Advertising on Two Fronts

Audible, online provider of audio books, podcasts, etc, has coordinated an innovative and successful advertising campaign for several years. One major aspect of that campaign has been to sponsor podcasters in return for a brief “testimonial” during each podcast. The genius of this approach is that the Audible brand is being spread by people with a built in, trusting, audience. Audible has sponsored a wide variety of podcasts, dealing with subjects like history, TV, music, comedy and literature, which is great considering people who are interested in these subjects can find and purchase all of this type of content on Audible.com

Bought by Amazon in March of 2008, Audible commercials started popping up on television several months ago. This could seem like a coordinated effort to combine newer marketing techniques with something a little more orthodox, but one campaign might have a negative impact on the other. One of their most recent commercials is above and it illustrates the difference between the two methods. It seems dusty, old-fashioned and untrustworthy. If you turn off the sound, it actually looks a lot like a commercial for a universal cell phone charger or sunglasses made from space-age polymers. Compare this through the affiliate advertising and it doesn’t seem like something worth spending money on.

It makes sense for them to reach as wide an audience as possible, but this type of advertising feels like a giant step back.