Just a year after refreshing its brand identity and sharing its first ad campaign, Goalhanger – the company behind many of the UK’s top podcasts – isn’t resting on its laurels as it rebrands under CMO of almost a year, Stephen Mai.  

Behind the scenes, the business has undertaken a digital transformation to become an “inherently social-first, platform agnostic storytelling company”. The idea behind the rebrand is to move Goalhanger from being known as a podcast production company to a media brand.  

The work includes a full visual refresh and assets for each show for the first time, as well as a new website “shopfront” for the business. By contrast, last year’s ad campaign featured several shows in one, as well as the shortening of Goalhanger to its initials ‘GH’, threaded throughout the assets with images of celebrity hosts, such as Gary Lineker – co-owner of Goalhanger – Alastair Campbell and Hannah Fry. 

How brands are approaching the ‘underacknowledged’ potential of podcast advertising

“It’s a rebrand, but it is essentially a launch of the visual side of Goalhanger,” Mai explains.

While Goalhanger was built for audio, the business has “fundamentally shifted” as video podcasts have become the norm.  

The brand started filming and sharing its episodes as video content around a year ago and now half of Goalhanger’s audience watch as well as listen, while 77% consume the podcast visually “in some capacity” whether on YouTube or social media. 

As of 24 November, the top three podcasts – of all podcasts – on Apple Podcasts are The Rest is Politics, The Rest is History and The Rest is Science. The latter is Goalhanger’s latest release and first to take on its new visual identity, which will be rolled out across its suite of shows. In ninth is The Rest is Entertainment, while The Rest is Football sits at 12th.  

The business hopes the rebrand will reflect to advertisers and audiences alike Goalhanger is no longer just a “podcast production company”, says Mai.  

New opportunities

The business achieves more than 70 million full episode streams each month and 150 million monthly video views. According to the company’s data, listeners tune in for an average of 40 minutes per each episode, a figure many podcast platforms would hope to reach.  

Beyond Goalhanger, some 30% of the UK population listens to podcasts each week, rising to 58% among 15 – to 34-year-olds, up from 40% in 2019, according to IPA TouchPoints data.  

The attention Goalhanger commands makes it an outlier in the industry.  

According to Mai, the shows have “amazing brand partnership deals”, which have proved “very effective”.

“There’s still so much scope, because I don’t think people understand the power of the attention that platforms like us yield,” he adds. 

A net 41% of marketers globally plan to increase spending on podcast advertising this year, according to Kantar. However, worldwide podcast spend growth is forecast to slow from 13.2% in 2024 to 7.9% in 2025.  

‘Open for business’: Why podcast producer Goalhanger is building its brand

One task for Mai and his team at Goalhanger is helping people to understand “podcast companies are dead”.

“In the sense that we’re no longer a podcast company, we’re a company that is platform agnostic, a cultural media brand,” he states. 

Around 80% of people trust Goalhanger’s hosts, says Mai, which for a marketer is “wild” given the trust standards for other forms of media where brands put their money. The rebrand is as much for audiences as advertisers, reflecting how listeners are consuming the content.  

“We’ve always had an identity, but this is really the first full 360 intentional launch,” he says. 

“The branding we started off with served the purpose. I don’t think there was anything from a consumer audience perspective that warranted this evolution. What warranted it was the ever-shifting nature of how we’re presenting our content.”

Mai notes how influential the “pivot” from audio to digital and video is for the brand’s proposition.  

The rest is fractional

As a fractional CMO, Mai doesn’t work for Goalhanger five days a week and has other projects outside the company. He was brought in to explore opportunities from a marketing and branding perspective.  

The rebrand needed to be “timeless”, because the business is moving quickly and doesn’t know where it will be in a year or two. Last year’s brand refresh was carried out because Goalhanger needed “some kind of brand identity” and help with its B2B commercial proposition.  

“The opportunity I saw was there was some great foundational work done, but it was quite limited in terms of scope or how that would work across all our consumer channels,” says Mai.

He describes last year’s refresh as a “first step” for Goalhanger’s brand building, while the new identity is intended to unify the commercial proposition with what shows up on the audience’s feeds. 

When drawing inspiration for the rebrand, Mai looked to tech startups and podcast brands in the US.

“Everyone falls into the same visual cues,” he says. “Then all of a sudden it becomes very homogenous.”  

Having that fractional framework allows them to see what can happen, and also bring in someone more senior than they’re probably willing to invest in full-time.

Stephen Mai, Goalhanger

Similarly, Mai didn’t want to draw inspiration from other media brands or broadcasters. Instead, he looked to old periodicals and editorial brands of the past to help convey the intelligence and accessibility of Goalhanger’s suite of shows.  

Bringing in a fractional CMO is the “best” approach for a business like Goalhanger says Mai, noting each business he’s ever worked for – he’s worked at the likes of LadBible, Asos and VICE – “underinvested” in marketing before he joined.

“With a lot of media brands, they don’t see the impact of marketing until somebody comes in and does it well,” he states. 

“Having that fractional framework allows them to see what can happen and also bring in someone more senior than they’re probably willing to invest in full time.” 

Alongside Mai as fractional CMO, the business has brought in an art director and works with freelance marketers. However, marketing is embedded deep in the business, says head of digital and social Samuel Oakley.  

“Everything you do is marketing” he recalls the team being told a few years back, before it had a unified marketing strategy or team.  

This approach allows Goalhanger to be “agile”, says Mai, as the need for marketing is “constantly shifting” based on how quickly the business grows.  

“This framework essentially allows me to be agile and eventually what I want to do is build a team so that someone like me isn’t necessary anymore,” he adds.