Keyword feature released for podcast advertisers

A new keyword advertising feature could open up the world of podcast advertising to marketers. The feature, from Wizzard Media, will act much like typical keyword features for paid search campaigns.

by Kristina Knight

Wizzard is a podcast hosting hub. In March the company distributed its 70 millionth podcast; the company showed growth of more than 50% in Q1 2007.

"The audience for audio and video podcasts is growing substantially as more consumers become aware of the vast array of high quality, free content available not only to iPod owners but to anyone with a computer or MP3 player," said Chris Spencer, CEO of Wizzard.

The keyword feature will offer national advertisers and ad agencies the ability to easily advertise products by contextually targeting them to podcasts. The application uses speech-to-text functionality to target ads with relevant content. It can also be used to keep ad messages from appearing with "questionable" content - that which includes sex, drugs or illicit behaviors.

Jim Else, the head of Wizzard's Media unit said (via MediaPost), "What the keyword technology does, is allow us to identify words or clusters of words in podcasts that match the key words that are contextually relevant to an advertiser."

The ads can then be placed within podcasts, as sponsorship of specific podcasts or podcasters can plug the product within the 'cast.

Wizzard isn't the only ad hub offering keyword functionality to rich media platforms. Earlier this week Blinkx announced a platform that will contextually target ads to streaming video through a similar speech-to-text program.