How Wine Enthusiast Found a New Audience with a Niche Podcast
Wine Enthusiast Magazine Vice President of Content, Dara Kapoor talks about the success story behind the podcast , “Vinfamous.” Part true-crime, part history, and part wine-world inside baseball, “Vinfamous” rose to the top of the crowded food podcast market by borrowing successful storytelling tactics from other parts of the industry. Wine Enthusiast doubled down on the unique content formula with strategic marketing efforts like cross-promotion and targeted giveaways, and in the process, managed to tap in to a huge new engaged audience.
TRANSCRIPT
Dara Kapoor: You know the days of scale are gone. I mean, to get that Super Bowl ad is… Sure, 1% of companies might be able to get that kind of reach. But it's actually great to get a more concentrated, focused audience because the people that you're attracting are more likely to stay with you and engage with you than if you hit this mass scale of people who are kind of one-and-done with you. And that's just not going to create a sustainable media brand any more.
Jesse Roesler: Greetings and welcome to “Content That Moves,” the podcast from Credo NonFiction and BrandStorytelling that pulls back the curtain on how the very best in brand storytelling is being created, distributed and measured. I'm your host Jesse Roesler, founder of Credo NonFiction where we partner with brands to find and tell stories that reveal brand purpose and deepen brand meaning through short and feature length documentaries or episodic series. Visit CredoNonFiction.com to learn how we can help you create real, moving stories for your brand.
This podcast is co-produced by BrandStorytelling, bringing you the latest news, trends, and insights in branded content with top of industry events and in-depth industry coverage online. BrandStorytelling encourages a higher level of collaboration amongst advertisers, agencies, media partners, and creators in pursuit of a richer media environment. For more of the latest in the world of branded content, or to explore event offerings visit BrandStorytelling.TV today.
On today’s episode, Vice President of Content at Wine Enthusiast, Dara Kapoor, discusses how the media brand utilized the popular genre of the crime podcast to create a niche show for Wine Enthusiast and how the show titled “Vinfamous” is helping the brand grow their audience as a combined content and commerce business.
Dara, I'm thrilled to have you here today being a lowercase wine enthusiast or a “cork dork” as some call it. I found your new podcast “Vinfamous” so compelling. It's like part true crime, part history lesson, part I dunno if you know the show “Ripley's Believe It Or Not.” This stuff is is great. I love the history aspect of it. But it's all about wine and it's so much fun. So congrats.
Dara Kapoor: Thank you so much. It's such an honor to be here. And I love “cork dork.” We have this whole way we segment our audience, the way we look at our groups of audience, and “cork dork” is not on the list and I might have to steal it. But we do have “bottle Aristotle.”
Jesse Roesler: Ooh I haven't heard that one.
Dara Kapoor: I'll raise you that!
Jesse Roesler: Oh man, I'm gonna use that one!
Well I want to dig really deeply into “Vinfamous” but first I'd love to get a greater understanding of Wine Enthusiast. I think so many of us see the score on the bottle, the Wine Enthusiast score. Or maybe we know the publication. But there's a shop, there's a retail component, there's a content component. Can you give us the 50,000 foot view of what the entity all entails and then how you show up within that?
Dara Kapoor: Absolutely. So we started as a commerce brand about 44 years ago. And the mission of that brand was to make wine accessible for people who enjoyed it. And believe it or not, back in the 80’s we couldn't even find a corkscrew. It wasn't as common as it is now. So our founders Adam and Sybil Strum, decided, “Let's create a catalog where we can sell wine accessories to the general public.” And it was brilliant. It took off. And then a few years afterward, they started the magazine Wine Enthusiast. And that's where you're probably very familiar with our ratings and reviews program. So what we found in these decades of business is that some consumers only either knew us as commerce, or they knew us as media. They didn't know we were everything. So in the past year, we decided to unite both brands. Magazine was living on winemag.com and commerce was living on wineenthusiast com.
