Boosting brand behavioral intentions via integrated explicit product placements in podcasts

• The podcaster, brand content, and parasocial relationship with listeners influence brand attitude, recall, and intentions. • Podcaster authenticity, trust, and expertise shape brand attitude and recall. • Brand-plot congruence, entertainment, and informativeness drive brand outcomes. • Podcaster expertise and brand-plot congruence have the strongest impact on brand outcomes. Podcasting has become a globally popular media platform, drawing advertisers’ interest due to its highly engaged and loyal audience. To address the limited research on consumer attitudes toward podcast advertisements, we investigate how explicit product placements read by hosts in podcasts influence brand behavioral intentions. Our study involved an online survey among 512 podcast consumers exposed to brand-related content during podcast listening sessions. For data analysis, we employed partial least squares structural equation modeling. Our findings reveal that consumer attitudes toward the podcaster and toward the brand-related content, as well as the listeners’ parasocial relationship with the host, directly impact brand attitude and recall, subsequently influencing brand behavioral intentions.