The Ask

Castbox needed to differentiate itself from the scores of other platforms, networks and publishers in the US podcast scene. The product itself is great, and at the time had already amassed 7 million users. The app had even won numerous Google Awards. But, user adoption was stagnating, and there was little coverage about the product and company. As a result, few even within the podcasting industry were aware of Castbox both as a company and product.

Strategy

CastBox sought to generate visibility for the brand and product through a fully integrated marketing campaign. Our work scope spanned product positioning, brand strategy, web development, public relations, SEO, copywriting, and video concept development and production. 

For this success story, we’ll focus on the messaging for the PR efforts. We leveraged a Series B fundraising story to put the brand on the map with mainstream media, and focused on the human-interest angle to drive interest. The Beijing-based female founder, an ex-Googler, had sold her home to fund the startup in the early stages -- a fact that made it into several tier one media’s headlines, from Bloomberg to Business Insider. 

But what really sealed the deal with tech reporters was an AI-driven in-audio search feature the app was in the process of testing. While the feature ultimately got scrapped from the final product (as the majority do for any app), nevertheless at the time the innovation exhibited the R&D team’s disruptive approach to podcasting, and caught reporters’ attention.

Results

Again, focusing our story here on the PR side of the collaboration, we secured coverage for the Series B in Observer, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, VentureBeat, WIRED Germany, Fortune, Entrepreneur Magazine, Silicon Valley Business Journal, Interesting Engineering, Axios and more.