Rainer Mueller-Mueffelmann of BASF discusses its corporate podcast with WPF

BASF, headquartered in Germany, is the world’s leading chemical company with more than 150 production sites worldwide. In December 2006, the company launched two podcasts, under the lead of the corporate PR department.

The main reasons behind the podcast project were to develop new target groups, explore new ways in reaching the public, raise brand awareness, and convey the values of the BASF.

The process from conception to launch was rapid, taking only about 4 months, with the bilingual BASF podcast launching in April 2007 (see here and here).

The podcast team is headed by Rainer Mueller-Mueffelmann, the responsible editor, who controls the realization of the podcasts. First, the team conducts research about the topics, then the script is created. Appointments with interview partners are scheduled and the interviews are recorded. The content is new and unique for the podcast, not simply repackaged material.

BASF uses an external production company, and one of the hardest parts of launching the podcast series was to select the best one, as many production companies competed for the business.

The podcast is for external communication purposes and seeks to present interesting BASF topics to the public in an informative and entertaining manner. Two different topic channels are offered: “Chemistry of innovations” in which topics of research and development are covered. “The chemistry reporter", a weekly show, is more entertaining and responds to questions of our “chemistry” everyday life. The show has educational aspects, and listeners can send their questions to a dedicated email address.

A key focus of the podcast is to make BASF more transparent. BASF is a chemical products company. Some people have reservations about such companies and one of the purposes of the podcast is to show how BASF's heavy investment in R&D touches and improves people's lives.

In terms of promotion, the BASF podcast is advertised prominently on the company websites and is registered in places such as iTunes, podcast.de and podster.de.

Listener involvement and participation is important, and BASF maintains direct communication with its listeners via the dedicated email addresses

Philip Der Sahaguian, CNET country manager for France, Discusses Podcasting with WPF

Podcasting at CNET started in the US, and then expanded to France two years ago. As an Internet company, CNET knew it should not stick to written content, but rather needed to add audio and video, given the ability of the Internet to handle all types of content. This demonstrates the CNET vision. Internet is not just another media, but rather a revolution – one that changes the old media landscape. CNET believes that we will no longer talk about radio, television and publishing, but rather audio, video and text. As a result, CNET sites cover text, audio and video on each of its sites

CNET does not differentiate between podcast, video on demand or TV. It's all just content, with CNET trying to find the best way to bring content to its audience.

CNET first decided to create podcasts sensing that its audience would like it. It started with technology news in the US and the response was incredible. From day one, CNET had thousands of users subscribing every day - 20% of which new to CNET.

Internal barriers were few, as innovation is one of CNET's core values. The costs of producing podcasts was not a factor either, nor was there much consideration given to whether the acquisition costs for new users via podcasts was cheaper than other modes of communication. The focus was on delivering the best possible content. Money was secondary.

In France, CNET's podcast activity began with ZDNet and it has been a great success. ZDNet has 75 000 listeners to each episode, which focuses on news technology for companies rather than consumer electronics news.

Where will CNET be in 10 years? It will produce text content when text is most suitable. Subscription will remain a key factor as it allows getting a better qualification of the audience and people don't have problems with subscribing to things which provide them with value

The podcast business model? Clearly advertising, but today, companies, both advertisers and advertising agencies, are not there yet. Podcasting is not popular enough and the companies don't know how to position it in their media mix - is it radio money or Internet money? So today, the ZDNet weekly podcast follows the sponsorship model and the fee charged is enough for ZDNet to cover expenses and show a profit for the activity.

At CNET we think that 2008 will be the year video advertising on the Internet takes off. Video will become a traditional format with good contents and the right context.

IMPALA project discusses higher education podcasting with WPF

Clearly, education is a major niche for podcasting. Podcasting is flourishing in universities and education-related businesses. Driving this is the fact that many of us find ourselves in educational institutions many years, as well as involved in other types of educational experiences. In Italy's iTunes, in number two is a series of professionally-produced historical lectures, with number 4 being a series of Philosophy Lectures. In China, a few of the top twenty podcasts are educational as well, including Lets Learn English.

