PODVERTISING : -Swedish Attitudes towards International Ad-spots in Podcasts

Sammanfattning: For years companies have fashioned communication strategies based on print, radio, and TV to broadcast their message. But times are changing. This is the Internet era and this, together with the fact that consumer electronics business has exploded in the recent years and that new digital technologies have produced offspring, have lead to more media opportunities than ever before. One of the latest inventions in interactive media technology is podcasting. It seems like podcasting is here to stay and it is time for forward-thinking marketers to start looking at podvertising. Our purpose is to examine the attitudes towards international ad-spots in podcasts among Swedish podcast users. This we do by asking the research question ‘Is the use of international ad-spots in podcasts a viable marketing strategy in the Swedish market? Why?’ Based on our theoretical framework, we have identified aspects about advertising in general, podvertising and attitudes towards them both. We have also identified aspects that show how attitudes differ among age cohorts. These aspects were then tested on Swedish podcast users. We can conclude that there are both advantages and disadvantages for international companies that wish to use international ad-spots in podcasts as a marketing strategy in Sweden. Most podcast users are young and do not like advertising, especially not advertising in podcasts. They rather search for information themselves; hence infomercials in the form of podcasts could be a better alternative for companies to use to attract the younger audience. Generation X was less negative to the thought of being exposed to international ad-spots in podcasts and this could indicate that international ad-spots could be a part of a strategy when targeting this generation. However, if you consider the fact that international ad-spots are either standardized or adapted to the country where they were produced, the effectiveness of them can be questioned.