BBC Creative’s head of audio joins our specialist podcast team

With the booming demand for brand-funded podcasts, Fresh Air Production has appointed Michaela Hallam as its new Head of Content. Michaela will join Fresh Air on November 18th from her current role as Creative Head of Audio at the BBC’s in-house agency, BBC Creative.

Fresh Air specialises in creating podcast series for brands, and has seen a four-fold increase in demand over 2019. It recently entered a long-term partnership with podcast strategists 4DC, moving into offices in East London to take advantage of the rapidly expanding market.

During her time at the BBC, Michaela has led numerous high profile and award-winning audio projects. She’s developed audio identities for brands like BBC Sounds and BBC Music, and overseen the audio campaigns for key BBC properties including Line of Duty, Blue Planet, Fleabag, Killing Eve, Doctor Who, CBeebies, Strictly Come Dancing, Ru Paul’s Drag Race UK, Top Gear and The Olympic Games. Michaela has also acted in a consultancy role as the corporation develops its presence in the voice and smart speaker sector.

Founder Neil Cowling said: “I couldn’t be more delighted to bring Michaela’s experience and passion into the business. With such rapid growth in the medium and the volume of work coming our way, her love of creative audio as a marketing tool fits the business perfectly. We’re working with huge brands who need serious audio expertise as they launch into podcasting, and that’s what Michaela brings in spades.”

Michaela commented:

“With recent studies showing that podcasts are outperforming both TV and radio ads on benchmarks including engagement, emotional intensity and memory encoding around brand mentions*, this is a truly exciting time to join a company already achieving huge success in this sector.

I can’t wait to marry my experience and passion for creating great audio content with delivering on the business objectives of some brilliant brands.”

Fresh Air Production is one of the UK’s leading producers of podcasts for brands. It aims to take the production values of national broadcast radio and apply them to branded podcast content. Its work includes:

“The Beauty Podcast with Sali Hughes” for Avon

“The Energy Podcast” for Shell

“The Reality Tea” for BBC Sounds

“Speaking with Shadows” for English Heritage

“The Case Files” for Slater & Gordon

“Insurance Tomorrow” for Allianz

“Inside Exams” for AQA

“Ahead of the Field” for NFU Mutual

“Reflections: Art, Life & Love” for National Galleries of Scotland

To find out more, go to www.freshairproduction.co.uk , email info@freshairproduction.co.uk or call 0870 1417117

Fresh Air Production. 12-14 Berry Street. London EC1V 0AU

*Credit: Audio: Activated, a new study from BBC Global News’s branded content division – and carried out across four continents by neuroscience researchers at Neuro-Insight. It researches the minds of audio listeners to discover the unique benefits of this space for brands.