Acast, the world’s largest independent podcast company, announced Reprise, the clean, plant-based activewear brand, the winner of its “Pod Power-Up” campaign announced earlier this year.

The campaign, which was launched during Small Business Month, was created to give small businesses based in the US the chance to win a fully paid-for-podcast advertising campaign worth over $100,000 using Acast’s self-serve podcast ad platform.

Reprise was selected from more than a hundred applicants due to the brand’s commitment to creating clothing entirely from sustainably sourced materials. Reprise is leading the clean fashion movement by creating an entirely new category of natural apparel that’s made from plants. The brand creates its materials without toxic chemicals and is forging a new conversation in the fashion industry that challenges consumers and manufacturers to consider clothing as skincare.

“We knew that podcast advertising would give a new voice to Reprise and the sustainable fashion space. What we didn’t know was just how accessible it would be for a small brand like ours until we worked with Acast. Their ad platform makes it simple to set up a podcast campaign and get our message heard across a huge network of shows,” said Reprise Founder Mary Bemis.

The Reprise campaign launched in August and included pre-recorded audio ads targeting US-based female podcast listeners across shows in the Health and Wellness, Lifestyle, Sustainability, as well as Sport and Activity categories.

“Since launching the self-serve advertising platform late last year, we’ve seen massive interest and return investments from advertisers of all kinds around the world,” said Global Vice President of Marketing at Acast Pat Butkus. “From day one, a primary goal of the platform has been to make podcast advertising more accessible to small businesses and buyers of any sized budgets. The ‘Pod Power-Up’ campaign and this resulting work with Reprise is testament to Acast’s mission to democratize the podcast advertising space.”

Since launching in November of last year, Acast’s self-serve podcast advertising platform has grown to service organizations of various sizes and industries, from small and medium sized businesses, to household brand names, to major agencies, and even to podcasters themselves. In the first few months of launch, hundreds of brands booked campaigns and nearly 40% of advertisers booked repeat campaigns.

Acast, the world’s largest independent podcast company, announced a massive boost to its US leadership team and Advisory Board. The news comes on the heels of Acast’s second quarter earnings results, which posted 31% net sales growth in North America. The regional success and now team growth underlines Acast’s continued commitment to the valuable US podcasting market.

In an expansion of its C-suite, Acast has selected Greg Glenday, a 25 year veteran of the media industry, as Chief Business Officer for the global organization. Glenday is the former CEO at Lightbox Video Network, the leading digital out-of-home video network. In this role, he led an aggressive transformation that included a complete rebrand, tech innovation, record revenue, and ultimately an acquisition.

Prior to Lighbox, Glendale spend more than two decades working in various leadership roles across media, with a focus on audio, including Global Chief Revenue Officer for Shazam, the beloved music app acquired by Apple; the same role for digital high impact ad network, Undertone; and founder and President of iHeartMedia’s award winning Connections division, focused on strategic creative partnerships with the largest brands in the world. In this new role with Acast, Glendale will lead the business’s global revenue and strategic growth in key markets.

“I am a fervent believer in podcasting, and I’m convinced many still underestimate the potential for the space. Changes to media spend always lag behind consumption and attention, and smart brands value both context and relevance in addition to adtech efficiencies. Acast is the undisputed leader in first-to-market innovations, audience targeting solutions, and creative campaigns. We are the best place for brands to participate in the conversations shaping ever piece of global culture, at scale – which is the goal of every marketer in the world,” said Greg Glenday, Chief Business Office at Acast.

“Already in my role I have found that in every corner of the globe there are ambitious, creative, talented Casters making their mark on the industry. That culture is exactly why Acast is the perfect destination for this step in my career. I’m looking forward to working with both podcast creators and marketers to unlock more value from the art of storytelling.”

Acast has also tapped Spotify’s Ricardo Neto as Vice President of Sales in the US. Neto will oversee the region’s sales divisions. Neto joins the Acast team with nearly twenty tears of experience across music, internet publishing, and online audio and video media. Most recently, he spent five years as the Director of Client Partnerships at Spotify where he was responsible for coaching the national sales team. In this role, Neto drove more than $100 million in revenue through partnerships with major retail brands including Walmart, The Home Depot, CVS, and many more.

In further growth of its US sales team, Acast has promoted Gabriella Gregoris to Group Business Director of National Performance where she oversees a team responsible for clients in the direct response category. Gregory’s has spent nearly seven years with Acast, experiencing a series of promotions through the sales team in that time and has demonstrated her expertise in performance marketing.

