Tag: advertising

Khurrum Malik, Head of Advertising Business Marketing, Explains Why Publishers Should Embrace Podcasts

April 8, 2022

Over the past few years, Spotify has unveiled more and more tools for enterprise publishers to embark on a new endeavor: audio content. When wading into new content formats such as audio, these companies are looking for two main things: to engage and grow their audiences and to expand their monetization strategies. Spotify’s podcast-hosting platform Megaphone enables publishers to create, monetize, measure, and grow their podcast businesses. Megaphone also powers the Spotify Audience Network, connecting advertisers with immersed listeners.

As we’ve increased these offerings, the number of publishers taking advantage of them has increased as well. Recently at Evolutions by Podcast Movement, Khurrum Malik, Spotify’s Head of Advertising Business Marketing, moderated a panel called “How Innovative Publishers Are Making Space for Audio.” It featured representatives from Vox Media, Paramount Global, and Sony Music, all of which are Megaphone publishers. Each one spoke about how they built podcasts into their content strategies, what they were seeing in terms of audience engagement, and how they looked to the future. 

Spotify’s Khurrum Malik moderating “How Innovative Publishers Are Making Space for Audio”

“I was there to facilitate conversation around how these leaders are innovating and engaging new audiences through podcast content,” Khurrum explained to For the Record. “How are the trends that they’re seeing serving their listeners? How can they work with other pieces of content and IP [intellectual property] at their company? Are they making podcast-first content and then expanding that into a potential video show? Are they taking video shows and making podcasts from them? That’s what I was there to help them explore.”

Read on for more insights from the panel and Spotify’s work with publishers from Khurrum himself. 

At Spotify, we’ve been thinking about the importance and impact of audio for content creators for a long time. What has adoption been like among enterprise publishers?

Vox Media, Sony Music, and Paramount Global are major global publisher brands that have been leaders in the space when it comes to audio content investment and innovation. For them, IP—often in the form of television or video content—has been key to their strategies. As they turn some of that IP into podcasts as well, it’s now easier than ever before to expand their podcast monetization with Megaphone and the Spotify Audience Network.

This stacks up to the numbers we unveiled during 2021 Wrapped: Our listeners spent 78% more time listening to podcasts in 2021 than in 2020. And when it comes to shows hosted on Megaphone (like the ones these publishers are creating), there’s been a 67% increase in the number of shows added. Recently, we’ve seen the addition of enterprise publishers like FOX Audio Network and Bababam join the ranks as well. 

What are some of the ways Vox Media, Sony Music, and Paramount Global are integrating or thinking about integrating audio into their suites of offerings?

For CBS, now Paramount Global, it was interesting to hear how they are thinking about their existing television IP like The Late Show With Stephen Colbert as potential for podcasts. It was interesting to hear about how they’re translating TV content to this audio-only format. 

At Vox Media they’re mimicking some of their long-form editorial as podcasts. One show, Pivot, featuring NYU professor Scott Gallaway and reporter Kara Swisher, became a dual podcast that’s really starting to grow. And the big thing for Vox Media is always building content franchises. So in this instance, they’re thinking about the quality of the podcast, how much breadth they can get with it, how to scale it. And they’ve started to take that podcast and expand it into events. So the Pivot podcast has leadership events, for example, and a community that Vox Media is using to connect with people in the technology space. 

What jumped out for Sony Music was how their global footprint of music is going to allow them to move into podcasts that are regional-specific. They haven’t taken the opportunity to do that yet, but Emily said she could see how Sony could create podcasts with artists as hosts and build communities around those. She kept talking about doing more internationally, because the footprint globally is so big.

Spotify Introduces Call-to-Action Cards for Podcast Ads

January 6, 2022

What’s the next great frontier in audio? We believe it’s interactivity. Over the last year, Spotify has introduced new tools for creators to interact more directly with their audiences through video podcasts, Q&As, and Polls. We’ve also enabled experiences like Blend, which allows listeners to merge their musical tastes with their friends’ in one shared playlist. Finally, we introduced our voice-controlled in-app experience, “Hey Spotify.”

Now we’re bringing interactivity to the audio ad experience. 

Whether you’re blasting your personalized On Repeat playlist during your morning run, catching up on the week’s pop culture news with Higher Learning while you make dinner, or listening to Monica and Dax unpack the struggles of being human while stuck in traffic on Armchair Expert—music and talk are your constant companions.  

But what happens when you hear an ad letting you know about Ulta’s “Hello Holidays” sale or an offer from Athletic Greens giving you 25% off when you sign up for a monthly subscription? You’re often forced to remember a promo code or URL, or make a mental note to look up the offer when you return to your phone or laptop. This process is far from seamless. That’s why we’re excited to announce a new ad experience launching across podcasts called call-to-action (CTA) cards.

