about podcasting, I notice a recurring pattern of misconceptions. Many see it as a fragmented, niche and somewhat 'less premium' media that operates with minimal regulation. Podcasts are often perceived as a media channel that might feel unsafe for brands. Marketers worry about uncertain return on investment (ROI) and question whether their investment will truly deliver results. These perceptions, I believe, are holding us all back from embracing one of the most promising media formats of our time. Podcasting is the intersection where media meets content, meets creative – all built and designed for audiences. The elephant in the room (and on the page) is that yes, I am of course speaking from a perspective of a podcaster, and I am biased. There is also a but to this. I am also speaking from the perspective of someone who has worked more than 20 years in media, was a former CEO of a top three media agency, managed hundreds of clients, and has overseen billions of dirhams in media investments. I was pushing for digital media investment in 2010 and for e-commerce in 2013. In 2025, I am fighting for podcasting to be the next medium of choice, and I do so from a position of media logic, as well as creator passion. Let's flip the narrative. To audiences, podcasting is a trusted, personalised, on-demand experience – where listeners feel they're in a conversation with a host who 'gets them'. It's a media space built on trust, passion and relevance. It's a space where brands can genuinely connect with engaged audiences who are actively seeking content aligned with their interests. Globally, WARC reports, audio accounts for 31 per cent of media consumption, yet only 8.8 per cent of ad spend is allocated there – an undervaluation by a factor of nearly three. In MENA, this gap is even more pronounced: there are more than 13 million unique listeners in Saudi Arabia alone, with 67 per cent of reachable audiences having access to podcasts, yet less than 1 per cent of digital ad spend is directed toward podcasting platforms. The disparity between audience size and investment in this medium is stark and telling and, frankly, seriously disconcerting. Let's talk media in the MENA versus in the US. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PwC's Podcast Advertising Study, podcast advertising revenue in the US was $2bn in 2023. Up from $1.4bn in 2022. To put it in perspective, $2bn is approximately 33 per cent of MENA's total digital spend. The first sensible counter argument to be made is that the audiences are different. The Middle East podcast audience is bigger, at 445 million compared with the US's total audience size of 338 million. A second argument could be that the platforms used to access podcasts are different. However, this is not the case. YouTube, Apple Podcast and Spotify are all available here and in the US and remain the biggest three platforms for podcast consumption. This raises a critical question: Are the listening audiences not the right ones for brands? To me, this is not the case. According to Statista, podcast listeners tend to have higher-than-average incomes and spend approximately 20 per cent more on consumer goods and services. They are a valuable demographic that brands should be eager to reach. And what about results? Are podcasts ineffective for marketing? Far from it. Next Broadcast Media's benchmarks reveal that brands advertising on podcasts experience an average 27 per cent increase in brand interest, a 24 per cent boost in consideration, and a 26 per cent rise in consumer action intent. The same study in the US reports that 80 per cent of US podcast listeners listen to all the ads that come along with an episode, with 70 per cent taking action. These are incredible response rates and, frankly, no other media comes close. With advanced programmatic targeting and brand-safe technology, there's no logical reason for marketers to shy away from this medium. We are at a pivotal moment. The question isn't whether to include podcasting in your media mix – it's how to do so effectively. The biggest takeaway tip is to deploy strategies that support and amplify the voices and faces that audiences love. This ensures your investments are meaningful, long-term and sustainable. The audiences are there. Brand metrics and ROI metrics are better on podcasts than on other channels and supply side platforms (SSPs) and demand side platforms (DSPs) provide the scale. Everything is present except the MENA advertiser. The fight for digital budget and the fight for e-commerce budget now look like a distant memory. The fight for podcasting investment is now upon us, and ironically perfectly linked within the e-commerce and digital ecosystem. How marketers and agencies navigate this medium in the coming months will go a long way to deciding whether brands can deliver relevant, differentiated and integrated propositions that audiences can get behind. Podcasting is my passion. But the other side of me can't help but want to do more to support and protect the future of this incredible but unappreciated and misunderstood media. By Luca Allam, Host of Luca's Insight Track and Creator of MasterPitch – a training platform for public speaking.