Universities are proving to be an especially innovative environment for podcasting. With large numbers of students owning mobile media devices, content-rich schools, and innovative teachers and administration, higher education institutes are busy exploring whether and in what form podcasting can add value to the learning experience.

Of the many university projects taking place around the world, the IMPALA project, initiated by the University of Leicester in the UK stands out as being relatively large scale and comprehensive. It has also been run in several academic institutions for quite some time.

Of the several goals of IMPALA, two stand out:

1. Many students own and regularly use iPods and other MP3 devices for entertainment. Would these users be willing to consume educational, non-entertainment content if make available?
2. What are the models for using podcasting within institutions of higher education?

As is not surprising, the university community embraced the project with a passion. Benefiting from the youthful community orientation of the iPod, an innovative environment, good content and audio files being a pleasurable informal experience, the project caught on. Initially one university, the project grew to include several, with hundreds of students, across a diverse range of disciplines, utilizing the new tool and services.

The initial measurables were obtained. Podcast services had a clear positive impact on student retention rates, better test outcomes and student active involvement. Teacher-student relationships were also improved.

Tom Hall of Lonely Planet Discusses its Travel Podcast with WPF

As someone who has traveled a far share in the third world using Lonely Planet travel guides, the idea of an LP podcast sounds great. As country travel guides get updated only once every year or so, podcasting seems like a great way to get updated real-time information to the traveler. Right?

LP has always been tech-savvy, and has looked for ways to leverage its website and on-line communities to enhance user-experience and its business.

Back in May 2005, seeing that podcasting was growing in popularity, the on-line team of LP decided to experiment with bringing the sites and sounds of travel to listeners via a podcast. The first podcast was launched in September 2005 and covered St. Petersburg Russia.

By the second episode, the LP podcast shot up the iTunes charts, catching the team by surprise. But it became immediately clear that while innovation was nice, success required a higher commitment to professionalism in order to attract the user: compelling and suitable content, recording equipment, editing, etc. Working out the correct working relationships with the writers/contributors (who does what) took time as well.

Today, LP employs personnel dedicated to podcasting, whose role is to select stories and commission/handle author relations.

Is podcasting here to stay at LP? One of the barriers that podcasting must overcome is the text-orientation of LP and its customers. LP, like newspapers and other publications, sell text. Thus a major hurdle to overcome is "we sell text so why do audio?" Equally important, travelers use books, and text is more convenient than audio in most travel scenarios.

Thus the key is identifying the scenarios where podcasting is compelling to travelers, and how podcasting can complement LP's business, not replace it. And judging by LP's ability to release great podcasts since 2005, LP has found the sweet spot.

Phil Filleul of Sun Microsystems Discusses its Innovative MiFID Podcast with WPF

The Sun MiFID podcast is one of my favorites. Not because I enjoy listening to it, as it is targeted to a very specific group – business and IT management of banks. Not because the subject matter might interest the general public, as the podcast consists of interviews of bank managers and analysts on the subject of MiFID – a controversial and technical new Banking regulation which European banks must comply with later this year.

However, the innovative way in which podcasting is used has turned the MiFID podcast into an industry standard show, and produced significant direct and indirect ROI for the company behind the podcast - Sun Microsystems. Sun and its MiFID product line are leveraging the podcast to win many multi-million Euro MiFID deals in a very competitive environment.

At Sun, there was and is no corporate podcast or corporate podcast policy. Rather, it was an innovative third party vendor and Phil Filleul of Sun's MiFID product line that initiated the activity with a specific opportunity in mind.

Looking for ways to create quality leads for its MiFID solution, the MiFID marketing division employed several tools and had a budget for generate leads. A creative vendor pitched an interesting idea - rather than use "cold-call" marketing, why not create a MiFID interview-via-podcast series focusing on the controversies and views relating to the new regulation. The target interviewees - decision makers at the major banks who are also the decision makers in the buying process. The goal - use the interview as a way to create quality leads, gain valuable insight into customers, and position Sun as the best supplier.

