Allure Media’s Alison Rice launches podcast to have ‘honest’ conversations with influencers
Alison Rice, the outgoing group publisher of Allure Media’s lifestyle brands Popsugar, Who What Wear, Byrdie and MyDomain Australia, has launched her own podcast.
Offline will seek to have ‘honest’ conversations with some of Australia’s biggest female Instagram influencers and look at the ’emotional landscape’ of social media platforms.
Rice has created the podcast in the hope women will be able to look past social media and develop their own views, opinions and character. The first episode features Venustus Beauty Lab owner Jeannie Bourke. Rice will later be joined by Elle Ferguson, Carmen Hamilton, Chloe Brinklow, Paula Joyce and Zoe Marshall.
Rice’s core marketing outlet is Instagram. Since launch, the podcast’s Instagram page has 503 followers.
“It sounds like my first podcast because it is,” Rice told her Instagram followers this week.
“I’m calling that out because we are so used to highly commercial, over-produced content. I’m worried we have an incapacity to show anything less than perfection, and that’s really the reason for Offline to exist. I hope it serves its purpose to act as a resource for women who are struggling with comparison and social media making us feel less than,” she wrote.
Rice told Mumbrella that in her time in women’s publishing, she has developed a growing concern for young women’s development.
“The influencers I’m interviewing are smart, strategic and hardworking, and yet we don’t hear enough about those traits,” she explained.
“On Offline they share the life experiences that have shaped them and we explore the concept of true self – without the followers, the titles and the labels, who are you? It’s pretty raw and imperfect in a lot of ways. I wanted listeners to hear themselves.”
Rice said she doesn’t have a sponsor for the podcast, but questioned why it was a measure of success.
“I think it is a shame pockets of our industry have an obsession with monetising everything and if you can’t there’s no point in doing it. I disagree, especially in the podcasting space. It is such an intimate medium and relies heavily on trust and listener retention. I decided not to monetise Offline through its launch out of respect for both the high-profile women who share their truths, and also the women listening. I wanted to give them space to exhale.”
