Acast campaign turns major podcasts’ first words into disappearing type

Revisiting the humble beginnings of podcasts from James Acaster, Adam Buxton, and more, Weirdo agency encourages new voices to enter the game.

Date
21 January 2022

Creative agency Weirdo has teamed with podcast platform Acast for a new type-led campaign that uncovers some of “the first words spoken, shouted, laughed and whispered on some of the world’s biggest podcasts”. Following research by Acast that a whopping one in ten people in the UK plan to start their own podcast this year, the type-led campaign, First Words, hopes to inspire new voices to take the plunge by showing the words of others half-erased, “making room for yours”.

For the project, Weirdo has dug into the history of Acast podcasts for quotes, including Off Menu with James Acaster and Ed Gamble, The Adam Buxton Podcast, Forever35 and Dope Black Mums – miraculously managing to get the words “open your hearts and loosen your butts” on an asset. The agency searched through hundreds of hours of audio and displaced the quotes they found from their original context, scaling them up to the biggest size possible across digital and social platforms. Assets across the campaign are tied together with the tagline: “Every podcast has its first words.”

Another key aspect of the project is the decaying presentation of Weirdo’s type. “We’ve shown the work in a state of disappearance, the words fading before your eyes and making room for yours,” explains Louis Persent, creative director at Weirdo. After researching so much podcasting history, the agency used the idea of digital history and decay for visual inspiration too. The final campaign brings an “archival quality” to Weirdo’s typography, all in the hope of showing that: “Every podcaster – from Adam Buxton to your friend down the road – has had to start somewhere,” says Lizzy Pollott, SVP marketing communications and brand at Acast.

“By rewinding hundreds of Acast podcasts we’ve found the humble first words of those (little) shows that ended up big,” says Persent. “Some of these intros are funny, some shocking, some a little bit stupid, but they all prove that however you want to start telling your story Acast will get it heard.”

GalleryWeirdo: Acast First Words campaign (Copyright © Acast, 2022)

Hero Header

Weirdo: Acast First Words campaign (Copyright © Acast, 2022)

Share Article

Further Info

About the Author

Liz Gorny

Liz (she/they) joined It’s Nice That as news writer in December 2021. After graduating from the University of Bristol, they worked freelance, writing for independent publications such as Little White Lies, Indie magazine and design studio Evermade.

It's Nice That Newsletters

Fancy a bit of It's Nice That in your inbox? Sign up to our newsletters and we'll keep you in the loop with everything good going on in the creative world.