Brands no longer want a shoutout. They want a starring role.
For most of podcasting’s commercial life, the ad read was the business model. A host paused the conversation, delivered 60 seconds about a mattress or a meal kit, and went back to the show. That format still pays the bills, but the bigger checks are going somewhere else.
When Pepsi wanted to build buzz around its Super Bowl commercial this year, it did not settle for a mid-roll on This Past Weekend with Theo Von. The brand sent its polar bear mascot onto Von’s set, where the two played a game of this-or-that until the bear named Pepsi Zero Sugar its favorite soda. Von posted the segment to his social channels, and so did Pepsi.
“Something like that is what we consider custom,” said Catherine Browne, Vice President of Revenue and Partnerships at Podium, the video-first podcast network that worked on the campaign. “It’s above and beyond just a standard 60-second ad read.”
Podium’s roster, which includes Von, Trisha Paytas
Podium’s roster, which includes Von, Trisha Paytas and The Yard, reaches more than 50 million monthly video and audio impressions, according to the company. Browne and Ellie Andrews, Podium’s director of media strategy and operations, described a shift I call the integration premium: the more a show behaves like a media company instead of an audio feed, the more ways a brand can pay to be part of it.
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Video drives discovery
The money is following the audience. Podcast ad revenue reached $2.9 billion in 2025, up 17.6 percent from the year before, according to IAB’s latest Internet Advertising Revenue Report. YouTube has said that more than one billion people watch podcast content on its platform every month.
Andrews treats video as the front door. Audio apps make it hard for new listeners to find a show, she explained, while Shorts, Reels and TikTok clips put a host in front of people who never searched for them. Browne pointed to The Hidden Third with Mariana van Zeller, a show Podium helped launch in October 2025, which drew most of its discovery from YouTube Shorts.
Those clips also expand what a sponsor can buy. “We can take a cut down from the episode with the product placement and blow that up across those socials,” Andrews said. A mid-roll that once lived inside one episode can now travel to every platform where the show has fans.
