Polecat's Place in the Changing Media Landscape

At Polecat, we are working hard to stay ahead of the way the media landscape is changing. Today, we held an in-office event and hosted a wide-range of our clients, from Target to ASML . The goal of the event was to build upon our principles of partnership and collaboration with the event ending in a group discussion of what everyone had learned that morning and how Polecat can continue to evolve to address the changing needs of those involved in the corporate sector.

During the event, Polecat’s incoming Gen Z, Communications Specialists walked guests through using PolecatX to understand the changing media landscape. Kirsty Aldous-Wilson presented on the recent collaboration between Adidas and Oasis. In the past, Adidas has faced controversy for their partnership with Kanye West. Despite an arguably tumultuous celebrity partnership, Adidas has nevertheless collaborated with Oasis – a band not unfamiliar with criticisms and controversies. What Kirsty showed us, however, is that Adidas somehow positively benefited from the collaboration.

After demonstrating PolecatX’s capabilities for measuring and understanding the potential risks and benefits of celebrity and influencer endorsements and collaboration, Yasmin Crowther – our Chief Insight Officer – moved to the growing popularity of podcasts.

Credit: Reuters

What the above slides shows us is that generations are differ in not only how they get their news, but also which news they trust. For example, younger groups are less likely to access news through websites/ apps and are more likely to digest news through podcasts. As Yasmin put it, younger generations (particularly Gen Z) are looking “laterally” for information – both informal and formal, while older generations often looked above them for how to think about the world because "the heirarchy has failed them."

In the month preceding the 2024 U.S. presidential election, both presidential candidates went on podcasts: Call Her Daddy hosted Kamala Harris and The Joe Rogan Experience hosted Donald J. Trump – highlighting each podcasts’ different viewer base and political standing. What insights can we pull?

The Insight: Despite initial pushback from Call Her Daddy fans, Alex Cooper (host) and Kamala Harris both benefitted from the collaboration.

The above left graph shows Gen Z and millennial perception of Kamala Harris before and after her Call Her Daddy podcast episode. The graph on the right shows overall sentiment of Call Her Daddy and Alex Cooper, it’s host. The podcast episode came out on October 6th and PolecatX shows an uptick in overall sentiment among Gen Z and millennial perceptions of Kamala Harris. While Alex Cooper and the podcast suffered a slight decrease in overall sentiment, both lines ultimately began to increase again – pointing to the strength of Cooper’s values of female autonomy and empowerment.

The Takeaway: Understanding the cultural landscape is harder than ever with generations getting news sources from all types of sources, and with younger generations doubting traditional news sources all together. Moreover, the state of popular podcasting reflects the polarized nature of our society today with presidential candidates being more-than-mindful about which podcasts they choose to associate themselves. Lastly, the immediate change in sentiment caught by PolecatX reflects how quickly public discourse can shift. Overall, though, Polecat is proud to say that we can catch these things immediately.

Not only are Polecat’s tools consistently analyzing new data points from a variety of channels and sources, but we can also bring these conversation shifts straight to your inbox. Polecat’s platform can send you daily, weekly, monthly news briefs with major, relevant headlines straight to you so you can easily stay on top of your risks and reputation.

Curious to learn how? Book a demo here: https://lnkd.in/dGiqf_hR