You heard it at Podcast Upfronts. You heard it at Advertising Week. Podcasting isn’t just for white men anymore.

Listenership among one demographic in particular is on the rise, according to a recent Edison Research report commissioned by Adonde Media, LWC Studios, Libsyn, PRX, and SXM Media.

About three in five (59%) US Latino adults have listened to a podcast at least once, up from 45% in 2020 and 56% in 2021. Roughly one in three (34%) had listened to a podcast in the last month.

The report also found that Latino listeners who said they’ve listened to a podcast in the last month are engaged with the ads they hear:

• 55% said they’ve made a purchase as a result of hearing a podcast sponsorship or ad
• 52% said they’ve used promo codes they heard on a podcast
• 66% have recommended a product to friends and family after hearing about it on a podcast

But are advertisers sold on monetizing these audiences? Podcast execs and ad buyers told Marketing Brew that conversations (and money) are moving in the right direction, but there’s still work to be done.

Keep reading here.—AM

Chances are, you’re wearing plastic on your body right now, whether you know it or not: The UN Environment Programme estimates that about 60% of the material used in clothing is plastic and thus derived from fossil fuels—from polyester to acrylic to nylon.

Elliott Starr, head of copy at ad agency 20something, told Marketing Brew that he had no idea about the connection between clothing and fossil fuels until he spoke with The Woolmark Company, a not-for-profit that works with Australian woolgrowers to certify Australian wool.

• “The client told us that effectively, synthetic fabrics are plastics…and plastics are fossil fuels,” Starr said. “That just blew me away. I’d never kind of connected those dots. And I thought, ‘Well, if I’ve got a bit of an interest in sustainable fashion and I had never made those connections, I know that the average person definitely hasn’t done that.”
• In thinking about how to visualize how much oil goes into making clothing, Starr said he wondered how many Olympic-sized pools it would fill each day. The result, which he found to be one pool every 25 minutes, was the basis for Woolmark’s “Wear Wool, Not Fossil Fuel” campaign.

We spoke with 20something, production company Park Village, and creative studio Studio Birthplace about what went into the campaign, which shows people essentially swimming in a pool full of oil. Keep reading here.—KH

With Halloween over and Black Friday just weeks away, Retail Brew’s Katishi Maake recently dug into how major discounting events from earlier this year—like Prime Day and Target Deal Days—could offer insight into how consumers will approach holiday shopping this year.

Read a snippet below or click here for the full read.

Hugh Fletcher, global marketing director and thought leadership lead at Wunderman Thompson Commerce, believes companies will have to work much harder to encourage Black Friday spend, but the pressure felt by brands, retailers, and marketplaces doesn’t come without a potential opportunity.

While overall per person Black Friday spend is expected to drop up to 50% this year, more than three quarters (76%) of shoppers say their proportion of online spend will increase this year as they look for the best deals, range, speed, and convenience offered by large-scale marketplaces like Amazon and eBay.

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

Make it work: TikTok has worked with the likes of Nielsen and Kantar in an attempt to show the effectiveness of ads on its platform.

Half and half: Some tips on balancing content marketing with SEO objectives live here.

1, 2, 3, 4: How to build a complete social media strategy in four easy steps.

In 2022, building a smart city is no longer just about who can produce the most ambitious technological vision. Instead, it’s about something much more logical: How tech can help fulfill the needs of city residents.

And those needs are significant. From making transportation more efficient to improving food security to maintaining a city’s sewers, officials have their work cut out for them. Tech can help with this work, but it can also serve as a distraction. It’s up to city officials to parse those distinctions.

To explore how cities and companies are trying to fit tech into the vibrant, complex, and human world of urban life, Emerging Tech Brew produced an interactive package covering everything from robotaxis to vertical farms.

Click here to check out the interactive and learn about what it means to build a smart city in 2022.

Quote: “Should Mr. Musk choose to remain a participant and provocateur on Twitter, it’s likely the platform is headed deeper into the world of toxicity and partisanship. If that happens, Twitter is doomed, from the perspective of advertising revenue,”—Rob Norman, a former WPP executive, in a New York Times op-ed on why advertisers are nervous about Twitter’s new leadership

Read: Candy corn has a PR problem, according to the Washington Post. The solution? Create flavors including funfetti, s’mores, and hamburger.

Stat: $20 $8. The new monthly cost of Twitter Blue, maybe. That’s pricier than Netflix’s ad-supported plan.

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

• The space industry is gravitating toward podcast advertising
• As Netflix dives into advertising, media buyers watch the clock
• Audiences say advertisers shouldn’t avoid hard news