We decided to make the scary decision to put all winemag content on wineenthusiast and really create an ecosystem where commerce and content content live together. And that's very scary for old-school journalists trained in those ways of church versus state. And we're not here to sell things. And really my role was to help that transition – make sure we had the right people in place who understood what we had to do to make this company as a whole survive in the long term. And if you look at where the media company, not company, where the media industry is going it's very challenging. We no longer can rely solely on advertising revenue. We have to diversify our revenue streams. And I have to say Wine Enthusiast has been ahead of the curve for the past 40 years on all of this, which makes it a thrill and an honor for me to be at the helm and part of the team making these changes.
Jesse Roesler: Well it might've been a scary move, but it seems like a genius move the way everything is going in media. I mean why not have that live together? And all the brands are talking about when they're making content, they're like, “We need to build the ecosystem around it.” And by merging you kind of have that. It becomes like a one-stop-shop.
Dara Kapoor: A thousand percent. And you know I've worked at many different media brands in my career, and affiliate revenue, us as a media brand promoting things like Amazon links or other retailer links is a big source of revenue for these media brands. But we already have the goods. We make wine cellars, we make cork screws, we partner with other brands to distribute wine accessories, wine racking, all of these things. And our margins on that are better because they're ours. Instead of getting pennies on the dollar for what business you send elsewhere. So I also agree that it's brilliant. I'm a little bit biased but I think it's genius.
Jesse Roesler: Well, I think you were probably missing out on so much potential cross-pollination prior to bringing it together. One side would feed one side, and the other side would feed the other, like back and forth we go right?
Dara Kapoor: A thousand percent. And now we're finding synergies for our clients too on the advertising side. So on the media side we publish our magazine, our editorial magazine. We also publish a catalog. And in that catalog, are these beautiful multi-thousand dollar level wine cellars, and what bottles are featured in those wine cellars for that photography? So we're finding synergies every single day that you couldn't even pre-think they're just appearing just in the natural evolution of the unification. And it just proves itself daily to be the smartest move we've made.
Jesse Roesler: Absolutely. I mean and to your church and state comment, I think we're finding so many brands are hiring journalists to make the content that they're putting out so that they do still have that journalistic rigor. So I don't think it's, it's not one or the other. You can have those things live together but still keep the journalistic rigor.
Dara Kapoor: Oh a thousand percent. So the interesting thing about my job is that the copywriter, the copy director on the commerce side reports into me. So when she's generating content that promotes our products, I have to train her — and she's brilliant and she's doing a great job of it — on how to structure that content so that it reads like any other journalistic article. Readers will respect the fact that you're hawking your own things per se if you are upfront about it and honest and resourceful about how you present it. There is marketing content that reads like an ad. And that will lose a reader's attention immediately. They're just like “You're an ad. Goodbye. Why should I pay attention to you?” But what we try to do is lean into the service element which we know, just looking at our media numbers, that people who have questions around the wine basics: how to swirl, why to swirl, wine glasses, how to open a champagne bottle, things that the wine connoisseur might find very rudimentary, we're all about being accessible and answering those questions.
We find that by incorporating our product into the queries and the education part of it is a win-win. We're still doing interviews, we're sourcing, we're getting expertise, we're giving service. And then we're saying “Hey here's a related product,” or “Here's why you should pay attention to the storage of your wine. Why the temperature matters. Why the space on the wine racks in your shelves matter.” All of these things. I think about when I was being trained early on in media and my mentor at the time was the editor-in-chief of a magazine and she said to me, “You always have to consider the reader first. No matter what you do, consider the reader.” And I have taken that with me throughout my career. And it's the same today. Whether you're somebody who is going to buy a wine cellar from us, or you're going to read content, or listen to a podcast from us, I as the content creator have to create value for you first. It's not about promoting me as a brand, it's about how can I service you? And with that tactic we are really just growing and winning and excelling with this newly unified ecosystem. And it's truly I'm so excited about it.
Jesse Roesler: That's awesome. And you might even be able to add, not even just think about the reader first, but I imagine, your reader. I've done a fair amount of work with brand studios of other publications and one example is Washington Post their creative group. It's native advertising but it's held to their editorial standards, and their journalism. They know their reader and they know that if the language looks like something that wouldn't be on just the editorial side people are going to not engage with it. So that's so important I think.
Dara Kapoor: And we've been doing that too. That's another good point you bring up is we do have we do create sponsored content for our clients too. And the big challenge there creatively has been to introduce myself and my team to our clients who have been with us for many years and trust in what we're able to deliver for them and say “Hey you know what? We have all these insights on our audiences and how they respond to content across our distribution outlets. Let us help you, help yourselves by crafting that message, packaging it the right way so that it's not ignored.” We will always be transparent. Obviously, you have to be and you want to be, because again, it's about the reader first. It's about building that trust and that authority in your brand.
Be transparent, but make it enjoyable because it's sponsored does not have to make it a throwaway piece of content if you will. And I firmly believe that. And I do that in my work day-in and day-out. Always trying to please the client who's very adamant about what they want and trying to help them see that if they work with us in a more of a collaboration rather than just using us as a distribution outlet, they're going to get a higher ROI. We want to help each other. Yeah. Because we love this industry so much and that's the point. But I'm telling you 20 years ago in media, to hear an editor, a head of content brainstorming with sales and finding synergies would've been sacrilegious. So I can tell you it's not always easy from a managerial standpoint to get people on this side but you find newer generations of media creators have that more open mindset. But yeah it's always a line you have to make sure that you're towing.
Jesse Roesler: Yeah absolutely. Well it's good that you're even conscious about it because we've seen the examples where people might not be. So it's always refreshing to view, listen to, content that has that mindset at its core.
On that note let's talk about “Vinfamous.” I'm so excited to dig into this one. I noticed that, so this is one of the first forays into podcasts. I know you have the “Wine Enthusiast” podcast which was the other first one. But this is a very specific concept executed in a very specific way. Do you want to just set up what “Vinfamous” is and I'd love to talk about the origins of it.
Dara Kapoor: Absolutely. “Vinfamous” in short is a podcast mini-series that Wine Enthusiast produced with Pod People. And it goes into six different stories of wine crimes and scandals throughout history. I mean we go back to ancient Roman times all the way up to recent history of just some exciting stories about the underbelly of the industry. And really what we wanted to do was not create something just salacious if you will, but poke at the deeper questions about what about the wine industry. It opens itself to people who are maybe wanting to defraud you or scam you or whatever. Because in my opinion the bigger story is how you can prevent this and watch out for this in the future. And how we can, the lessons to be learned like not getting lost in ego and greed, these universal storytelling principles but as the lens. The wine industry as the lens through which we filter human behavior.
Jesse Roesler: And what interesting stories I think you show that there are to uncover. So that's super fun. How did the actual origin of the concept itself come about? Were you just talking with your partner? Like what could we do in the wine space that hasn't been done? Or, I mean there's been some precedent. I remember seeing a wine documentary some years ago that was about a wine scandal and it did really well.
Dara Kapoor: Oh yes. I'm forgetting the name but I know what you're talking about because I've watched it too. Are you thinking of Rudy Kurniawan?
Dara Kapoor: So that was one of our early episodes too. Oh yeah. And so that was an interesting creative challenge too when putting this together, was do we go with stories that in the wine world were really well known but maybe not well known on a mass scale? Or how we do that because people in the wine industry know a lot more than the general public who simply enjoys wine. Yeah. And so that was a tricky thing. I mean I had some editors say everybody knows the murder in the vineyard story. It was on 2020 in 1995. And I'm just like guess what? You know maybe, but I don't think they remember it. If they do. And also you just have to think who are you trying to reach? Right. And that that goes back to your question on the how this came about.
And so when I started at the brand a couple of years ago, as you said, we already had our main “Wine Enthusiast” podcast which was editor-driven. It was editor conversations, insider baseball if you will on different aspects of the industry. Me having come from media and not wine, I had this outsider's lens on, “Well, if a wine brand was gonna get my attention how would they do it?” And there's three forms of entertainment I as a listener find value in. There's news. There's comedy, if you will performative. And then there's mystery, or storytelling. And I thought of all of our abilities, what could we do with our audio investment? And I thought narrative storytelling was gonna make the most sense. We didn't have a team of reporters. We didn't have the infrastructure to do a breaking news podcast. We weren't gonna be “The Daily” of the wine world.
