BBC Studios has reported a 45% increase in brand awareness among high earners from a World Cup travel podcast advertising campaign in the United States.
The campaign was created for a hospitality brand targeting football fans planning travel, accommodation and group trips around the upcoming World Cup.
BBC Studios worked with NumberEight, Barometer and Veritonic to expand campaign reach beyond a small number of football podcasts while maintaining brand suitability controls and independent measurement.
The strategy used NumberEight’s interest based Football World Cup Fans audience and podcast lookalikes built from selected BBC football podcasts to identify relevant listeners across a wider range of shows and genres.
Barometer provided bespoke suitability controls to guide podcast placements, while Veritonic measured brand lift among exposed audiences. Four creative versions rotated during the campaign.
The campaign recorded a 45% uplift in awareness among high earners, rising from 44% to 64%.
Awareness among parents increased by 28%, from 39% to 50%, while overall awareness rose by 19%, from 37% to 44%.
The companies said the results reflect wider findings from the Global Podcast Advertising Compass 2025 report, which identified travel as one of podcasting’s larger advertising categories and sport as a strong podcast genre among male listeners globally.
Alanna Vaughns, Revenue Partnerships Lead, Audio at BBC Studios, said: “This campaign shows what podcast advertising can achieve when strong content and the right partners come together around a clear brief.
“Starting with our BBC football titles, we expanded to relevant audiences across a much wider set of podcasts with the right audience strategy, suitability and measurement.”
Abhishek Sen, CEO and Co-Founder at NumberEight, said the campaign demonstrated how brands can scale podcast campaigns “while maintaining accuracy and privacy”.
Tamara Zubatiy Nelson, Co-Founder and CEO of Barometer, said podcast suitability should focus on “understanding context” rather than “blunt exclusions”.
Scott Simonelli, CEO and Founder of Veritonic, said the campaign showed the value of “clear, independent brand impact data”.
