The Interactive Advertising Bureau will bring together brands, agencies, and media buyers on Tuesday for the 2025 IAB Podcast Upfront.
Taking place in New York City, the event previews groundbreaking podcast programming, the latest advertising innovations, and how audio storytelling is redefining marketing, with the biggest audio and podcast leaders in tow.
“Look at podcasting as a medium in which you have these incredibly engaged, highly attentive people who are consuming an enormously varied amount of content,” Matt Shapo, director, digital audio and video, IAB, told ADWEEK.
According to Shapo, podcasting is in a “period of enormous flux,” creating several new opportunities for marketers trying to reach engaged audiences and capture the cultural zeitgeist. And the IAB Podcast Upfront is all about making brands a part of the conversation.
To preview the 2025 IAB Podcast Upfront, ADWEEK spoke with Shapo about what to expect, how audio and video podcasting are shaping marketing messages, and the next steps in podcasts delivering outcomes.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
ADWEEK: For those new to the podcasting industry, what is the 2025 IAB Podcast Upfront?
Shapo: The Upfront is about two things. It’s about new content or even existing shows that have some new content that presenters want people to know about. It’s also about how you can better prove the effectiveness of your advertising in this medium.
On the content side, we have several presenters who are going to come with the new shows that they have for the year. They’re going to come with different creators who can speak about some of the great new shows that they have. In many cases, they’re also talking about established shows and the incredible connections that those shows have built up with their audiences.
But then on the other side of the coin, you’re going to be hearing from people that not only speak about the power of the creators and the wonderful content coming out of these shows, but also about your ability to measure your effectiveness in the medium, how to find the audiences you’re looking for, how to build the incremental reach that you can find in podcasting, and really how you can plan for 2026 in a way that takes advantage of the extraordinary attention.