You’ve probably heard us talk about innovating comms by now. It’s something that we’re pretty proud of. Part of this approach is focused on using innovative thinking to be the eyes and ears for our clients – finding new opportunities that are suited to their audience and strategy. After all, that’s what we’re here for.
Last year, one opportunity that arose was the launch of Spotify’s beta ad platform – which we excitedly signed up to and began trialling almost immediately. As their first ever self-serve platform, we were initially a bit dubious about affordability – particularly for digital test and learn campaigns where we require small, non-committal trial budgets. Plus, how accessible would it be for us and our clients?
"A few pleasant surprises"
Our first time exploring the platform led to a few pleasant surprises; the first being that minimum spend for audio ads is just £250 – which is great for introducing the channel into small campaigns. We also found Spotify targeting to be pretty sophisticated for its first ever development. Comparing it to Snapchat’s initial self-serve platform, Spotify just seemed to offer more options in a cleaner, simpler interface.
Spotify has intelligently taken advantage of the data gathered on users, too. Advertisers can target listeners of playlists and music genres, overlaid with basic demographical data. Targeting based on music comes in handy when you really understand your audience, identified through customer data or personas.
BUT, REMEMBER: AUDIO ADS ONLY PLAY ON FREE ACCOUNTS.
Using Spotify to innovate
We introduced Spotify as part of the digital mix for United Utilities’ Reservoir Safety campaign, which was recently shortlisted in the Prolific North Awards 2019. The annual campaign aims to raise awareness of the dangers of swimming in reservoirs with young adults and teenagers.
Audience research and hypothesis led us to identify that teenagers and young adults were less likely to pay for Spotify, and so would receive ads that they couldn’t skip when listening on the platform. For a campaign that needed to communicate serious warning messages, this was how we generated cut-through on busy feeds, using an ad format that our audiences couldn’t ignore.
We’ve found the average CPM (cost-per-1,000 impressions) on Spotify to be higher than other channels, but Spotify is fairly unique in that ads can’t be skipped or even overlooked like they can more freely on other channels. This was instrumental in the campaign, enabling us to promote the dangers of reservoirs directly.
Using Spotify was a first for Reservoir Safety, and enabled us to connect to a disengaged, hard-to-reach audience. Pretty great, eh?
Want to run Spotify advertising as part of your next campaign? Speak to us!