CHANGING YOUR TUNEA quick guide to Spotify

What is it?

Spotify is an on-demand streaming music service offering digitally restricted streaming of selected music from a range of major independent record labels.

“Access is replacing ownership, like it or not.”Gerd Leonhard, author of The Future of Content

Unlimited streaming of music

Spotify on your mobile

How it worksThere are three streaming services available; Free streaming, Unlimited Streaming and Premium.

Access to millions of tracks No Advertisements

FREE

UNLI

MIT

EDPR

EMIU

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Offline mode for playlists

Functions

Access to millions of tracks

Import local files

Create custom playlists

Related artists

Artist radio

Bibliographies Offline mode

Use anywhere

Mobile music

FUNCTIONALITY DISCOVERY MOBILITY

Why it works

Streaming music services negate both the cost and compatibility problems users have with music downloads.

“It’s all the music you can listen to, served to you in real time and it’s FREE!– which is why Spotify is the hottest thing going right now.”Michael Miller author of The Ultimate Digital Music Guide: The Best Way to Store, Organize, and Play Digital Music

Why should you care?

— Library of 16 million songs, with 10,000 new tracks added every day.

— Estimated 10,000 new subscribers a month.

— +2.5 million global users in the last month.

— 20 million monthly active users (5M paying subscribers, 15M non-paying).

— Estimated 700+ Playlists created every day.

“Spotify’s launch in Australia has been the most successful launch globally to date.”Radinck van Vollenhoven, Senior Sales Manager, Spotify, Australia & New Zealand

SpotifyMusic AllyBillboard

WHAT’S ALL THE NOISE ABOUT?

Spotify Ads

There are 8 different ad units on Spotify; Audio ads, Display ads, Billboard ads, MPUs, Homepage Takeovers, Branded Playlists, Lightbox and Advertiser Page.

The units include spots of up to 30 seconds of advertising.

Marketers also have the opportunity to build upon Spotify’s already established platform by developing branded apps.

Ads on Spotify can either: 1. Detract value from the listener’s experience 2. Add value to the listener’s experience.

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Advertising on Spotify

The best and worst thing about Spotify ads is that they’re unavoidable.

Although you’re guaranteed eyes and ears, you’re still interrupting the listener’s experience.

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Detracting value (interrupting)

“I would rather listen to toothpaste fighting cavities”

“Obnoxiously long - and the content is odious”

“It’s frustrating when the ads are completely irrelevant to me”

“What is very annoying are ads that are not even close to the genre of music that I’m listening to. When I’m playing a classic rock album, I get ads for a hip hop artist”

“...it’s the fact that they’re really compressed, loud and interrupting my peace that I can’t cope with”

Spotify Community Forum

If not done right, it’s a lose-lose situation to both the listener and the advertiser.

Spotify Ads are often confronting, invasive and irrelevant.

Abruptly interrupting a user’s listening experience with marketing jargon will only lead to negative brand association and backlash.

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Adding value (engaging)

Leverage users’ musical passion points and positive affiliation with music to accentuate your brand’s message.

Identify, adapt, connect, co-create and share musical interests.

Add to the listener’s user experience by integrating marketing messages into their Spotify ecosystem.

“I wouldn’t hate Spotify ads so much if they weren’t so offbeat...literally. They’re so irrelevant to me and my music preferences”

“If the ad actually matched the music I was listening to, then I would be interested in sampling that product and even consider making a PURCHASE”

“I don’t mind Spotify ads when they’re not invading my musical space with random nonsense... Show me a brand with similar musical interests, and I’ll happily walk into their shop to purchase their products”

Spotify Community Forum

1. AUDIO ADSHigh impact, unavoidable format comprised of audio ad, campaign cover art, and clickable scrolling text.

3. DISPLAY ADSPlaces leaderboard and skyscraper ads in the Spotify player, served when the user is actively interacting with Spotify.

Standard online format for the Spotify player homepage: the default start-up page for all users when they log in to Spotify.

4. MPU ADS

5. HOMEPAGE TAKEOVERSHigh impact, unavoidable format; allows for effective redesign and brand-ownership of Spotify. It's the first thing a user sees when they open Spotify.