 

 

CTA cards will appear in the app as soon as a podcast ad begins playing, and will resurface later on while you’re exploring the Spotify app—making it easier to check out the brand, product, or service you heard about while listening. CTA cards will make it easier for you to directly discover the products and services you’re interested in without having a hard-to-remember promo code or vanity URL.

With the launch of this new ad experience, we’re making podcast ads interactive for the first time, transforming the format from something that can only be heard, into an experience that you can also see — and, most importantly, click.

With digital audio being such a multitasking-friendly and engaging medium, more people are listening than ever before. In fact, in the U.S., mobile time spent listening to audio content is now outpacing time spent on social media, video, and gaming, according to eMarketer. CTA cards are the latest step in Spotify’s vision for the future of audio as an interactive, multi-way experience. 

CTA cards will be available across select Spotify Original & Exclusive podcasts in the U.S. beginning today. Advertisers can be especially excited—our tests have shown twice as many site visits with these new clickable ads compared to non-clickable podcast ads. Learn more at Ads.Spotify.com.

Megan Thee Stallion Helped Kick Off Spotify’s ‘All Ears On You’ Brand Campaign With a Special Concert

October 12, 2021

Just last week, Spotify Advertising launched its first-ever global B2B brand campaign, All Ears On You, celebrating the power of Spotify’s immersive listening experience. We also partnered with film director Amber Grace Johnson to create a video that paints a vivid picture of that influence. Using a mixture of live action and visual effects, Amber helps illustrate the utterly engrossing artists, podcasters, and creatives who populate our platform with their work—and keep listeners listening. So, what better way to keep the momentum going than with an ear-catching, in-person concert from two-time Grammy award-winner Megan Thee Stallion? 

The concert took place at Manhattan’s Classic Car Club, a 3,200 square foot space located along the Hudson River. The evening began with a set by Brooklyn-based DJ Olivia Dope, who boasts some major star power of her own. The DJ has toured with Ciara and Saweetie and is known by fans for her crisp, surround-sound beats and “90s aesthetic” fashion sense. 

After building anticipation among attendees, Olivia welcomed Megan to the stage, where the rapper started off the evening with “Realer.” The viral star also performed some of the biggest hits in her arsenal, including “WAP,” “Body,” and “Savage.”

Sustainable Sonics: Carbon-Neutral Advertising Takes Root on Spotify

April 22, 2021

Digital audio consumption has taken off in recent years as consumers spend more time listening to music and podcasts as part of their daily routines. From Songs to Sing in the Shower to help pump you up for the day, to an episode of Crime Junkie to zone out with on your morning walk, time spent with digital audio increased 8.3% in 2020, with the average consumer streaming 1 hour and 29 minutes per day (eMarketer). Advertisers have taken notice and have tapped into Spotify and our streaming intelligence to reach these highly engaged audiences. 

As Spotify’s reach with advertisers continues to grow, we’ve started to examine ways we can offset the environmental footprint of our ads. One of Spotify Advertising’s teams, the Creative Collective, was formed earlier this year to cultivate some of these new opportunities for advertisers. Amanda Hoyle, a Creative Strategist on the team, dug into her own lifelong passion and interest around sustainability and environmentalism to help lead the charge in creating Spotify’s newest ad offering: Sustainable Sonics. 

Sustainable Sonics enables brands to make their music and podcast advertising fully carbon neutral (or in other words, to have net-zero carbon impact by balancing out the carbon emissions by funding an equivalent amount of carbon savings elsewhere in the world) on Spotify for one year. 

For the Record grabbed time with Amanda to learn more about her role in creating the offering, how it works, and the larger opportunity around environmentally conscious options in the audio advertising world.  

What is the role of the Creative Collective advertising team at Spotify?

We essentially work with advertisers to unlock, create, celebrate, and inspire ideas worth listening to—and that’s really our guiding principle and mission statement. The Creative Collective team is a network of strategists around the world focusing on creative excellence in advertising, with a particular interest in audio. The way we see it, the creative potential of audio is endless, and we’ve only just scratched the surface so far. 

A New Era for Podcast Advertising

February 22, 2021

Over the last year, Spotify has made significant moves to modernize audio advertising. From the launch of Streaming Ad Insertion to the expansion of our self-serve ad platform, Ad Studio, to the acquisition of Megaphone, we’re committed to ensuring this industry reaches its full potential.

Today, we announced an exciting leap forward for audio advertising, creating a path for creators to earn more for their work while delivering greater impact for advertisers.

