The idea, as the good ones often do, came up in a casual office conversation with Cherokee Media Group president Bill Zadeits.

It was mid-March 2017, and I was headed to Illinois to cover the grand opening of ADESA Chicago.

While in the Windy City, Bill suggested I pay a visit to this relatively new startup called DRIVIN and test out our podcasting sea-legs.

DRIVIN co-founder Kayne Grau and team graciously agreed.

Along with their Midwestern hospitality and a tour of the DRIVIN digs, we recorded what would become the first episode of the Auto Remarketing Podcast that day before I headed off to the opening of the ADESA auction.

Little did I know that about a month later, ADESA’s parent company, KAR Global, would announce its purchase of DRIVIN.

Serendipitously, we were able to publish the podcast shortly after reporting KAR’s acquisition, giving greater context and shelf life to our story.

And that’s been the beauty of working with my teammates to produce this podcast — which reached its third anniversary on Sunday and 250 episodes in the library on Monday.

It just adds more depth to reporting.

We might report breaking news about a partnership between an auction company and tech providers, getting the “who, what, when where, why” out quickly, given its immediate importance.

A follow-up podcast interview, even a 10- to 20-minute one, allows us to explore the “why” and “how” conversationally and in more detail.

Podcasts can also add more depth to conferences, whether we’re attending or hosting.  At several of our CMG conferences in recent years (Auto Intel Summit, Used Car Week, Auto Remarketing Canada, Women & Automotive), we have been sharing many general sessions as podcast episodes.

This facilitates a “live show” feel to the show and gives the conference content, much like the written content, a longer shelf life.

And when Bill, my colleague Nick Zulovich and I attend conferences, we’ll record podcasts on the sidelines, so to speak.

One point of that is to provide companies a way to share their individual goals for industry events and their thoughts on topics being discussed at the respective conferences.

Podcasts can also be pretty efficient, in that at least in the case or ours, they’re “quick bites.”

I love a long, leisurely, drawn-out meal with friends and family. But I also love a snack.

I don’t say that to express my love of food, which is fairly obvious to anyone who has met me.

The point is that for every person who likes perusing the Sunday newspaper or longform stories, there are some folks who want the quick hits. A podcast gives you flexibility to do both.

And in our case, the format allows for quicker production of conversational journalism than a longer-form written piece does.

That has been crucial during the COVID-19 pandemic, when news moves exponentially quicker, but folks still need in-depth, conversational context mixed in with breaking-news reporting. 

That’s our goal always, but especially the case these days. And such efforts will continue.

We are proud to have reached a couple milestones, but we are not stopping there.

In so many ways, thanks for listening.

To listen to the latest episodes, check out the Auto Remarketing Podcast page here. 

And to walk down memory lane, re-listen to the debut episode of the podcast (recorded in March 2017) below: