Spotify is moving away from a standalone audio platform to being more an entertainment platform.
This shift in strategy opens up the opportunity to play in a bigger digital advertising pool with brands able to have a multi format approach across music, podcasts and video content, according to Spotify’s head of sales for AUNZ, Adrian Bingham.
“We've seen a real explosion of video content that's coming from the podcast side of the world. We're also using display and video as a way to engage with our audience to create more discoverable moments,” he said.
That interaction with the audience has boosted discoverability and time spent on the platform; in the last 12 months, there’s been an increase of close to 50% of time spent with video on Spotify.
“This brings great opportunities for brands to engage with that audience because you get them in different needs states - when they're leaning into the app, screen open and engaging with content; and the inverse of that is when they may be doing activities, screen closed, but they're listening and we can then obviously target them with audio ads,” Bingham told AdNews.
Spotify’s director of sales AUNZ, Annie Hugo (pictured below right), said a lot of brands who advertise on the platform have products that are visual, so to be able to carry out a multi-format campaign that includes an audio ad, accompanied with a visual display or video, results in greater ad recall, brand awareness and message association, according to research conducted by Spotify.
“The north star for Spotify is for our clients to think of us as a platform where they find their audience, whether that be across audio, video, or display, but what having video opens us up to is clients that maybe don't have an audio strategy coming in via video and then moving on to audio and display too” she said.
Another area the global player is moving into is AI, although Bingham said that a number of key features already utilised artificial intelligence before the recent explosion of popularity in the technology.
“For us, it's pretty early days and AI is an incredibly fast moving and developed space, but a lot of the Spotify products that we’re known for like Discover Weekly, Daily Mix, Year In Review etc - that actually has always been based on machine learning and AI,” he told AdNews.
“I think there's definitely going to be some exciting opportunities as that starts to transfer across into the ads side, but we always have a balance of focusing on tech and the human touch as well.”
Looking after a team of 35 sales people split across Melbourne and Sydney, covering Australia and New Zealand as a region, the Spotify team locally sits at around 100 in total and Bingham said the platform is “definitely looking to backfill some roles” at the moment.
“That's just from natural movement, both internally and some people heading back overseas, so there's just some recruitment going on at the moment of backfill and replacements roles,” he said.
Bingham said the focus for the remainder of the year is around the education piece in market - talking to the platform and product changes and what that means for advertisers.
“We've got a very big focus around measurement too; third party research and proof points will continue to be a really key theme,” he said.
“We've done a lot around the attention piece and we're really starting to lean more into media effectiveness, attribution and ROI. That's an area where we see a lot of potential and it's resonating really well with clients and brands as well.”
Kate Perry, Director of Sales AUNZ
What does a typical day look like for you?
In the fast-paced, million-miles-an-hour world of ad sales at Spotify - a typical day would kick off with a large long black with a splash of almond milk (take away cup please) and connecting with the team to review our progress to target, our sales pipeline, any blockers or issues, brainstorming briefs and strategic client planning. Almost every day there are presentations to clients and agencies (this is the best part where we get to talk about Spotify, and they tell us their favourite playlist or feature) and if I'm lucky I've managed to do that one stubborn thing on my to-do list. I’m also someone that loves to hunt new business, so I always make researching a new lead or prospect, or making new relationships or connections a part of my day.
What do you love most about your role?
The opportunity to lead a sales team of passionate, intelligent, hilarious “do’ers”. We are fortunate and grateful to be able to go out to market every day and connect brands with the millions of Aussies on Spotify who soundtrack their day with us. It's great fun to talk about a much-loved brand like Spotify; a product that people genuinely love and are passionate about every single day. I also love that at Spotify there is a real “no d*****ds” policy; so I’m surrounded by smart, practical, innovative, creative teammates who roll their sleeves up and work hard to bring our mission to life; which is to give a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it. I love that I’m part of making this a reality every day at work.
What are you focused on for 2024 and beyond?
