--- title: AUDIO IS NO LONGER THE FINISH LINE. IT'S THE STARTING LINE. description: Discover why audio is the starting point for impactful marketing campaigns, emphasising integrated consumer journeys over traditional metrics for lasting brand recall. image: https://content.sport-social.co.uk/hubfs/AdobeStock_324173020.jpeg --- [![Sport Social Podcast Network](https://content.sport-social.co.uk/hubfs/SSPN_August2024%20Theme/SSPN-logo-white-2.svg "Sport Social Podcast Network")](https://sport-social.co.uk) [![Sport Social Podcast Network](https://content.sport-social.co.uk/hubfs/SSPN_August2024%20Theme/SSPN-logo-white-2.svg "Sport Social Podcast Network")](https://sport-social.co.uk) - [For Rights Holders](https://sport-social.co.uk/for-rights-holders/) - [For Podcasters](https://sport-social.co.uk/for-podcasters/) - [For Advertisers](https://sport-social.co.uk/for-advertisers/) - [News](https://content.sport-social.co.uk/blog) - [Academy](https://sport-social.co.uk/academy/) - [About](https://sport-social.co.uk/about/) - [Talk to us](https://sport-social.co.uk/talk-to-us/) [Listen Now](https://app.sport-social.co.uk) [Listen Now](https://app.sport-social.co.uk) ![AUDIO IS NO LONGER THE FINISH LINE. IT'S THE STARTING LINE.](https://content.sport-social.co.uk/hubfs/AdobeStock_324173020.jpeg) # AUDIO IS NO LONGER THE FINISH LINE. IT'S THE STARTING LINE. - Home - [Sport Social Podcast Network](https://content.sport-social.co.uk/blog) - AUDIO IS NO LONGER THE FINISH LINE. IT'S THE STARTING LINE. [Paul Swaine](https://content.sport-social.co.uk/blog/author/paul-swaine) 07/14/2026 [Opinion](https://content.sport-social.co.uk/blog/tag/opinion) [0 Comments](https://content.sport-social.co.uk/blog/why-audio-is-now-the-starting-line.-not-the-finish-line#postComment) 3 Minutes *A Point of View by Sport Social’s Brand Partnerships Director Paul Swaine* We’ve won the argument. Podcasts do work, and we don’t need another article telling us why. After more than seven years building podcast partnerships, I’ve realised we’re asking the wrong question. The question isn’t whether podcasts work, it’s whether anyone will remember your campaign. Because podcast advertising shouldn’t just be bought as standard media; it should be built and developed as listener journeys and experiences. Too often, podcast campaigns are bought in pieces. Audio has its budget, social has another, video sits somewhere else, events are handled by another team, and PR has different objectives again… and so on (you agree, right?). Everyone optimises their own channel with their own budget, while the consumer only ever sees one brand. Consumers don’t experience marketing in silos. Nobody wakes up thinking, “Today, I’m going to experience a media plan.” They simply experience a brand. That’s why I don’t believe podcasts should be bought like traditional media. Imagine a football fan (because we are Sport Social!). On Monday morning, they hear a host-read ad on their favourite podcast. On Tuesday, they watch the extended interview on YouTube and see branded studios. By Wednesday, they’re seeing branded clips on TikTok and sharing them with friends. On Friday, they’re entering a competition to win a prize, thanks to a brand. By Saturday, they’re at a live show event, branding everywhere. And then on Sunday, they’re posting photos and creating content of their own… with the brand included! That isn’t six marketing channels. That’s one connected consumer journey. They don’t know which budget paid for it; they only remember how it made them feel. Of course, everything we do is measured. And we consistently see that the most successful campaigns aren’t the ones confined to a single channel, they’re the ones that connect across them. When brands lean into a more integrated approach, we see stronger engagement, longer-term brand recall, and ultimately better commercial outcomes. At Sport Social, we still measure CPM (and we should). But CPM tells us what media costs. It doesn’t tell us what people remember. Maybe it’s time we started valuing something else alongside it. Memory Per Impression (MPI)… (I might trademark this!) I’m not saying this replaces CPM (obviously), but it’s a reminder that the campaigns people remember are rarely the ones that simply reached the most people, they’re the ones that gave consumers something worth talking about. Over the last few years, I’ve found myself asking the same question every time a brief lands in my inbox: how do we turn a listener into an advocate for that brand? That question eventually became a personal framework of mine, and it’s one I’m passionate about and use in all our Creative Ideas Lab sessions at Sport Social. (I even named it!) ###### **Paul’s Partnership Pyramid (6 levels):** **AUDIO** Capture attention. Build trust. **VIDEO** Deepen the story, be seen. **SOCIAL** Start conversations. Create shareable moments. **TALENT** Build authenticity and genuine connection through influencers and personalities. **EXPERIENCE** Create memories that live beyond the original episode, through live shows and experiential opportunities. **ADVOCACY** Keep people talking, sharing, and recommending. To me, that’s what a fully integrated partnership looks and sounds like, and it’s why I love what I do. Every brief we receive at Sport Social usually starts with the same questions: what’s the reach? How many downloads? What’s the CPM? What’s the ROI? They’re all valid questions (some a bit dated, some required), but perhaps one matters even more: will anyone still be talking about this campaign and brand six months from now? Brands don’t always need more impressions, they need more moments and more opportunities to engage. Because the next generation of podcast partnerships won’t be judged by how many people heard them; they’ll be judged by how many people talked about them afterwards, and what they did because of it. (There’s your ROI.) One of my recent partnerships started with a host-read ad campaign; a brand dipping its toes into podcasting. They quickly realised how creative we can be in this space and increased spend into a long-term partnership, even pulling budget from three different departments once they saw the full range of channels we could unlock. It evolved into a fully layered collaboration, including audio podcast sponsorship, YouTube baked-in content (co-branded studios), shareable social-first edits, branded content segments, and even live event integration. That partnership taught me something. The podcast wasn’t the main campaign, it was the catalyst. Everything that followed was what people actually remembered and engaged with. It reinforced something I’ve been thinking for years. I’ve been fortunate enough to work on hundreds of podcast campaigns over the last seven years, and the ones I remember aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets or even the highest download numbers. They’re the ones where a brand became part of the story and the content, where the campaign escaped the audio, entered the real world, and took on a life of its own. Perhaps that’s what Memory Per Impression really looks like. So maybe it’s time we stop planning around channels and start planning around consumers and their full journey. Because consumers don’t remember media plans, they remember experiences. That’s why I believe audio is no longer the finish line. It’s the starting line, because the best podcast partnerships don’t end when someone presses stop. They begin there. **Additional Information:** Paul Swaine is Brand Partnerships Director at Sport Social, where he helps brands build integrated partnerships across audio, video, social, talent and live experiences. With 23 years experience in audio partnerships, he's passionate about creating campaigns that people remember, and not just campaigns that people hear. 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