BRANDS NEED TO TRY HARDER WITH SPOTIFY

This article was first published on Social Media Week.

I have an alternative title idea: "How to advertise to people who don't like advertising?"

Music brings people together, because it allows us to experience the same emotions. Research has shown that listening to music makes us feel happy, alive and open.

For this very reason, connecting with consumers through their passion for music, has always been a sweet spot for marketers in any industry.

Whether you sell shampoos, holidays, trainers, soft-drinks or luxury-bags, brands have become a lot more focused on creating a rich experience across multiple platforms.

Spotify’s success lies in its ability to discover new music, foster and grow online communities with like-minded people.

Because of that, Spotify is becoming increasingly more popular with consumers and brands have fully understood its importance to draw people together by building communities through playlists and as a consequence, reach out to millions of customers.

There are two main ways how brands can work with Spotify:

1) Push-marketing = Annoying pop-up advertising

Spotify has developed a range of advertising formats to build revenue from its free subscribers, like:

? Audio Ad – unavoidable format comprised of an audio spot, cover art, and clickable campaign name.

? Display – Leader-board ads in the Spotify player are served when the user is interacting with Spotify.

? Homepage Takeover – Block out a full day for your brand on our Homepage.

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

? Sponsored Session – Users choose to watch a video to receive a 30-minute, ad-free session.

? Video Takeover – Sponsor the ad break experience with video and display.

? Advertiser Page – A microsite seamlessly integrated into the Spotify player. The Advertiser Page can contain practically any content you’d find on a webpage, including videos, clickable images, blogs, news, links, and comments.

Today, Spotify has 15 million subscribers (out of 60 million users) who pay $9.99 a month only not to see those unwanted ads. And the number of paid users is rapidly growing.  It took about 17 months for Spotify to move from 5 to 10 million, but roughly half that time to hit 15 million.

Brands need to try harder to reach those savvy ad-hating Millennials in a more authentic way.

Millennials (Spotify’s biggest generational demographic) don’t like ads, however they like brands and don’t mind interacting with them on their terms.

Hence, there are opportunities for better, more creative ways to interact with your customers on Spotify:

2) Pull-marketing = Getting the customer to come to you = Intelligent promotion

Here are some brands who’ve utilized Spotify to run interesting, content-focused campaigns:

Herbal Essence: Songs You Sing In the Shower
By realizing that many consumers have favourite shower-time songs, the brand jumped on this opportunity to connect consumers with their products through the common interest of music. Herbal Essences asked its fans to share their favourite songs to sing in the shower.

Users were incentivized to add new songs to the playlist for the chance to win Herbal Essences products. The public playlist currently has 689 tracks and over 1,000 subscribers.

First Choice: The Perfect Summer Song Playlist Generator
First Choice is a holiday brand that believes music is part of all-inclusive, so they teamed up with Spotify to uncover the formula for the perfect summer song. First Choice and Spotify are using the formula to power a new playlist generator which creates personalized summer soundtracks at the touch of a button.

Uber and Spotify Partnership
The idea behind the partnership is simple: when you request a car with Uber, you can choose the music for your ride. When your car arrives, the tunes you’ve picked will play in the car.
This partnership feels modern, digital and leading edge. More info here: https://blog.uber.com/spotify

Mashable: Music Monday playlists
Every Monday, Mashable shares a Spotify playlist crafted around certain themes like:
? 27 songs that are all about that bass
? 25 Songs Famous People Wrote About Other Famous People
? 43 Acoustic Covers That Rival the Originals

NB! Everyone is encouraged to contribute to the lists.

See how brands like Coca-Cola, Nike, BMW and others have successfully used Spotify to win over new customers: https://www.spotify.com/uk/brands/gallery/

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About me:

I am a Digital PR, Content Strategist and Millennial Speaker. Writing on Lucky Attitude- the UK's leading Millennial blog, that inspires young people to realize their potential as the generation of game-changers, and employers to better understand and engage with this quirky generation, both as consumers and employees.

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