How sustainable sneaker brand Cariuma aims to become ‘part of the DNA’ of the podcasts it sponsors

Cariuma is a sustainable sneaker brand worn by celebrities like Pete Davidson and Helen Mirren. But there’s another fanbase that the company is courting: podcast hosts.

It first started running podcast ads a couple of years ago, according to Chief Digital Officer Felipe Araujo, working with shows with about 50,000–100,000 downloads to start. When “rates ended up coming down” in the early Covid days, Cariuma started moving into the 500,000+ download range and found “awesome success” with major networks like iHeartMedia and Spotify, as well as a successful and ongoing partnership with indie powerhouse Crooked Media, Araujo said.

Podcast advertising has worked out so well for Cariuma that it was one of only two channels in which the brand increased its spend this past year (the other being Google), he said. Podcast ad platform Podscribe estimated that Cariuma spent about $4 million on podcast ads in the past year.

Araujo told us the brand’s podcast strategy is largely focused on creating long-term agreements and relationships with hosts so that Cariuma can start to feel “ingrained in the culture of the show,” instead of being a one-and-done sponsor.

Own it

Cariuma takes care of all its podcast advertising internally and works to foster those relationships by having “direct conversations with the hosts,” Araujo told Marketing Brew. The brand has worked with over 30 different podcasts, according to Araujo, a relatively small number compared to other podcast advertisers, like Athletic Greens and Uncommon Goods.

Part of that process is an onboarding call, during which hosts are familiarized with Cariuma and its products in order to “start with the right foot forward,” Araujo siad. That includes testing them out; Araujo said he’s a big believer in asking hosts to try Cariuma’s shoes before doing ad reads.

“That’s when we see podcasts really work for us,” Araujo said. “It’s when someone really can show on the ad that they know the products, that they’re not just talking about something that someone told them to talk about.” Alec Baldwin, Momofuku founder and chef Dave Chang, the host of Call Her Daddy, and the Pod Save America team thrive on this front, he added.

That knowledge can even extend beyond ad reads. For instance, during one live show for Lovett or Leave It, the host made a joke about Cariuma shoes, even though the brand didn’t pay to run an ad in that specific episode, Araujo remembered.

“Everything that we approach, it’s not to be transactional,” he said. “We might start with one read or a couple reads, but the idea is to really do year-long agreements and really create a relationship with [hosts] so that we’re not focused on negotiating every month. Instead, we’re focusing on building our brand story with them…to eventually do something bigger.”

Cariuma and Crooked Media (the network behind Lovett or Leave It and Pod Save America) went on to create a couple of co-branded shoes, something Araujo said he’s keen to try again down the line. In fact, he said his goal is for Cariuma to be so closely associated with PSA that “if someone else starts advertising on Pod Save America and we couldn’t do it, it would be almost weird.”

“I think you see this a lot with shows in the ’80s in the ’90s, how a brand was so part of that sitcom and scripts,” he said. “That’s what we want to aim to do with podcasts—to really make sure that we’re part of the DNA of the show.”

Track it

Araujo said Cariuma continues to spend on podcast ads because they’ve been “efficient” for building brand awareness and driving site traffic and conversions.

In order to measure those metrics, Cariuma uses a combination of methods, including survey attribution and external podcast attribution tools like Podsights and Podscribe. According to Araujo, “10% of our audience” say they heard about the brand from a podcast.

That might not seem like an overwhelmingly high number, but relative to Cariuma’s total ad spend on podcasts compared to the rest of its budget, podcasts punch above their weight on those surveys, Araujo explained. For instance, if 10% of Cariuma’s budget was being allocated to podcasts at a given moment, he would expect 20% of customers would report hearing about the brand via podcast, he said.

“Maybe you convert from a Facebook ad or Google ad, but the [ad] that you’re going to remember is if that podcast that you listen to every week and your host that you actually care about talks about the brand,” he said. “So we know it’s probably not the last impression before conversion, but it’s actually the one that you remember.”