And the second iteration of something that is kind of funny, really relies on the talent of the host and if somebody vibes with that host. And it's it's just so much more complex. And so narrative storytelling I thought we do this in the content we generate every day but it's going to be audio. And then we had to break down what are the aspects of telling that story? Narrative journalism in the audio format. So I really just put on the lens of what I respond to as a listener. And that is having sound effects. It's having research. It's having different sources. And I knew again we did not have the infrastructure to do all of these just in the recording studio alone. We don't have a recording studio. We're really bare bones.
So I went to my colleagues at the time, my former colleagues, and I was saying “Look. I have this awesome opportunity to invest in audio for Wine Enthusiast.” I want to help us grow our audience and reach people we're not reaching yet but should be reaching. I don't have the infrastructure to do it. What do you recommend? And Pod People was one of the first recommendations I got. And I trusted it because at the company I had worked at right before I joined Wine Enthusiast had worked with Pod People. So I knew their work too. I could listen to it and trust the people recommending it. And once I met with them and said what I wanted to do, what my budget was, it was very clear, very quickly they were the right partner to help us create this series. And in terms of the idea behind the series, honestly it's almost embarrassing. I'm just a huge nerd and I'm really into true crime and I'm really into history. And I just thought, what again, what would get me into this ecosystem?
How do I track people like me who have been drinking wine for years, but can't describe it in a WSET Level, which is Wine Spirits and Education Trust Level way? You know I don't know all the technical terms for everything yet. I don't know how to swirl properly. I wouldn't know how to order wine for a table. It's all so scary and intimidating. What would bring someone like me into our brand whose ethos is to be accessible and to make wine enjoyable for everybody no matter where you're at. And that's kind of how I went into it. Because I'm not a wine insider, I did rely on my editorial team to say alright all what are some of the most famous scandals or the lesser known scandals throughout wine history? And I looked through everything they gave me and I teed it up for Pod People and then Pod People went deep into finding the sources, working with us to book guests etcetera. So they were real production partners. And it was it was just completely fun, I have to say.
Jesse Roesler: Awesome. Well you mentioned I think it can be so helpful to have that outside of the industry perspective and someone who's maybe trained in storytelling or like what's gonna resonate with the general interest audience especially if you're looking to add to your audience and not just preach to the same already well-educated wine choir so to speak. So that sounds super smart. But then also on the execution side of this, what I really resonated with, and it's so funny I was listening to the French Laundry one and I had followed Thomas Keller at the time that this happened. So I even remembered that. And it's interesting to get like the full backstory and go piece by piece. But something that struck me that I've seen done well both in podcast and film you know of course “Serial” comes to mind as like the first like big breakout true crime thing. But documentaries like “Man On A Wire,” or “Searching for Sugarman?”
Dara Kapoor: Yes absolutely. I'm a huge documentary nerd. So you're speaking my language.
Jesse Roesler: So what I really appreciate is with these events that happened in the past there's a lot of ways to tell them right? But when you stack the information and you reveal certain things at certain times that make you really lean forward, that is a craft and an art and a skill. And I think you did that beautifully here. So I'm curious if there's anything from the process of making this that you might share for you know people that are looking to do audio storytelling?
Dara Kapoor: Absolutely. So like I learned when I was studying in school just for writing, one of the things you do to become a better writer is you study what writing that resonates with you. You start to unpack it. Why did that sentence stand out to you? What is it about this storytelling that's working for you? You really go and analyze it. And so no matter what your content platform, whether it's video, audio, flat content, you should really study what resonates with you. What do you respond to? What does the general public respond to? What do your competitive brands do? And are people responding to that? Really do the research and really analyze it and start noting the elements. And so that's what we did with this is I talked to Anne Feuss at Pod People and I said I know that I need sound effects. I know that I need a hook every few seconds to keep people engaged. Because I had just analyzed those in my own listening behaviors and she got it. They're pros, they're absolute pros. I had a hand in picking out the host. I knew the voice I would want. And of course I was thinking of something like “Serial” that is the epitome right there from narrative journalism on audio.
Jesse Roesler: I mean
Dara Kapoor: The best. I've been hooked since those early days. This is my version of “Serial” if you will. I digress. I forgot. I lost my track.