We believe that this space is primed for innovation as digital audio becomes an integral part of consumers’ daily routines worldwide. According to eMarketer, in the U.S., mobile time spent listening to audio content is now outpacing time spent on social media, video, and gaming.

It’s no secret that podcasts have played a pivotal role in the rise in audio consumption. Their intimate nature makes them an ideal medium for advertisers looking to connect with engaged listeners who are ready to learn, discover, or be entertained. Read on to learn about how we’re powering the next era of innovation for the entire audio advertising ecosystem.

Introducing the Spotify Audience Network

The Spotify Audience Network is a first-of-its-kind audio advertising marketplace in which advertisers of all sizes will be able to connect with listeners consuming a broad range of content. These include Spotify’s Originals & Exclusives, podcasts via Megaphone and Anchor, and ad-supported music. We’ll leverage our medium-defining technology to give advertisers the ability to reach our audience of hundreds of millions of listeners—at scale—both on and off Spotify. We are in the early stages of developing this offering and look forward to sharing more in the coming months.

 

Unlocking new features on Streaming Ad Insertion 

At the top of 2020, we unveiled Streaming Ad Insertion (SAI), which delivers the intimacy and quality of traditional podcast advertising with the precision and transparency of modern-day digital marketing. SAI introduced an entirely new set of data-driven insights to podcast advertising, including a full digital suite of planning, reporting, and measurement solutions. SAI is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK, and we plan to launch in additional markets later this year. 

Over the past year, we have been refining SAI with our Originals & Exclusive content and now are ready to scale our innovation. We’re unlocking more product features, like audience-based buying, native ad placements, and reporting on creative performance, all of which play a key part in powering the Spotify Audience Network. Later this year, we’ll start to make this technology available to Megaphone podcast publishers and leading Anchor creators.

Simplifying podcast advertising with Spotify Ad Studio

The best way for advertisers to get started with Spotify Advertising is through our self-serve platform Spotify Ad Studio. Spotify Ad Studio makes streaming audio advertising accessible to advertisers of all sizes, from Fortune 500 brands to artist teams to local coffee shops. Through Spotify Ad Studio, advertisers have the power to reach our audience of hundreds of millions of listeners and leverage our streaming intelligence to ensure their message is heard by the right listeners, at the right moment.

Today, we’ll begin beta testing podcast ad buying on Spotify Ad Studio in the U.S. The introduction of podcasts to Spotify Ad Studio makes it simple for any advertiser to connect with engaged listeners at scale, whether they’re streaming their favorite podcast or discovering a new playlist.

These advancements—the Spotify Audience Network, Streaming Ad Insertion, and podcast buying via Spotify Ad Studio—will benefit creators, advertisers and listeners for years to come. We spoke to HBO Max’s Vice President of Growth Marketing, Katie Soo, to get her thoughts about how the streaming platform is leveraging Spotify as part of its marketing mix. 

“During the launch of HBO Max, our strategy was to expand our reach and align with digital audio to find entertainment seekers. We turned to Spotify, given its audio-first strategy, scale and cutting-edge technology, to address both of these key pillars,” noted Soo. “Our early campaigns have been successful, and we plan to continue partnering with Spotify to explore what’s possible in this growing medium.”

To learn more about these paradigm-shifting innovations, head over to Ads.Spotify.com.

5 Tips from Miguel, Samira Wiley, Jessie Ware, and Ramy Youssef on Creating an Authentic Brand

June 22, 2018

If you feel like you “really know” your favorite musician or TV star personally, you’re not alone. Between on-demand, streaming music and video and a never-ending array of posts on social platforms, today’s artistic creators and audiences are closer than ever before. For some celebrities, that connection gives them the chance to share their brand in a very new, meaningful way.

Spotify and Hulu acknowledged and celebrated this newfound engagement during a panel at the 2018 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity introduced by Spotify CMO Seth Farbman and Hulu CMO Kelly Campbell. The execs then handed the mic over to moderator God-is Rivera, Creative Executive at VML, who invited four influential creators from across the music, film, TV, and advertising worlds—Grammy Award-winning artist Miguel, musician Jessie Ware, actress Samira Wiley, and comedian Ramy Youssef—to explore what these connections mean for artists, brands, and creators in the digital age.

Hulu CMO Kelly Campbell and Spotify CMO Seth Farbman

 

We collected a few tips from the panelists on creating and sustaining your own brand:

1. Use culture to engage authentically

Miguel: “I am genuinely interested in creative work. I love to watch film, listen to as much music as possible, and just generally keep in touch with culture. It’s inspiring and helps continue the conversation.”

