Why vodcasts are every African marketer’s flexible friend

What is a vodcast other than a fancy podcast that incorporates video elements or visual techniques like image carousels, slides or still photographs? 

Danilo Acquisto, co-founder and CEO of social video specialist, Special Effects Media, admits the definition is still rather sketchy.  

“It’s video and podcasts smashed together, but industry bodies need to start thinking about how we define these terms better,” he says. “For marketers, it does get confusing. Does a radio show that is being filmed and cut down become a vodcast? Or a radio snippet?”  

Another question that is frequently asked is: Must a vodcast have a visible microphone with a set question-and-answer format? Or can an existing podcaster film a conversation, stick it on YouTube, and then call it a vodcast? 

While the concept remains broad and still slightly ambiguous, so is the reach of this video-driven format. 

“Best practice [on social media posts] is 15 seconds or less, so it’s difficult to cram brand messages or unpack very complex brand needs and customer journeys into such a short-form piece of content,” Acquisto emphasises. 

As a result, marketers have developed a fondness for podcasting. This more informal format gives them the opportunity to “unpack at length, and in conversation with people, topics they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do in the short-form space”, he says. 

Acquisto believes that vodcasts fall into the same conversational category as podcasts, except they offer even greater potential for repurposing quality content across multiple platforms.  

A multi-touchpoint approach 

Moses Kemibaro, CEO of Kenyan digital business agency, Dotsavvy, affirms that “TikTok, YouTube and Instagram Reels have become an important aspect of the content mix when any brand is communicating” to an African audience.  

In addition to Dotsavvy, he has built a strong personal following thanks to his Pure Digital Passion podcast and his understanding of Africa’s digital media ecosystem. 

Kemibaro shifted into podcasting early on, and continued to create content during Covid using the Zoom communications platform. In most cases he opted for audio without video. But after using a professional film studio, he had an epiphany: “It hit me that when you do a video podcast, you end up with a number of assets.”  

Today, Kemibaro repurposes video content across LinkedIn, Instagram, his website and podcast. The secret, he says, is to use multiple platforms and multiple formats, but to craft the content in such a way that all the pieces work together. That, he emphasises, leads to significant aggregated reach and engagement.  

Find out about vodcasting in Africa, and much more, in the latest Strategic Marketing for Africa – the voice of African marketing and the official publication of the African Marketing Confederation (AMC). Read it online or download it here.  

A Print Edition of the magazine is also available.