Jesse Roesler: No that's great. I think we had I got cereal
Dara Kapoor: On I just thought oh. Yeah. You said I wanna do a season two of Vinfamous
Jesse Roesler: I started hearing like her voice and then Yes. Yeah. Or like the the version of that that's on Only Murders in the Building. Have you watched that yet? Yes. Like what's her name? Tina Faye plays like the version of that podcaster.
Dara Kapoor: So we had a lot of hand in the creative process but Pod People knew how to lead us. They said, here are five options for hosts. And I could listen to them. I didn't have to do a lot of the prep work in finding some of the options. And that's a lot of work. It's a lot of legwork that I didn't have in my day-to-day. So to sample five hosts and get the voice that I wanted to hear the audio draft first and say, you know what, that sound effect sounded a little shallow. Can we improve it here? To be able to read the scripts ahead of time and make sure that they were the facts that were in those scripts were supported you know with real sources and everything was legit. It was a real collaboration. And we were lucky to have a partner and Pod People that understood what we were going for and set us up to succeed because they gave us the right options. They worked with us. They followed our requests, but they also got our requests. We didn't have to educate them on what we were looking for if you will.
Jesse Roesler: Yeah. Well one thing I would love to touch more on: so many brands especially are getting into audio storytelling as a result. There's just millions of podcasts out there. It's very saturated. And so I think the barrier for entry of creating a simple podcast is pretty low. But you have something of quality and if you can get it listened to I would predict you'll convert people quickly and they'll become a listener. However, what's between those two is getting it in front of the right people. Now you've got of course a unique situation being that you're a publisher and you have a certain amount of that audience built in. But you're talking about how a goal here is to get new people into the Wine Enthusiast world via this podcast. So can you talk about were there any specific distribution promotion marketing efforts for the podcast itself that sort of rolled out as you were releasing it?
Dara Kapoor: Absolutely. You bring up a couple of great points that touch upon what a learning experience this was for me personally. I have always been part of a brand's podcast lineup and whatnot. But these podcasts that the brands that I've worked at before had already been established. I had never been part of creating something new and putting it out in the world to see how it does. So this was a huge learning lesson for me. I'm very honored that I had the opportunity to take this learning lesson. Not all content creators get an investment from their company and say here take a risk and see how it does. And I will forever be grateful for that because it's really tough. What I learned in this process is that a podcast can be used as a marketing tool to attract those new audiences. And it can also be used as a revenue driving tool to you know, sell ads.
And one is very costly and the other maybe not so great for the bottom line either. It's hard to sell ad spots and make a lot of money on it because to your point it's a saturated market. So this was all very big learning for me. And you're right, we were very lucky at the launch of this podcast that obviously we used the feed of our main podcast to drop the the trailer and the first episode to bring people over. And that was really successful. We also were able on the first week to run a giveaway that if you rate and review us you'll be eligible to win one of our beautiful wine cellars. So that was very effective. Thousands and thousands of entries and positive reviews which then helped elevate us to all of these top lists on Spotify and Apple in food and arts categories because the algorithms are thinking all of a sudden, what is this getting all of this attention? Right? And then on top of that the lift of promoting it on our social outlets, our newsletter outlets, on our site. So we were very lucky to have this infrastructure already to build upon but then with Pod People's help and their marketing plan they got us cross promoted on other related podcasts. So that's where we're getting into the people who weren't already in our ecosystem coming into our funnel. And so it was quite amazing and really humbling. I mean I was so naive in the beginning that I remember asking Pod People in our shared Slack channel are these stats good? These are good. They were like this is incredible. We never see this. And that's again, that speaks to the power of our unification as a brand. How we were able to leverage the internal marketing side that we have that promotes product with our media time team, who promotes great content, and creates that great content. So I think I answered your question but lemme know if I did because there there's so much I can say honestly about the creative process and then monetization of creativity and it's tough. You know and I it's almost like where to start.
Jesse Roesler: Yes. Well, no, you a hundred percent answered it. And I'd love to maybe even dig deeper into one or two of them. A. I think a giveaway is so smart. And then the cross promotion with other shows. Can you talk maybe a little bit about the strategy there? Are you on other crime shows? Other wine shows? Both? Sure. Like how did you choose who you would partner with in that way?