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Linear TV spend is expected to fall by 6.3% this year – a drop exacerbated by 2024 major sporting and political events. Notably, 2025 marks the first year that retail media will command a greater share of global ad spend than linear TV. Video-on-demand (VOD) advertising is forecast to rise by 13.2% to $39.9bn, a downgrade from the 15.4% projected in March. Within this, Netflix is due to see ad billings double this year (from a small base) due to the relative resilience of its ad tier during economic downturns. Key product sector trends: Tariff trepidations hit retailers and automakers The automotive industry invested $56.8bn in advertising last year with almost a quarter (22.9%) going to premium video formats. However, budgets are shifting from video towards digital platforms, with automotive spend on social ads surpassing linear TV for the first time in 2025. Despite Warc's projected 4.0% cut in automotive advertising spend this year (an improvement on the 7.3% originally projected in March), the sector should rebound next year with a 7.5% rise pushing spend to a total of $58.6bn. Retail, with projected ad spend of $166.1bn this year (14.3% of the global ad market), faces a fall of 6.1% from 2024 levels. This largely reflects impending US trade tariffs on key goods and raw materials, which are poised to increase costs for global retailers, particularly those heavily reliant on Chinese imports such as Amazon and Walmart. Retailers are set to accelerate shifts in marketing strategies in response to changing cost structures and consumer behaviour. As predicted in March, large Chinese retailers targeting US consumers – including Temu and Shein – have reallocated advertising spend to other markets such as Canada, Australia and Europe. The tech and electronics sector is expected to spend $90.3bn on advertising this year. This year-on-year rise of 5.5% represents a cut from our +6.2% forecast in March, and is a sharp slowdown from the 24.3% rise recorded last year. Tariffs are driving the sector to adjust go-to-market strategies, shifting investments toward less-affected regions or different product lines to buffer against hardware margin erosion. Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies experienced their weakest first quarter sales revenues since the pandemic. Further, with tariffs reaching as high as 145% for Chinese imports and additional tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, CPG companies are facing major disruption to their established supply chains. Warc expects core CPG sectors, such as soft drinks (+7.1%), toiletries & cosmetics (+7.2%) and household & domestic (+4.2%) to record growth in advertising spend at a global level this year, though all see a significant slowdown from 2024. Taken together, the CPG sector is expected to increase advertising spend by 6.7% this year to a total of $200.5bn. Key market outlook: US growth prospects cut as Chinese brands look elsewhere - US ad market expected to post a +5.2% rise this year, less than half that recorded in 2024 (+13.5%) and has been cut by half a point since March - Canadian ad spend growth set to ease to 3.5% this year despite some Chinese advertisers redirecting spend from the US - The Chinese ad market continues to struggle with weak domestic demand; growth is set to slow to 7.2% this year - The UK, German, French and Japanese economies are all stalling and present a severe risk of stagflation over the forecast period Warc's latest forecast suggests the US ad market will grow 5.2% this year to $451.6bn, half the growth rate recorded in 2024 (+13.5%) and representing a 0.5 point downgrade from our March forecast. The US ad market – the largest worldwide with a 39.0% share – faces major headwinds including tariff uncertainty, disrupted supply chains, lower consumer demand and stagflation. Despite a strong first quarter performance – +7.6% to $105.7bn, boosted by Chinese brands accelerating spend ahead of the anticipated tariff changes – US ad market growth is expected to slow significantly through to year-end. Chinese brands appear to be redirecting ad spend to Canada to negate US market barriers, yet Canadian ad growth is expected to slow to 3.2% this year amid deteriorating economic conditions. The IMF had downgraded Canada's GDP growth forecast by 0.6pp to 1.4%, with the Bank of Canada projecting growth rate to approximately +0.5% in 2025. Digital platforms dominate Canada's media landscape, projected to capture 77.6% of the total market this year. This digital transformation stems from granular targeting capabilities drawing advertisers away from traditional media, with retail media now fuelling additional growth. China is experiencing significant structural shifts, characterised by increasingly price-conscious consumers and a digital ecosystem dominated by major players including ByteDance (Douyin), Alibaba, and Tencent, creating challenges for smaller platforms. Short-form video has become instrumental in brand promotion in China, while marketers are prioritising performance marketing over brand building initiatives. Projected US tariffs are expected to dull China's economic growth by 0.2 points in 2025, creating economic uncertainty and prompting a downward revision of our 2025 advertising growth expectations to 7.2% (from 8.3% in March). The outlook for 2026 has been upgraded to 7.9% growth (from 6.9%), reflecting the online sector's resilience. The AA/Warc Expenditure Report forecast for the UK ad market stands at +6.5% in 2025, to a total of £44.3bn ($54.7bn). The highly digitalised UK market sees online ads accounting for over four in five (84.6%) dollars this year, with social (+13.1% this year) and search (+8.2%) fuelling growth despite weak economic prospects. Germany's economy is also struggling, at just +0.4% expected growth by the OECD this year following a cut of 0.3pp from its last outlook. Warc forecasts a modest 2.9% rise in German advertising spend to €26.4bn ($29.5bn). Growth in France's ad market is also set to be muted this year, at +2.7% to €18.8bn ($20.3bn). Japan faces a challenging outlook, too, with advertising spend expected to rise by 3.3% to ¥5.8trn ($39.0bn) this year. All rights reserved. © 2022. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
