Robyn Fisher: { 0:05 }

Welcome to the Alma Spotlight, a special edition podcast from Alma’s Strategic Communications, a leading independent strategic communications consultancy helping companies communicate their strategy and build trust with all of their key stakeholder groups.     Each month, the Alma’s Spotlight shines on one of the leading voices from within our network, offering unique insights across a range of sectors. We featured inspiring guests such as Victoria Stevens, Atlant Trust, Simon English, long standing City journalist, Evan Upton, CEO, Raspberry Pi and last month we had Judith McKenzie from Downing Fund Managers. And knowing our love of being creative with our comments, this month we’re bringing those conversations to audio.  I’m Robin Fisher from Alma and today we’re exploring the power of podcasts in corporate and investor communications.

Robyn Fisher: { 0:57 }

I’m joined today by Andrew Craissati, CEO and Co founder of Auddy, a company helping businesses to use audio to communicate with authenticity and impact and aims to modernise how shareholders get their information. And I’m sure many of you will have already seen their recent London Stock Exchange tie.   Andrew, thank you so much for joining us today. This is all very exciting, if a little nerve wracking for me hosting my very first podcast.

Andrew Craissati:  { 1:24 }

Thank you so much. It’s lovely to be here and to spend time with you, Robin. I’m sure you’ll be just fine. It actually brings back memories of when I used to work for Richard Branson and I was building Virgin radio overseas. I remember once watching a very much veteran DJ on boarding a new team member. He was very reassuring and I remember him saying to this young person, look, you have nothing to worry about. It’s just you, me, the microphone. Oh, and 7 million listeners.

Robyn Fisher:  { 1:58 }

So before we dive into the world of investor communications, could you start by telling us a little bit about Auddy? What is it that you do and how you came to focus on audio as a tool for business communication?

Andrew Craissati:  { 2:09 }

Yes, I’ll be very happy to and I’ll give a quick personal introduction as my background is relevant to how I built Auddy. So I’m a rather odd and perhaps rare breed of creative industries founder who’s also run an investment bank, LED a family office, built venture capital funds. So I understand the world of IPOs, fund management, market makers and it’s now enabled me to really straddle the world of creativity, particularly the world of audio and financial services. So Auddy really sits at that cross section. So it’s a 5 year old British company. It has a presence in the United States and Germany. Our clients are scattered globally and they are very varied.

{ 2:59 }

They’re public, private, institutional, celebrity based, typically blue chip. And whether we’re looking after APLC or a global Rockstar, there’s actually a lot of commonality in their communications needs. Our business is really split in two. We have a capability to buy advertising in successful podcasts on behalf of advertiser clients. That is a business that is principally focused in the UK and Germany and where we provide an array of technical capabilities that complement our clients needs in looking for advertising. And separately, and I think the reason why we’re chatting today is we have invented a product called Campfire, which has really disrupted the way the world looks at podcasting as we’ve created a completely new business case for its usage.

{ 3:59 }

Campfire is the world’s first private and encrypted podcast delivery mechanism. It is, in a way, the antithesis of a traditional podcast, which you would think of as something that sits very publicly on the Internet, is easy to search for, and is easy to download, recommend, share, etcetera. A Campfire makes it a more private experience and it is by invitation only in terms of the end user being able to listen to content delivered by campfire. And it comes with very rich analytics. So our clients are able to not just create a podcast and deliver it to an intended audience, but then they can actually understand the specific behaviour of each individual listener to see what did they listen to in the content. Therefore, what did they like? Did they go back and repeat parts of the content?

{ 4:57 }

Did they skip or Fast forward or even delete the content from their device? So in a way, it is the first ever legitimate way in which you can create content that is targeted and which you can measure for its return on investment or engagement.

Robyn Fisher:  { 5:16 }

Amazing. So it feels like podcasting has really evolved from just entertainment into something much more strategic.

Andrew Craissati:  { 5:22 }

That’s exactly right. It’s it’s now a channel in the same way that you would think about a newsletter or a video webinar or other forms of communication with your targeted audience.

