Within just nine months of its launch in the Indian market, Spotify, the global audio streaming platform, aims to expand and offer an extensive platform for advertisers, marketers and brands. Amarjit Singh Batra, Managing Director-India, Spotify talks about advertising on the streaming platform, ad campaigns, Original Podcasts, sponsored content and integrated marketing…
On the platform’s marketing plan:
We are understanding the Indian market and learning what consumers want in order to ensure our marketing campaigns are relevant. We have gone local with our marketing campaigns like #SuntheJa and #There’sAPlaylistForThat, which encourages the local Indian audience to keep listening, whatever their mood. We started Spotify Lite for users with a low internet bandwidth. We have also created original podcasts across genres like sports, relationships, stories and entertainment.
On creating personalised campaigns for listeners:
We do not want ads that sound like recommendations, but rather we aim to focus on a ‘one-to-one’ ad campaign. We want to stream ads which are relevant to our audience, especially millennials and the GenZ consumer base. Brands have an opportunity to use Spotify which has an audience of over 248 million to personalise campaigns, analyse the mood and behaviour of listeners and provide solutions by facilitating engagement.
On ad-free and subscription-based model:
We are striking a balance between uninterrupted, ad-free audio streaming and subscription-based revenue model. We want our users to listen without ads, but at the same time, we want to provide brands with a direct platform to connect and leverage the young user base.
On Spotify’s Original Podcasts:
We have just launched Original Podcasts. We are offering sponsored content which provides 30 minutes of uninterrupted audio streaming in exchange for an attentive brand audio-visual campaign. We are also looking at integrated marketing where brands can use data to understand the audience and create focussed engagement especially when it comes to Original Podcasts.