Leading the US team through these changes is Tiffany Ashitey, who has been elevated from Acast Creator Network Director to Interim US Managing Director. In her nearly three years with Acast, Ashitey has played an intrigue role in major talent and industry partnership signings including comedian Marc Maron, actress Anna Faris, and President Barack and Mrs. Michelle Obama’s media company Higher Ground.

In addition to these internal leadership changes, Acast has also named Stephen Smyk to its Advisory Board in the US. Smyk joins the board with over two decades of performance marketing experiences. He spent more than 16 years as the CEO of Performance Bridge, until it was acquired by Veritone One where he remained a key part of the leadership team for more than five years.

“The US remains a key market for Acast’s continued dominance in the global podcasting industry. This evolution of our team is a pivotal part in this next chapter for the Acast brand and will play a key role in our path to profitability,” said Acast CEO Ross Adams.

Acast, the world’s largest independent podcast platform, announced the launch of AdCollab, which enables podcast hosts and potential advertisers to collaborate in real-time to create host-read sponsorships. The new product simplifies the podcast host-read sponsorship buying process for podcasters, advertisers, and sales teams alike, while driving scale and efficiency in host-read advertising.

Advertisers can use AdCollab to easily work with multiple podcasters from around the Acast Creator Network simultaneously, maximizing their reach and impact. This enables advertisers to directly connect with the biggest titles in podcasting globally, including WTF with Marc Maron; Shagged, Married, Annoyed; The Higher Ground Network, and more.

For podcasters, AdCollab greatly reduces the amount of back and forth with sales teams and advertisers, allowing them to focus their time on creating great content that grows their listenership, and revenue.

“Empowering podcasters to create, and to earn money from that craft is a laser focus for us at Acast” said Richard Jenkins, Product Manager at Acast. “However, the process of crafting sponsorship reads has often been time-consuming and limited in scalability. We’ve developed a product to streamline the collaboration between podcasters and advertisers, while ensuring we maintain authentic and engaging ad experiences for listeners. It’s increasing efficiency, creativity, and ultimately revenue potential for content creators and brands alike.”

Since April, Acast has been beta testing AdCollab with podcasters and advertisers throughout the US, UK, and Sweden. Early results of this testing showed improved efficiency in booking campaigns and a simplified podcast sponsorship buying process. In fact, these initial tests, time to book a host-read campaign was reduced by more than 85%.

“Host-read ads have been a part of Pantsuit Politics since the very beginning and it’s become a fixture of the content that the audience expects as a way to learn more about the products and services that hosts Sarah Holland and Beth Silvers recommend. But the admin for one sponsorship previously took away valuable time from actually making the podcast,” said Maggie Penton, Community Manager for the Pantsuit Politics podcast.

“Now, with AdCollab’s streamlined process, we not only have more time to focus on Pantsuit Politics, but we also have the ability to work with more brands that listeners will love and that will increase the show’s monetization potential – which we also love.”

The news of AdCollab comes on the heels of Acast’s recent launch of sponsorships on its self-serve advertising platform. As macro economic challenges persist and media buyers are under greater pressure than ever before to deliver efficient, scaleable buys that deliver the highest possible returns, Acast continues to innovate and develop products that address these needs and creates seamless buying routes.

In parallel, as Goldman Sachs anticipates that the global creator community is poised to near half a trillion dollars in value by 2027, Acast’s innovations create more opportunities for more podcasters to earn money from their craft. In fact, since launching in 2024, Acast has paid more than a quarter of a billion dollars directly into the pockets of its creators.

“The podcast industry was built on host-read sponsorships and at Acast, we have spent the past decade creating tools that simultaneously enable podcasters to profit from their craft and brands to increase their ROI through this advertising format, all while providing a seamless experience for listeners. AdCollab is indicative of that evolution and Acast’s vision for the long tail of podcast monetization and campaign performance,” said Acast Chief Product Officer Matt Macdonald.

Acast, the world’s largest independent podcast company, unveiled the results of a new study that explores the sentiment of podcast listeners towards potential use cases of AI on the medium. The study, which specifically examined weekly podcast listeners for its ability to create a personalized storytelling experience, improved listening quality, relevant advertising, and more.

“At Acast, we know that podcast audiences tend to be more aware of and interested in technology compared to other mediums, so its no surprise that our research found listeners to be so interested in AI. However, what it unexpected about this study is just how open listeners are to AI infiltrating nearly every aspect of their current listening experience and for the technology to mold new ways for them to engage with the medium,” said Research and Insights Director at Acast, Tommy Walters.

