Brand podcast vs. classic brand content: what's the real impact?

By 2023, 57% of the French population claimed to have listened to at least one piece of audio content, and there are now over 200 million monthly listeners worldwide. Podcasts are booming, to the point of becoming an essential channel for brands. But how does audio content compare with traditional brand content? Blogs, videos, newsletters, infographics... all these already well-established formats occupy a prominent place in content strategies.

To improve your company's image, should you invest in a branded podcast, or stick to tried-and-true values such as traditional brand content? While it's true that these two formats aren't competitors, they do offer distinct advantages.

In this article, we'll take a look at the differences and similarities between the two formats, and explain why the branded podcast is taking on an increasingly strategic role. Would you like to explore the potential of podcasts for your brand? Calliopé can support you from conception to distribution.

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Classic brand content: a solid but saturated base

Classic brand content encompasses all the content produced by companies to gain visibility, position themselves as experts and strengthen the link with their audience. These include blog articles and white papers, which are highly effective for developing SEO strategies and establishing brand authority. Marketing videos and tutorials, meanwhile, are particularly effective on social networks and YouTube, as they put forward pedagogical explanations, while captivating the audience's attention. Next come infographics, newsletters and LinkedIn publications, which regularly feed the community and maintain an active presence.

These formats offer major advantages, including ease of distribution, rapid indexing on search engines and enormous sharing potential. They help to add significant value by popularizing often complex information and consolidating your brand's credibility.

However, traditional brand content has a clear limitation: in a world where visual and written content are omnipresent, capturing the attention of Internet users over the long term is a constant challenge. The exponential number of notifications received by the public reduces attention spans, making it all the more difficult to memorize content.

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Branded podcasts: a fast-growing and effective medium

One of the great advantages of podcasts is the diversity of formats available. Depending on the objectives and target audience, it can take the form of a face-to-face interview, a round-table discussion involving several speakers, a chronicle carried by a voice-over, or a report captured in the field. There are also more elaborate approaches such as documentaries, which combine narration, interviews and field extracts, fiction performed by actors, portraits focusing on an individual, or first-person accounts. This diversity gives you the opportunity to create customized podcasts, perfectly adapted to the expectations of your employees, customers or partners.

Branded podcasts differ from traditional brand content in that they can be integrated into listeners' daily lives. Unlike articles or videos, which require a certain amount of time to read or watch, podcasts can be listened to anywhere, at any time: in the car, while cooking, doing sport or even while working.

It's intimate, immersive content. The voice creates a direct link with the listener, fostering emotion, confidence and memorization. More than just a form of communication, podcasts enable you to establish a close relationship with your audience. What's more, it's a reusable format. An episode can continue to generate listeners months after its broadcast, and can be recycled in the form of excerpts for social networks or integrated into a multi-channel strategy.

Today, podcasts are a powerful vector for humanizing the brand, sharing stories, promoting employees and strengthening a community.

Simply put, podcasts are not intended to replace traditional brand content, but to enrich and reinforce it. It opens up a new way of reaching audiences who consume content differently.

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Adapting your strategy: combining audio and classic content

The real strength of a successful strategy lies in the complementarity of formats. A branded podcast can :

• Breathing new life into blog posts by revisiting themes in the form of interviews.
• Serve as raw material for video clips or LinkedIn posts.
• Be integrated into a newsletter to diversify the content sent.

So podcasts are not seen as an alternative, but as a natural extension of brand content, capable of reaching an audience that consumes differently.

Would you like to create a multi-channel content strategy incorporating podcasts? Calliopé can help you define the right format and adapt it to your audience. Take a look at our podcast audio offer to discover how we can help you achieve your goals, from A to Z.

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Case study: Big Bosses, expanding audiences with branded podcasts

To boost its visibility and reach an audience beyond its physical events, Les Big Boss chose to launch a branded podcast with Calliopé. The objective was simple: to extend the experience of professional meetings by giving a voice to players in the digital and e-commerce sectors.

The series features dynamic and inspiring interviews, combining real-life testimonials with sector-specific reflection. Thanks to this format, Les Big Boss has expanded its audience to a wider public and built a loyal community around authentic interviews that can be accessed anywhere, anytime.

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The future of brand content lies in audio

The growth of podcasting is no accident. Digital uses are evolving towards greater mobility, personalization and immersive formats. At a time when brands are seeking to capture fragmented attention, podcasts appear to be the right answer: intimate, flexible, lasting.

This doesn't mean that classic brand content is obsolete. On the contrary, it remains indispensable for SEO, rapid visibility and audience animation. But it gains in impact when combined with a well-thought-out audio strategy.

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Conclusion: building synergy

Rather than opposing branded podcasts and classic brand content, they should be seen as two complementary levers. One captures visual and textual attention, the other establishes an intimate and lasting presence. Together, they create a richer, more human and, above all, more effective form of communication.

Are you hesitating to integrate podcasts into your content strategy? Calliopé offers you an audit right now to define the format best suited to your objectives and your audience.

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