Robyn Fisher:  { 5:36 }

So Andrew, from your perspective, what can CE, OS and leadership teams do better when it comes to communicating with investors, particularly in a way that builds trust and cuts through all the market noise?

Andrew Craissati:  { 5:48 }

Well, I don’t know that it’s my role to criticise what CE OS are presently doing, but I think what would be interesting for them to understand is that there is still a significant opportunity to create a closer and more enduring relationship with your intended audience. If you think about investor communication, it’s still today leans heavily on text heavy PDF Word documents or scripted web casts or the well known earnings calls. This is of course a way to deliver financial results and to talk about those financial results. But if you were to interview the audience, you would in all likelihood find that the audience concentrates on 10% of that document and they are ignoring or de prioritising 90%. So what we’ve been looking at is how do you make it a more efficient experience for the audience and also how do you build more context into the experience?

{ 6:53 }

Because this exercise is today one that is really driven by compliance, applicable laws, the regulations of a market. But as a result, it makes it very difficult for ACEO to really connect with their intended audience, whether that is an institutional fund manager or even a retail investor. If you think about the best communications, and obviously you and Alma would know this better than anybody, it feels human. It explains nuances, subtleties, contexts. It brings the headlines of financial results to life. So it really is explaining more about why something happened and doing more than just delivering the outcome of specifically what happened. After all, investors are of course financially driven. They are literate. They want data, they want that pure information, but they also want the context.

{ 7:54 }

They want to hear those nuances so that they can build conviction about their investment decision. They want to, they want to have that sense of authenticity coming from a client. We talk a lot in our business about integrity and how voice delivers integrity more than the written word will ever accomplish. So when you think about communications, the CEO’s who bring their voice directly into the conversation, they are the ones who are building trust and they’re doing it quicker, especially when they speak in a candid and a consistent manner. Because after all, clarity, tone of voice, and the frequency or cadence with which you speak all matter in engagement.

Robyn Fisher:  { 8:46 }

Amazing, thank you.  So podcasts have become such a powerful storytelling medium, especially in corporate settings.

{ 8:54 }

What is it about the podcast format that makes it so effective in capturing attention and conveying authenticity, particularly in investor and corporate communications?

Andrew Craissati:  { 9:04 }

That’s a great question, Robin. There’s actually quite a lot of research on the topic of audio in general and podcasts in in particular. The headline that grabbed my attention a while ago was a statistic of 61% of listeners believe that a podcast creates a Halo effect for a brand. In other words, it it is a mechanism by which the audience is more favourably inclined to that brand. And that’s not just in the consumer mind, that is in a business to business setting as well. Audio has been tested time and time again for its impact on the brain as well. There’s a lot of research that is interesting in how it compares the visual experience with the audio experience. I think it was Dolby that originally tested.

{ 9:59 }

Would you rather watch a high quality film or listen to a high quality audio film and the audio experience one almost every single time in the research that they did, Audio captures tone. It captures nuance in a way that text can’t, right. So when investors are listening to a leadership team discussing their strategy or their milestones or the market outlook, they’re doing it in their own voice. It feels a certain way. It feels personal, It feels genuine. It hasn’t been filtered through a legal department or through a press release. Podcasts also, importantly, fit the modern habits of consumption. Today, our attention span is shorter. We have new ways of working, we’re often at home, We often clutter our day with meetings with no time to consider content. We’re overwhelmed with content.

{ 10:58 }

So investors are busy, they’re often multitasking, and they don’t want to spend an entire evening reading a 30 page report. A short, perhaps secure audio briefing offers a much more accessible way to grasp the highlights and underlying story. It doesn’t do away with the written word, it is supplemental to it, but it gives a much more flexible way of consuming the content. A private audio channel can also complement formal disclosures and web casts so that when investors have the need, they get a practical, human way to stay informed in the weeks and months between major moments, such As, for example, a quarterly results announcement.

Robyn Fisher:  { 11:45 }

It’s so interesting, Andrew, you talk about a secure audio briefing. I bet there is sometimes a fear that podcasts equal public. What misconceptions do you encounter when companies first consider using audio for more sensitive updates?