According to the study, podcast listeners are most interested in AI being used to enhance the quality of the listening experience, with 82% saying they support the use of AI to improve the sound by removing background noise, normalizing audio levels, and identifying and removing filler words or long pauses. Listeners are also interested in how the technology can be used to break down language barriers as 80% said they support the use of AI for translating captions to various languages and allowing listeners across the world to enjoy them regardless of spoken language.

Podcast listeners are also supportive of how AI will potentially improve the overall accessibility and discoverability of the medium. In fact, 79% support the use of speech recognition to automatically transcribe podcast episodes to make them searchable and accessible. Another 78% of respondents said they support the use of AI to generate captions in real time in order to make episodes more accessible to deaf audiences. Additionally, 74% said they support the use of AI to suggest specific podcast episodes highly relevant to a topic being discussed in the podcast being listened to and 72% support AI helping them to better discover relevant podcasts.

Respondents were also interested in how AI could potentially be used to create a more holistic and informative listening experience. In fact, 72% said they support AI serving them educational and informative materials related to the podcast while they are listening and 61% support its use for automatically generating video content to watch along with the podcast. The study also found 64% of podcast listeners were supportive of AI being used to provide truth scores or suggestions of false statements being made to inform listeners. Additionally, 69% were interested in the use of AI to highlight relevant Tweets or social media traffic that happened because of a discussion within a podcast episode.

These findings align with a separate study Acast conducted in January of this year on the use of ChatGPT in podcasting, which found that 85% of podcast listeners believe that it’s ethical for podcasters to use AI tools to create podcast content. Interestingly, though, in this January study just 57% of podcast listeners said that they expect ChatGPT and similar tools will improve the quality of podcast content. The change in sentiment infers that podcast listeners may be quickly realizing the full potential of AI tools across various aspects of the medium.

In fact, according to the most recent research, podcast listeners are also supportive of the use of AI for podcast advertising. In fact, 65% of listeners said they support the use of AI for serving them relevant advertising content. When it comes to voice simulations, 56% of listeners said they support podcasters leveraging AI to simulate them reading an ad instead of doing the host-read themselves.

Acast,  the world’s most valuable podcast marketplace, is announcing is announcing the launch of Acast+ Access. This technology gives any company with an existing paid subscription offering the ability to add exclusive podcast benefits. 

New research shows that there is a significant, lucrative opportunity for publishers and other companies to integrate podcasts into their current subscriptions. According to a recent Acast survey, more than a quarter of consumers (27%) would be more likely to sign up for a subscription if they also received podcast benefits as part of that subscription. More than a fifth of consumers (21%) would be willing to pay even more to get the added podcast benefits.

With the launch of Acast+ Access, companies with existing membership offerings – including news publishers, media organizations, streaming services, and more – can now integrate podcast benefits into the paywall they already use for their subscribers. 

Ross Adams, CEO at Acast, said: “Acast+ Access is a game-changer for companies that want to increase their overall subscription revenue and make their offering even more attractive to consumers. As more and more audiences seek premium podcast content, our technology allows providers to easily meet that need and deepen their relationship with their customers. And for companies not already incorporating podcasts into their subscription strategy, this is one of the easiest ways to rally new subscribers immediately.”

Yasmin Bassi, Senior Product Manager at Acast, said: “With Acast+ Access is a game-changer for companies the most powerful, centralized solution for all their podcast needs – allowing them to manage podcast advertising, distribution, and and subscriptions seamlessly in one single, easy-to-use platform. It isn’t only a great thing for publishers, but for the audiences, who can sign up to a company’s subscription effortlessly and immediately access subscriber-only podcasts on their app of choice.”

Acast+ Access allows companies to upgrade their current content (e.g. paywalled episodes, extended episodes, full series), personalized intros and outs, archived content, early access to content, and more. Subscriber can then access those benefits on their podcast app in listening platform of choice, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, the web, and any other platform that supports private RSS feeds.

Steve Lanham – Head of Podcasts at History Hit said: “History Hit has always aimed to make history more accessible in the digital age, and podcasts are a huge part of the mission. Through Acast+ Access, we can offer listeners more of the audio they love, giving them additional access to fascinating stories and interviews from the world’s leading historians and experts.”

Acast+ Access is based on an earlier iteration of the company’s technology of a similar name (“Acast Access”). It has been rebuilt to now allow clients to offer even more podcast benefits developed through the Acast+ technology, such as ad-free listening and early access to content, and access to bolstered analytics. Acast earns a fee for each private podcast feed activated by the client’s paying subscribers.

Acast+ Access is available now. Companies looking to learn more or use the technology can sign up by visiting https://go.acast.com/access.