National Public Radio Vice President of Digital Strategy and Sponsorship Operations, Bryan Moffett is one of four panelists on next week’s Advertising Week panel, “Out of Touch but Still Connected: Today’s Ultramobile Consumers.” He shares what’s changed in the radio industry over the past decade and how digital mobile became a key component.
How did you wind up working on the advertising side of the business?
I started out on the editorial side of the fence, but always had an interest in the tech side of things. Eventually I found my way to the business side, which does merge the two in a fashion.
What surprised you most when you first started working with advertisers?
The process – how lengthy it can be to get even a standard deal done in digital. So many unique needs, custom templates and systems!
What continues to surprise you?
The pace of change. It’s getting faster every quarter, and it takes a lot of resources to keep up. We just built out a team focused on building digital ad products, because we had to.
How has advertising in radio/audio changed from 5 or 10 years ago?
The changes seem to be picking up speed as digital audio continues to grow. Radio was always a pretty simple product, especially compared to digital. In just the past few years, we’ve seen audio explode into mobile and with it all kinds of new scenarios and formats to figure out. Podcasts, on-demand, Android, iOS, mobile web audio, in-app audio, background mode vs. foreground mode, etc. The infrastructure for both radio and traditional digital advertising is not really keeping pace. We need better tools and we need DAAST.
How have radio/audio advertisers changed in recent years, if at all?
Digital audio used to be a bit of a jump ball between radio and digital buyers, with neither side really wanting to lay claim to it (at least from my view). That’s changed – now it seems both want in, and badly. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.
What do you think are the most important trends in radio/audio today?
Choice. There’s so much more choice of quality audio content every single day… and more ways to listen to it, it’s staggering. And, the ability to scale a product to a massive audience in a tremendously short time, if you build it well.
How is mobile changing the radio industry?
The ubiquitous connection has made it possible for people to listen to whatever they want, whenever they want it. Publishers have to continually create compelling products to maintain share of ear in that environment. And the other huge trend is that much of that listening is happening while the phone is in background mode, which makes actionable advertising difficult.
Panelist Spotlight, Spotify: Brian Benedik
Panelist Spotlight, AdLarge Media: Cathy Csukas
Panelist Spotlight, XAPPmedia: Pat Higbie
Get your free ticket for AWXI
The panel will be held on September 30th on the Microsoft Stage in Times Square in New York City from 10:30-11:30am. XAPPmedia has a limited number of free tickets for our guests to attend the panel discussion. If you would like to reserve a free ticket to this Advertising Week event, please click the button below to register.