Samira: “I want to be able to have fans and people who are following me on social media feel like they are getting a real piece of me. So I try to post pictures where I’m hanging out with real people. I say yes to people a lot on the street—I used to shy away, but being accessible when I can helps me feel like I’m connecting more. I hope it makes them feel like they’re connecting with me as well.”

Jessie: “I try to be as honest as possible. I have a podcast, which helps me be relevant. It was very accidental, I did it to escape myself, but people have quite enjoyed it. I do it with my mother while she cooks dinner … It has shown my fans another side of me. A lot of fans think I’m very mysterious but I’m absolutely not, so this breaks down a barrier where they can see that other side, tap in, be relatable and accessible.”

Jessie and Ramy prepare to share

2. Keep your fans in mind

Ramy: “When you do stand-up, you’re kind of ambushing people with comedy. It informs the messaging. You’re like, ‘Ok, if I’m trying to get people’s attention right away, how can I do it?’ and you have to be as authentic as possible right away. … When you only have a small amount of time to engage people, it becomes really clear what the message is and what you want to say.”

Jessie: “Everyone has a story, and you may not know what’s going on when you’re serenading them, and you’re kind of getting a bit frustrated that maybe the crowd’s not warming up enough, but you’re not doing it for you, you’re doing it for them. That’s very humbling for me.”

3. Take a stand for what you believe in

Miguel: “Being of Mexican and black descent, knowing the journey that my father took as an immigrant to the United States from Zamora, Michoacán Mexico makes trying to figure out the proper solution for undocumented people in the States something that has been really dear to my heart. Learning and speaking up about that is a way that I’ve been able to include something that’s authentic to where I came from into my communication and conversation with my fans.”

Samira and Ramy having a laugh

 

4. Use your platform to spread your message

Samira: “Why do I have this platform? People are looking at us to say things. I felt like I needed to speak out on political things because of who I am. I had a wonderful experience coming out … but I know there are so many LGBT youth who do not have that experience. The leading cause of death for LGBT youth is suicide. To have one person who is an advocate for you in your life reduces that by 30 percent. And if I can do that for someone through social media, then that is what I want to do and that is one of the reasons I have the platform I do.”

5. Find a connection

Ramy: “Every time we talk we have influence. Being Muslim is a political thing. Just who I am is political. Now I have a platform and people care. They want to know. So I have to be as much me as possible, as human as possible, and that means putting the flaws first. People respond to ‘Yo, we’re both messed up in the same ways, and we’re both dealing with the same issues,’ and in order for me to do that I have to be vulnerable and honest and human.”

One—perhaps unspoken—piece of advice was that an artist never rests: Miguel brought the evening to a close with a performance of his chart-topping “Sky Walker.”

Miguel performing “Sky Walker”

 

Whether showcasing their work or sharing their thoughts, these influencers are able to create a unique connection that they don’t take for granted.

L-R: Miguel, Samira, Seth, Jessie, God-is, and Ramy

Spotify Celebrates the Connection Between Brands and Consumers at Cannes

June 18, 2018

Spotify was founded upon the simple truth that personal discovery is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Our mission from the beginning has been to connect fans to culture and bring creativity to the world.

That premise makes our presence at the 2018 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity particularly meaningful. From our Spotify Beach headquarters on the Croisette, we celebrate a turning point for the company. We are proud of how far we have come and what we’ve learned along the way. As the recipient of the Cannes Lion Media Brand of the Year award, we consider 2018 as a reflection of that journey.

To date, Spotify connects musicians with over 170 million fans globally, utilizing personalized insights to inspire people to discover even more. From our perch in the cross currents of culture—and at the nerve center of Cannes Lions—Spotify Beach hosts the leaders of the world’s most exciting brands to exchange ideas and learn more about the possibilities of partnership.

At the core of our offerings is the trusted relationship we’ve developed with music fans. Users on our free tier stream over two hours each day, and they stream everywhere: on mobile phones, in connected cars, and through smart speakers at home. This allows us to understand unique insights—like moods, mindsets, tastes and habits on an individual level—and deliver content tailored to each listener.

This valuable intelligence provides advertising partners with opportunities to place personalized and inspiring ads in ways that resonate deeply with a wide range of cultures. Our streaming intelligence connects us with new audiences, providing real time insights that deliver more relevant and engaging ad experiences for our brand partners and users.

At Spotify Beach we present an array of exhibits and interactive tools that give a real, tangible impression of who we are and what we have to offer brands. We highlight everything from our creator programs, personalized and cultural playlists (including Rise, Viva Latino, Rap Caviar, Hot Country and Spotify Singles) and New Free Tier listening experience to our rapid growth in podcasts.