Andrew Craissati:  { 11:59 }

Yes, Robin, that’s a very common concern. Most people associate podcasts with a very open architecture platform, probably the most well known of which is Spotify and Apple, where we can all listen. Anyone can. Many people are also familiar with private podcasts, where you might pay a fee and get access to a private but unsecure feed on those same podcast public platforms.  Auddy’s private audio platform Campfire uses a different model with encrypted distribution, access controls and audit trails. Investor relations leaders and professionals can decide exactly who hears what, just like with secure investor portals, and for the first time, they can properly understand their own return on investment. Nothing is publicly searchable or shareable with our platform unless the client wishes.

{ 12:58 }

This kind of secure system can be much more compliant, in fact, than sending APDF attachment by e-mail or holding large Zoom sessions, in part because access to the content is far more trackable and changeable or revocable. It’s also important to note that the Campfire platform requires each user to register themselves. This is a critical moment for the client as it affords them a chance to ask a question or two of the audience and so as to learn. Investor relations, if you think about it, is historically A1 way flow of information and where the audience can be perceived as rather anonymous. By introducing the optionality for questions and interactivity, the IR team is now better informed and learning all about their audience.

Robyn Fisher:  { 13:51 }

That’s really reassuring, especially for companies handling sensitive updates.

Andrew Craissati:  { 13:55 }

Indeed.

Robyn Fisher:  { 13:55 }

So does podcasting feature more commonly in US investor relations and are there any key takeaways that you think that we can learn from how they approach it?

Andrew Craissati:  { 14:05 }

America is a little more advanced. That’s in part because podcasting was embraced in the American market about seven years earlier than it was in Europe, so there was that inevitability. the US has been quicker to embrace digital and audio formats generally. Within the world of investor relations, many companies now use secure private podcasts to share investor education, strategic context, leadership insights. And they do so not just quarterly or semi annually, but they’re doing this in between those formal update moments. But the approach in London is actually catching up fast.

{ 14:48 }

The London Stock Exchange’s decision to add our company Auddy to its issuer services marketplace is a clear sign to me that audio is becoming part of the mainstream investor tool kit. Look, the key takeaway here is that audio, when expertly delivered, acts as a complementary channel to amplify formal disclosures. It extends engagement after filings by helping investors understand strategy, sentiment or portfolio additions. For starters, both markets show that accessibility and consistency matter. Short, regular, digestible updates build stronger trust and keep companies top of mind.

Robyn Fisher:  { 15:34 }

That’s very exciting. It feels like such a natural path in for the UK market.

Andrew Craissati:  { 15:38 }

I think it I think it is. And the UK is obviously well known for its creative industries, which further adds to that impact.

Robyn Fisher:  { 15:47 }

We usually end our written Alma Strategic Spotlights interviews by asking our guests what is the most interesting thing you’ve watched or read recently.

{ 15:55 }

But considering our theme this month, I’m going to tweak that very slightly by asking you, Andrew, what is the most interesting podcast that you have listened to recently?

Andrew Craissati:  { 16:04 }

Oh, great question. Well, I’ve been listening to the rest is Politics. I’m a big fan of Rory and Alistair, the two hosts, and the show does a brilliant job of breaking down complex American and British political issues into something that is really conversational and engaging. They also show that you can have differing points of view and still be best friends. I think it’s a reminder as a show of how effective storytelling can actually be in bringing complicated and controversial subjects to life. That’s pretty much the shift that we’re now seeing in the world of investor relations as well, right? We’re moving from this sort of formulaic disclosure process to now clear, contextual human communication that people actually want to listen to and consume.

Robyn Fisher:  { 16:58 }

That sounds great.

{ 16:59 }

I might have to have a listen to that. So thank you so much, Andrew, for joining us today. What a brilliant way for us to communicate to our own audience. Thank you, everyone for listening. If you made it this far, this is something new for us at Alma, so we’d really love to hear your thoughts on the format. I’m Robin Fisher from Alma Strategic Communications, and this has been the Alma Spotlight. Thanks so much for listening.

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