Spotting Spotify’s brand allure
By Simon Fuller. Sound moves. Not only is online music service Spotify a cool hit with band fans, it’s catching on with brands too.
Fiat, for one, challenged consumers to come up with inspirational tracks for their summer feel-good Spotify playlist, with a dedicated online destination allowing visitors to suggest tunes for the list – with a chance to win a free subscription to Spotify as an added incentive. The most popular tunes, by the way, have been from Macy Gray and Queen.
20th Century Fox, teaming up with Absolute Radio and Shortlist magazine, hit on the branded playlist idea too, with an emphasis on romance. To promote the new film 500 Days of Summer, lovestruck consumers are being invited to create their own Spotify playlist containing their top three heartstring-tugging tracks. Lucky entrants could win tickets to European festivals, too.
And Volkswagen also tied with Spotify to develop a jazz playlist to promo the Passat.
With other – currently under wraps – projects in the pipeline, what is that’s making Spotify so attractive to brands?
“[Working with Spotify] signifies forward thinking – an understanding of how to engage users in the digital world, and open-mindedness with creativity,” explains Jon Mitchell, UK sales manager at Spotify. “All of this is underpinned with accountability for the required ROI metrics.
“Clients are able to concentrate their activity around one destination for consumers to go to and be engaged in, whilst the coverage/awareness is driven from multiple media owners which have their own unique benefits,” he adds. “It’s more efficient than creating multiple sites to host the conten,t and at the same time doesn’t detract from the marketing message.”
And with lots of brands tapping into the music vibe at the moment, Spotify reckon the pull is a pretty simple one.
“At the most basic level the [draw] is that bands have fans who are positively engaged and brands want to tap into the halo effect,” says Mitchell. “The bigger the act, the bigger the group of fans they can reach out to, for example, BlackBerry and U2. Music taps into certain lifestyles with ease as well – the bands live the lifestyle and the brand can piggy back. Finally, most people love music, it can get them talking which is great for brands.”
