I started listening to a new podcast, and the ads are beginning to intrigue me.
What is the reason that a mattress company decided to advertise broadly through the medium of podcasts? I have heard (well, furiously skipped) their bullshit on a number of unrelated podcasts and I am rather bamboozled.
I'm going to guess the idea is saturation advertising. People who listen to podcasts probably listen to a lot of different ones, and if they bombard you often enough they create familiarity and they hope you will begin to think of them as trustworthy just because you've heard their ads so many times in so many places. And as Ah.hell mentions, it's probably the cheapest medium in which to run ads.
Pretty much all internet ads run into the same issue that Rai mentions: A lot of the stuff advertised can be gotten much cheaper at a local store, and pretty much all of it can be gotten cheaper at Amazon than from the companies advertising. Another one I hear is Nature Box. So-called "natural" snacks delivered to your door. Nowadays grocery stores have a "natural" section where you can buy exactly the same stuff cheaper. Or you can go to the regular part of the store and get it cheaper yet without "natural" on the label. Hell, there are even podcast ads for "Bark Box," which is "Nature Box" for your dog. There's a whole aisle in the grocery store for pet supplies, including toys and treats, much cheaper, and your dog doesn't care if it doesn't say "natural" on the label. But for some reason, apparently people are happy to pay inflated prices for these kinds of things.