• by Sara Guaglione , February 25, 2016

Parents magazine and Meredith Corporation just launched “Pregnancy Confidential,” a podcast that boasts a myriad of targeted advertising opportunities dedicated to each week of a woman’s pregnancy.

The 32-episode real-talk, what-to-expect podcast combines the brand’s years of research on pregnancy, reader feedback and questions and delivers a week-by-week guide to expectant moms and dads.

Carey Witmer, EVP and president of Meredith Parents Network, stated that a pregnancy podcast is a “natural” extension for the Parents brand.

“A podcast adds another dimension to our brand’s mobile strategy and provides our advertising partners with topical, relevant content to meet their own marketing goals,” Witmer added.

All episodes have been released at once, allowing expectant couples to skip to the episode in the series that matches their week of pregnancy. Listeners can also skip ahead.

According to Tracy Odell, general manager of the Parents Digital Network, “by producing an evergreen podcast series with an episode for each week of pregnancy, we’re solving the problem of how to deliver highly targeted content and advertisements to this coveted segment.”

She added, “The combination of super-relevant content delivered via this intimate medium is really powerful. Advertisers can have host-read ads targeted all the way down to the week of pregnancy.”

Odell told Publishers Daily it is in discussions with several "nontraditional" podcast advertisers to sponsor the series in the future, as part of larger, integrated sponsorships.

Native advertising, such as endemic ads, are also a good fit for the podcast because parents start to think about what products to use when baby arrives, she said.

The podcast’s main sponsor is Audible, with each episode featuring a recorded ad from the host, Parents editor in chief Dana Points, promoting an Audible product relevant to the listener's specific week of pregnancy.

Odell said the podcast is available for sponsorship, and includes Meredith Digital’s first set of Native Audio Ads, produced by Meredith’s in-house custom content team.

Native Audio Ads is the latest extension of the suite of native advertising products Meredith has already introduced across the rest of its digital platforms. The targeted nature of each podcast’s episode to a specific week of pregnancy “allows an advertiser to deliver a hyper-focused message that can evolve as the listener moves through pregnancy,” per a company statement.

The full series was produced in partnership with Panoply, a podcast network from Slate magazine. The partnership enables dynamic ad insertion and targeting for future podcast sponsors in real-time, rather than stitching ads into each podcast before it is released.

“Pregnancy Confidential” will also be available on demand at Parents.com and FitPregnancy.com and will be actively promoted to Parents digital audience via the daily pregnancy newsletter.

Each podcast episode will be paired with week-specific content from both sites to offer fully customized daily emails to women throughout their pregnancy. The full series is also available on iTunes and other podcast applications.