Most people are familiar with the heart-stopping feeling of realizing they’ve just finished the last episode of their favorite show’s latest season—or, even worse, the series finale.

For years, superfans in this dire situation have turned to cast interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, fan fiction, and more to hold themselves over between seasons or until they find the next binge-worthy show.

• Now, they’re adding officially sanctioned podcasts about their favorite shows to that list. Streaming services are happy to provide them.
• “If [fans] are spending an hour watching Succession or Winning Time and they’re spending another 30–45 minutes with the Winning Time podcast, that’s some more time spent with the brand,” Becky Rho, director of production for HBO and HBO Max’s podcast team, told Marketing Brew. “It’s driving brand affinity.”

Big picture: There are a number of reasons why streaming services invest in these companion podcasts, but largely, it seems, they’re doing so to market their shows to their most dedicated audiences.

Can’t get enough

This superfan audience is a minority of viewers for most shows. Will Malnati, founder and CEO of podcast production studio At Will Media, which has worked with Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+ on companion podcasts, estimated that only about 1%–5% of a show’s audience will go searching for extra content.

These fans are typically scouring the internet on platforms like Reddit and Tumblr, and companion podcasts are “no different,” Malnati told us.

Click here to read more about why streamers are investing in companion podcasts.—AM

As the old adage goes, if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product—every decision is a small data point that’s collected, bought, and sold.

Now, the products—uh, the people—want a cut: Calling themselves data unions, crypto enthusiasts have started projects that give individuals payments in exchange for their data.

“Data unions are quite unique in the sense that you don’t necessarily need to know about crypto, you don’t need to know about how blockchain works. But, everyone has data—everyone has that as an asset that they can benefit from,” said Chloë Diamond, CMO of Swash, which calls itself a data union.

Zoom in: Swash, which raised $19 million from investors as of October, says it has roughly 250,000 users who have downloaded its browser extension, which collects data about users’ online browsing habits in addition to personal information like their age, gender, and household income.

• In exchange, Swash gives users a Swash token, currently valued at $.02229. Like with other crypto projects, the belief is that the more the token is adopted, the more the price will rise. Ultimately, Swash imagines selling this data—with user consent—to individual brands, agencies, or data marketplaces.
• Payments vary. Diamond told Marketing Brew that payouts have averaged “a few Swash per month,” with all members receiving an “equal distribution of tokens,” according to its site. But that is changing. Recently, she said Swash is updating its payment structure to ensure “active users receive more.”
• Still, she was vague. Despite decrying a lack of transparency in the data industry, Diamond didn’t say how much Swash members make per week in exchange for their data, besides pointing out that Swash had distributed roughly 1,078,580 tokens as of writing, according to their website.

Let’s do some math: Equally distributed across 250,000 members, that’s about 4.31 tokens per member. Multiplied by $.02229, that’s about nine cents.

Swash has already found one client for its data, an “insights” company that Diamond declined to name.

Paying people for their online data is not an original idea, but crypto enthusiasts hope Web3 will help the concept catch on. Read the full story here.—RB

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Inspo: Breaking down five aspects of a solid brand strategy.

Google: Here’s what the company unveiled at its annual advertising conference this week.

Learn: How NerdWallet used LinkedIn for recruiting purposes.

See who’s watching : Even as audience viewing habits evolve and content styles shift, Nielsen’s audience-first media measurement counts every view, everywhere. It’s accurate, it’s reliable, and it’s pretty darn essential. Learn more here.*

Get to know upfronts, back to front: Digital video and connected TV upfront spending is increasing, but in the digital age, how upfronts tick could be changing. Get an eye-opening look at the current—and future—world of upfronts in our latest video here.

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Are you one of the 83% of Marketing Brew readers planning to make a career change this year? Be sure to check out our Marketing Brew Job Board for 250+ new job openings!

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• SEO & Content Specialist at Screen Pilot
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Watch: A really cool billboard in Japan for the new Top Gun movie.

Quote: “You thought you had to wait forever to speak with a customer service representative? Facebook and Instagram serve nearly 3 billion users a day with a help desk that numbers closer to zero.”—The Wall Street Journal’s Kirsten Grind on Meta’s customer-service woes

Photos: C’mon, you know you wanna see Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville cruise ship.

Stat: The advertising industry drove $7.1 trillion in US sales and supported 28.5 million jobs in 2021, according to a study commissioned by the Advertising Coalition, a trade group that includes the 4A’s and ANA.

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• The 80s are back–at least in ad design
• A conversation with Najoh Tita-Reid, Logitech’s global CMO
• Shoppable ads keep coming–but do viewers want them?