Dara Kapoor: So Pod People was very wise in submitting our podcast in food and arts categories instead of true crime because they know how saturated that is. And obviously we were looking, and they knew our goal was to hit somewhere in this Venn diagram of people in our ecosystem in terms of food, travel, history and getting them into the Wine Enthusiast funnel. And so they looked at other food podcasts, and travel podcasts, and drinks podcasts that had similar audiences than as we did and similar numbers. And then we just set up relationships that way and cross promote it. And that's how they did it. Of course I would've loved promotion on something like a “Serial.” So would everybody. But we found and I'm finding too just in my role as a head of content in these days, that you know, the days of scale are gone. I mean to get that Super Bowl ad is sure very 1% of companies might be able to get that kind of reach but it's actually great to get a more concentrated focused audience because the people that you're attracting are more likely to stay with you and engage with you than if you hit this mass scale of people who are kind of one and done with you. And that's just not gonna create a sustainable media brand anymore.
Jesse Roesler: Well especially when you're niche too, and you know your niche, and then there are others that are also in that space. Yeah it just makes sense. Two parter. How are you measuring what you've got with “Vinfamous” and how does that inform what you might do next if you do more episodes of this or if you take another concept out?
Dara Kapoor: So a couple of things. We look at our data on downloads. And what I like to see is even though the series has wrapped our six episodes are gone they're up there. There's not really additional marketing push behind it. It's still growing organically month by month. And that's really nice to see. So I look at that constantly month on month. And I also look at all of the exposure we've gotten from almost like a PR and marketing standpoint that's increased our brand footprint. But it's harder to measure. You know, that's the conundrum of marketing is how do you measure the success of the footprint of your brand? It's really hard to show a one-for-one but it doesn't make it any less valuable. And I think just being here and having opportunities like this is again proof of concept. And Wine Enthusiast being in front of you know people's talented as yourself and everybody at brand storytelling is a huge win.
That might establish new relationships for our brand that wouldn't have existed before. But I can say from a financial standpoint where we're at as a business in order to do a season two we really do wanna make it a financial success because it doesn't make sense to keep spending marketing money that you then can't show any monetary ROI directly. That's just where we're at as a business. And we always have to make hard decisions like that. What's gonna get the investment this year? You know, where are we gonna cut back? And so we firmly believe and I'm really passionate about this that there are, we're capturing such a unique audience that really speaks to many different cross audiences in other industries: travel, entrepreneurship, retail, security. If you look at the stats and I won't bore you too much with those.
But we recently did research through Ipsos to see how our brand measured up advanced competitors in different categories. So that would be food and wine, it would be lifestyle, it would be travel. And we're finding these amazing statistics about the Wine Enthusiast reader and follower that showed this person has a high household income. They're traveling more than any other consumer in the competitive set. They have managerial or above jobs. Like we're finding out all of this data. I think the right fit is a non-endemic brand who wants to target our audience which is a very valuable audience. And so that's our strategy for Season Two is to align with a strategic partner who believes in the storytelling who who likes the lineup of stories we have in the hopper and wants to do this together and get exposed to our brand not just on “Vinfamous” but everywhere else that we have our newsletters, our main podcast, et cetera. It's very valuable.
Jesse Roesler: Only three episodes deep recording at this year's event. But already this is a big theme that's emerging is like partnership. Liike you say, non non-endemic or non-competitive brand partnership to create content. Whereas everyone seemed seemed to think they need to own it a hundred percent. But if you open that partnership up the potential benefit both in like funding whatever the creative endeavor is if it's a podcast or a film, the benefit of the reach of the distribution. Because now you're reaching multiple platforms or channels from multiple entities or brands. We haven't seen a ton of that but how could that not be where things are going?
Dara Kapoor: Well right. I mean isn't that what brand storytelling is all about? Yeah. Is telling a story together with a brand to get your brand out there. And we we believe that we do that for our clients every day. We do it for our product every day. This is what we do best. And so we wanna elevate our brand and help other brands get in front of our audience and vice versa. It's always a win-win. And that's how we look at it. And if we all value the tenants, basic tenants of authoritative and trustworthy and compelling content, what do you have to lose? And I think our relationship with Pod People is such a great example for how these partnerships can work. We both understood each other completely, and we share the spotlight, and we share the credit, and we're a real team. We're not even the same company but we really feel like an insular team. It's you and me talking here today but many people worked on this podcast. We were a team. And you rarely see that across companies. Sometimes you don't even see that within the same company right? Right. So again it's the synergy. These synergies do exist. You have to share the vision right from the get go and and share the value that you see, the value proposition. And it's a real win-win when you do.
