‘Podcasts use in-game advertising to artificially increase listening figures’

Podcast makers use in-game advertising to artificially increase their listening figures, according to Bloomberg. Increasing the number of listeners can allow podcasts to charge more advertising revenue from other advertisers.

According to Bloomberg Podcast creators engage ad companies to show in-game ads with a reference to their podcasts. If a gamer clicks on such an ad, to receive in-game currency in exchange, for example, or to unlock features of the game, an entire episode of that particular podcast is also downloaded to the device at that time without a user being informed. is. As a result, the creators of the podcasts get a listener, so to speak, even if the gamer in question has not or barely listened to the podcast. According to the news agency, the higher listening figures resulting from this form of advertising offers podcast makers more room to negotiate when drawing up advertising agreements with other advertisers.

Bloomberg found that the Subway Surfers mobile game features some such in-game podcast ads. In that game, the news agency was able to distinguish podcasts from the American newspaper New York Post and the American audio streaming platform iHeartMedia, which allowed entire podcast episodes to be downloaded onto users’ devices via the advertisements. Bloomberg did not share any other examples of such in-game ads. It is unclear how widespread this form of advertising is in mobile games.

Sreenshots Subway Surfers