Acast campaign turns major podcasts’ first words into disappearing type

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.”