Time to market was rapid, as the team was wise to identify and comply with internal policies, and use already-available budgets. Also, in order to gain credibility, it was crucial to position the podcast-series as vendor-neutral, and not just a Sun sales tool. Getting the first one or two interviews was a bit difficult, but very quickly the idea quickly caught on in the industry, with high-level management and analysts most willing to be interviewed for a podcast listened to by the industry.

The results by any measurable target were great: cost per lead, cost per quality lead, accumulate valuable customer insights and thoughts, and position Sun's solution as innovative – all this while having fun as well.

Alcatel-Lucent's Pascal Roobrouck talks to WPF about why it podcasts

Alcatel-Lucent is a multinational corporation, and Alcatel-Lucent University ("ALU") is the corporate training center, responsible for technology-supported learning. ALU uses a wide variety of e-learning tools, yet for the last year has been using podcasting to a greater degree.

There were several reasons why ALU started to look at podcasting. First, internal podcast trials demonstrated that audio provided the user with a very pleasant experience. Audio did not require the user to read text, and user feedback demonstrated that users preferred listening to reading. Also, audio training did not require the same exclusive focus that video did. People could listen to audio training, and do other things, something not possible with video. Finally, and equally as important, audio content was much easier and cheaper to produce than video.

As the podcasts were for internal use, APU encountered relatively few internal hurdles. The main initial effort was simply to define what content was suitable for the company and how to format the podcast to get people to listen to it.

After conducting various brainstorm sessions, ALU decided to start podcasting in Belgium, the country where the podcast activity started, and in Dutch, the language spoken by 1400 of the 1800 employees. Among the key topics that ALU decided to focus on were things like how to make people more aware of the company - its markets, business and products. Other issues involved improving productivity. Finally, a crucial part of the planning was how to make the podcast enjoyable so that people would listen to it. Here, ALU decided to make the podcasts somewhat underground, not following the generic "company line", as did other communication tools such as the company newsletters.

The results? Very good. More than 50% of the Dutch-speaking audience are downloading the podcast. And when management started relying on information they received in the podcast, word got out that the podcast was indeed a valuable and popular tool.

Can ALU justify podcasting in terms of ROI? Many more people are accessing the podcast than the traditional material, and the cost of producing podcasts is much less. So the answer is yes. And with core product-divisions now asking for English podcasts for their employees around the globe, it seems podcasting is indeed catching on.

The Guardian discusses Podcasting with WPF

An interview with Guardian Unlimited's Neil McIntosh

Talk about getting off on the right foot. The Guardian's first exposure to podcasting in late 2005 was hooking up with Ricky Gervais, which propelled it to first place in iTunes, and brought great exposure to the newspaper and website.

There were several reasons that promoted the Guardian to the podcast domain in earnest. First, readers wanted audio programs and were gradually subscribing to broadband internet, thus enabling them to download the programs. Second, the Guardian realized that they had much of the talent and resources required, with broadcast-experienced journalists around the world who regularly appeared on television and radio.

Persuading the company to enter the domain was not easy. First, being traditionally a text and image based entity, getting management to “do audio” was not simple. Also, BBC cast an imposing shadow, with skeptics at the Guardian questioning the rational, given BBC’s ability to flood the market with audio content. The Guardian took the leap. The decision was slightly easier due to the fact that it is not a purely for-profit company. Owned by Scotts Trust, the Guardian is able to experiment with new ideas, without having “the strict bottom line” serve as the ultimate veto early one.

The results have been very positive, have far exceeded the business case in terms of revenue and profitability. Good news for the Guardian and the industry.

What are the factors behind the success? Most important, develop talent internally. The Guardian did not “throw money at outside third parties”, but rather developed the talent internally. Its podcast team consists of a devoted group of producers and editors who have learned from experience what it takes to produce engaging shows. The Guardian does, however, use an external podcast production company for one of its podcasts.

Is the content unique for the podcasts? In most cases, the content is used in text format for the newspaper and website. However, the podcast can provide much greater detail than is possible in the newspaper and website, where space is limited. Also, the Guardian does produce some podcast-only content, such as the Islamophonic podcast.

How does the Guardian see the future of podcasting? Clearly in the mobile section. To get away from the geek factor and reach the mass market, the Guardian believes that mobile podcasting in crucial.

Monte Silver