2. BILLBOARD ADSA format with huge standout; acts like a screensaver after a few minutes of player inactivity.

6. LIGHTBOXAn overlay window launched by any Spotify ad format, hosting content such as Flash video, data capture, competitions, live streaming or game demos.

7. ADVERTISER PAGEAn ad-served microsite, seamlessly integrated into the Spotify player. The advertiser page can contain practically any content you'd display on a webpage, including videos, clickable images, blogs, news, links, comments and more.

Custom user-generated playlists with brand logo, custom text and optional link to your campaign.

8. BRANDED PLAYLISTS

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Spotify Ads on the engagement scale

+2. ADAPT

3. CONNECT

4. CO-CREATE

Adapt the tone of your ad to the musical context of the listener’s mood.

Build strong relationships with users by leveraging musical passion points.

Foster branded communities by encouraging and rewarding user participation.

Engaging - 4 key rules

1. IDENTIFY

Identify your target market’s musical interests and listening habits.

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Engaging

IDENTIFY

Identify your target market’s musical interests and listening habits.

Get in tune with your target audience.

Tailor your Spotify communications according to your target audience’s music preferences.

Levi’s partnered with Spotify, The Clash and a series of emerging UK bands, to help promote an array of gigs at its flagship store. Band fans were encouraged to visit the Levi’s microsite to determine the set-list, cover tracks and support acts for the gig. The unique musical partnerships and creative execution across Spotify successfully embraced Levi’s rugged, yet timeless brand appeal, making their brand more relatable to a new generation of Spotify users.

To build a solid communication foundation on Spotify, you must first identify your audience’s listening behaviours.

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Engaging

ADAPT

Adapt the tone of your ad to the musical context of the listener’s mood.

Clipper Tea created an interactive ad to induce trial. The ad targeted listeners whose musical interests lied with serene/classical music.

Clipper Tea consciously acknowledged the musical context and made the interruption as non-invasive as possible.

Stop interrupting and start engaging.

Optimise genre targeting to adapt the tone of your ad to a user’s mood.

Interrupting consumers while they’re listening to their favourite music will result in negative brand association.

+CONNECT

Build strong relationships with users by leveraging musical passion points.

Through the FitList App, Reebok created a controlled encounter that integrated the consumer’s workout, favorite artists and the Reebok brand into a single integrated brand experience. The consumer’s positive associations with the artist, workout and overall experience added value to the consumer's experience.

EngagingThe emotional content of music is highly subjective. A user’s playlist is often a personal reflection and expression of their identity.

Let the user’s positive affiliation with music accentuate yourbrand image.

Spotify Apps enable marketers to create unique cross-platform connections with the user. (Music + Lifestyle + Social)

Create a consumer self-provisioning app to enhance personal affiliation with the brand.

+CO-CREATE

Foster brand communities by encouraging and rewarding user participation.

Build a playlist to facilitate a mood in-line with your brand. This will engage users with a similar taste in music to band together over your brand.

In order to connect with a young target market, Skoda developed The Family Composer. The campaign acted as a musical dating service, matching Spotify users with similar music tastes. User generated playlists encouraged young Spotifiers to share their favourite tracks with one another, and with Skoda. The fun and uniqueness of the experience sparked an online Skoda community, making the brand identifiable with young demographic.

Chances are people in a brand’s target market have similar tastes in music.

Encourage listeners to build playlists around your brand.

Engaging

— Estimated 10,000 new subscribers a month.

— Over different 8 advertising options + App opportunities.

— Guaranteed eyes and ears, but theres a brand risk if you get it wrong.

— Our advice....follow the 4 key engagement rules.

It’s time to stop interrupting and start engaging.

Summary

Identify: Identify your target market’s musical interests and listening habits.

Adapt: Adapt the tone of your ad to the musical context of the listener’s mood.

Connect: Build strong relationships with users by leveraging their musical passion points.

Co-Create: Foster brand communities by encouraging and rewarding user participation.

Next Steps

THANK YOU!For more information please email tim.evans@dtdigital.com.au or david.pountney@dtdigital.com.au

dtdigital.com.au facebook.com/dtdigital twitter.com/dtdigital