Jesse Roesler: What are you listening to today that's inspiring you?
Dara Kapoor: Well obviously I'm listening to “Wine Enthusiast” podcast. We just did an incredible interview. Sam Sette, our web producer did an incredible interview with the Blue Zones founder Dan Buettner.
Jesse Roesler: Yes. He's local to where I live.
Dara Kapoor: Oh cool. He's so cool. Yeah he's amazing. So she had him talk about the upside of dry January and if there was one. You know because as he found certain areas of the world drinking wine is part of a healthy diet. So that's gone gangbusters and it's been fascinating. I used to work at Health Magazine so for me to read about the intersection of health and wellness and wine. You know there's such a controversial topic it's endlessly fascinating to me. So that was the most recent thing I've listened to.
Jesse Roesler: Awesome. Well any I guess any parting advice for other folks at brands looking to get into audio maybe for the first time?
Dara Kapoor: Yeah. Be mindful of your budget and do the best you can within your budget. You know, don't feel the pressure. I was very lucky to have an investment you know and not everybody gets that opportunity and I realize that. But if you have a small budget, think about what can you offer that's different from than what's out there. What is your point of differentiation? Don't assume that you offer value because you're you. Nobody has that. I mean maybe you know Travis Kelsey does right. Or Taylor Swift. But the rest of us are just trying to make great content and get somebody to listen. Focus on what you can do differently, what's unique about it. Lean into it and always think about how you are going to get that in front of other people. And don't be afraid to lean on partnerships and lean on help and really believe in yourself because it's not easy.
I have great respect and admiration for the content creators who are doing the thing. As I say they're going out there, they're finding the stories, they're telling those stories, they're holding themselves to a high standard to tell those stories. And then they have to worry about well now how am I gonna get paid for all that work? How am I gonna get a company to make money from all that work? That is the hardest, most. It's the biggest struggle I think as a content creator. And I have a lot of respect for that because I sit on the business side of it. But I started my journey wanting just to be a writer. And here I am. I was too scared. So I think people who create great content keep doing it. The world needs your stories. Keep doing it. Stay with it. Don't give up. And we'll find something that works. Identify great partners and people will believe in it. If you believe in it other people are gonna believe in it. So stay with it and keep doing it because the world needs your stories.
Jesse Roesler: Love that. And I love ending sort of on a partnership theme again too. Not only partnering and creating it but partner with people that are out there telling stories because they love the craft of storytelling.
Dara Kapoor: Right. Yes. It's an art and it should be you know I think what sometimes on the branded side years ago and I don't think this is the case anymore I think you know. I worked at Dot Dash Meredith before Wine Enthusiast. We had a whole content studio full of journalists to help brands tell their story. So I know more and more journalists are doing this storytelling for brands now and I think it's excellent. But I could say you know sometimes there was the thought that we're just gonna put an ad out there and people will read it or they'll listen to it. And there's so much competition for our attention nowadays that you really have to lean into working with storytellers who value that craft and know how to do that craft and trust that your brand association with that craft is payment. It's payment. You don't have to hit someone over the head with saying “Dove soap is the best soap in the world. Makes you beautiful and confident.” You know, tell a story around that. And Dove is actually a brand who has done that very well and that has more resonance with the end user. It just does. When a brand makes somebody feel something makes an emotional connection, they do that through storytelling.
Jesse Roesler: That's what we're all here in Park City proving this weekend. So. Awesome. Well thank you for being here and sharing your process and these insights. Appreciate
Dara Kapoor: Thank you so much for having me. It's truly been an honor to be here.
Jesse Roesler: I hope you've been enjoying the podcast and I'd love to hear from you. If you have ideas for guests or topics for future episodes drop me a note at jesse@credononfiction.com.
