Happy New Year! Is it too late to say that now?
I tell you what it’s too late for – asking ‘Is it too late to say Happy New Year now?’. This is officially the last day when you’re allowed to say either ‘Happy New Year’ or ‘Is it too late to say Happy New Year now?’. But I guarantee you that someone on a zoom call will say it next week.
Anyway, this is the first newsletter of 2025, so Happy New Year, you lucky newsletter reader.
And welcome to Fresh Air Recommends Number 201.
New Year New Work
In 2024, Fresh Air made 423 podcast episodes, totalling 184 hours, across 54 projects for 37 brands, and we’re back this year to do it all again. But even more of it.
Highlights of 2025 already include:
- Three brand new always-on shows for new clients and major household-name brands.
- Our biggest ever media campaign, running frequently-refreshed host-read ads for a full year across the UK’s biggest podcasts.
- A new partnership with the biggest, most authoritative publisher in the financial world.
- Loads of new video content, created in TYX studios.
All that, it’s only January 10th, and I’ve got a new snood. Mind blown.
2025 will see successful innovative funding models for both branded and non-branded shows that have never been seen in the podcast world before. We’re helping to drive that thinking and are working with brilliant partners to make some hugely exciting projects happen in new and innovative ways.
We’ll see the term ‘shows’ being used more than ‘podcasts’, with content stretching across both audio and video, distributed across even more channels with greater strategic firepower behind them.
And we’ll carry on enjoying ourselves, being good people to work with, and sharing our expertise with our clients. And, as for the newsletter, I’ll keep on writing this nonsense as long people keep on reading it.
Right, on with the latest in the podcast world…
Investment in Audio drives search
Oxford Road have studied over $400 million of audio campaigns to show that investment in audio drives a huge amount of search traffic to brands. Despite being a medium that you tend to consume when not ready to click through, the research shows that audio messaging gets into your head and stays there until you’re next Googling. Audio, podcast and radio have a direct impact on search behaviour in both the short term (for B2C brands) and the long term (for B2B), with measurable results in consideration and brand awareness.
Brands who invest heavily in audio can put it down as the cause of up to 40% of their search volume. Their Executive VP of strategy says: “Marketers should not underestimate the role of audio in driving both short-term performance and mental availability. Improved awareness, recall, consideration, intent, and credibility are the types of measures that underpin this boost in search activity.”
I’ve banged on many times in this newsletter about the neuroscience of audio, and why it’s remarkable. Your brain processes, emotionally responds to, and stores audio messaging in a very special way. It’s not a quick dopamine hit, but it stays with you far longer than a quick like or a short stop in a long scroll. It may be subconscious, but it’s a beautiful thing, and it demonstrably works.
Google’s Daily Listen
Google is trialling an AI-generated podcast feature ‘Listen Lab’ on its Android and iOS apps in the US. Every day, you can listen to a podcast based on your search history, presented by people who don’t exist. I’ve written on here before about Notebook LM so it’s quite similar, but instead of having to use a prompt, or upload documents, it takes what it knows you’re interested in and then gives you a whole podcast to listen to.
I don’t know about you, but my search history includes a tonne of stuff that I needed to know for a very short period of time and then would happily never think about again. And a load of other stuff that I don’t need a podcast about. The beauty of podcasts is the ability to dive into a topic that interests you in depth, and so this whole idea from Google seems fine if you get a podcast about something you search for on a regular basis. However, if I get a 25 minute AI-generated discussion about my most recent search – reusable cable ties – I reckon I’ll opt out.
Fish Where the Fish Are
Here at Fresh Air, we are big fans of Bumper. In particular, Richard – Director of Pressing Send on the Email – gets super excited when there’s a new blog out. So 2025 has started brilliantly with an in-depth look at how marketing serialised (i.e. limited or narrative) podcasts differs from marketing episodic or always-on podcasts.
It’s all about fishing where the fish are and using genre-affinity to find podcast listeners who are already loving similar content. Expect bigger numbers at the start but more engaged listeners at the end of the series. It’s all very good stuff and the graphs are wonderful. Strong connections between similar shows means you shouldn’t view other podcasts as competitors, but as sources of potentially highly engaged listeners who will be hungry for more of what you’ve got.
Martin Poyntz-Roberts predicts a riot…
This is sold as a take on politics to make us laugh, and judging by the frankly bizarre reality we find ourselves immersed in at the beginning of 2025, it’s not a hard challenge. From the start, Dame Emily Thornberry brings some amusement, and then we dive in. They begin by discussing the crisis currently rocking the new government, that of the so-called child sex grooming gangs from the early 2010s in northern towns in England. Alex Andreou ad Naomi Smith skilfully highlights the hypocrisy of Kemi Badenoch when accusing Starmer of doing nothing. Which leads us nicely onto the main course. Frankly 2025 promises hilarity in buckets: Trump is back, flanked (that’s FLANKED) by Musk. In this week’s exceptional Media Confidential produced by this writer, Alan Rusbridger describes Musk as ‘this Man Child’, and show me someone weirder and more self-contradictory than the Mars obsessed moron. His continuous peddling of bile disguised populism and freedom of speech is a massive threat to democracy, and it’s not long until the lunatics take over their asylum as demonstrated in the recent ‘freewheeling and wide-ranging’ press conference held by Trump. When it comes to Donald, he needs no commentary. He says it all himself and someone has given the man enough rope it seems. ‘I think we should take seriously that he’s completely unpredictable’ says Emily Thornberry. That could turn out to be the understatement of the year. Kep listening to Quiet Riot and hopefully what the President elect does won’t be such a huge surprise.
Richard Blake trades Maltesers for Maltese murders…
I went to Malta over the Christmas break. For the first time, my trusty Lonely Planet didn’t recommend just a book but two podcasts – both about the same person. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a crusading investigative journalist who was killed by a car bomb in 2017. She was in the midst of exposing huge corruption at all levels of Maltese society. Her family have taken their anger and grief into two amazing podcasts, My Mother’s Murder and Who Killed Daphne? It’s a twisty, dramatic, hugely personal tale. And they’ve had huge real-life impact – as I type, people are now in jail and waiting to stand trial for her murder. And in the middle of Malta’s capital, opposite the country’s law court, the memorial to justice is now her memorial. Hugely powerful. Just don’t listen on your run around Malta around empty roads, you’ll end up thinking your fellow runners are members of the Maltese Mafia.
What we’ve been listening to this week
A man telling me I’m an idiot.
It was the highlight of my day yesterday:
SFX: Ring ring
Me: Hello.
Man: Hello, is that Mr Neil Cowling?
Me: Yes it is
Man: I am calling about your life insurance with Aviva. It’s due a very important review. Very important.
Me: OK. Are you calling from Aviva?
Man: Yes I am.
Me: OK.
Man: This is a very important review. I need to take some details from you.
Me: Right.
Man: You sound like you might have some questions?
Me: I’m not sure this phone call is genuine. How can you prove you’re from Aviva?
Man: I tell you what. Why don’t you put the phone down and then never answer it again because you are an idiot.
Me: Hah ha ha!
Man: You are the biggest idiot in the world.
Me: Hah ha ha! That’s brilliant. Thank you very much.
Call ends.
What we’ve been doing this week
Getting on it. Getting on it like a car bonnet. 2025 isn’t going to know what’s hit it when we’ve finished with it. Attacking the New Year and grabbing hold of every golden opportunity that lies ahead of us in 355 days where we can be anything we want to be and achieve all the goals we ever dreamed of if we just dare to believe in ourselves.
And watching The Traitors. And talking about the Traitors. Yeah, mostly Traitors chat really.