For 18 years (can you believe Spotify is 18 years old!!) we have been leading innovation in podcasts, audiobooks and of course music. At Spotify we are always testing new features, new products, new ad experiences, new ways our advertisers can connect with our audiences creatively, and how they can harness that Spotify brand love that our users have for “their” Spotify. This will continue to be at our forefront in 2024. One area that will be a huge focus is our relentless pursuit of transparent measurement and ensuring all campaigns have access to robust measurement for free - which they do via Spotify Ad Analytics (formerly Podsights). Full funnel measurement is also at the forefront of our clients' minds this year; ensuring our advertisers have not only the depth of insights into how their campaigns are performing, and who they are reaching. Not only on Spotify but anywhere their audio is running, as well as the opportunity to introduce the Spotify pixel to track conversions and attributions.
Liam Hickey, Head of Automation JAPAC
What do you love most about your role?
The opportunity to speak to many markets across the APAC region, build out strategies and plans to help achieve clients' marketing goals and learn about new innovations and tech enhancements like AI and Machine Learning.
What does a typical day look like for you?
My day would start with an update to my team focused on our daily and weekly goals; internal meetings focused on strategy and planning sessions; external meetings with key agency and client partners, problem-solving and troubleshooting; and rounding out with a daily wrap/reflection to my team.
What attracted you to Spotify?
There are two important aspects for me. First off, digital audio was a new emerging medium for the advertising market in 2018, so it was only the beginning of a long journey and opportunity to bring music, podcast, and data together. To be part of that journey was very exciting. The second part to this is the brand. Spotify is a brand that I have always admired, from committing to innovation, endless discovery of music and podcasts and, as a user, something I use every day in my life.
Meghann Halker, Account Management Lead AUNZ + Japan
What’s the biggest challenge in your role?
The biggest challenges in my role span two main areas: people and technology. They are also two of my favourite things about working at Spotify because they are dynamic and keep me motivated. Managing a diverse, distributed workforce in a virtual environment requires constant clever communication strategies to ensure cohesion and effectiveness. On the technology front, the challenge is continuously finding innovative ways to showcase the unique opportunities, value and results that Spotify offers. We are committed to our education efforts to clearly define and showcase Spotify’s expansive role in the digital landscape, as it goes beyond traditional categories of just music or just audio. This requires an ongoing commitment to evolve our systems and feedback mechanisms to stay aligned with the rapid changes in the industry and deepen our clients' understanding of Spotify’s potential.
What are you focused on for 2024 and beyond?
What's great about a role like mine and this industry is that no matter what changes around us or what market you are in, the need to provide best-in-class client support will never go away. It’s fun to play a part in how Spotify evolves this and builds partnerships with our agencies and clients. We are always looking for new ways to add value to our partners.
What attracted you to Spotify and what do you love most about your role?
I was initially attracted to Spotify because of its innovative platform and products, having been an avid user both in my personal listening and advertising career. My interest deepened throughout the interview process and LinkedIn “research”, where I learned about the company's culture of loyalty, impressive employee tenure, and diverse career trajectories. This, combined with Spotify's dedication to a high-calibre professional environment, convinced me that it was a place where I could continuously learn and make an impact. What I love most about my role as the Account Management Lead for ANZ and Japan is the constant evolution and the opportunity to drive significant changes in the digital landscape. My role allows me to merge my love for the product with my natural problem-solving skills, motivation for helping people and need for efficiency. Having the opportunity to expand my remit to include Japan has further enriched my experience, exposing me to new perspectives on how Spotify is perceived and utilised globally.
Mitch Duff, Director of Sales AUNZ
What attracted you to Spotify?
After working on a project to launch the commercial model behind a local sports streaming platform, I was looking for my next role and felt strongly that it needed to be a digital-first, global tech business. Spotify made complete sense. Digital audio was just starting to gain some attention, and I was also drawn to the super-intelligent and passionate team at Spotify. Locally we have grown the team substantially, launched multiple new products across the platform and it doesn't stop. The pace at which the business operates is highly contagious, which is challenging and exciting all in the same stride.
What do you love most about your role?
Being surrounded by music, a powerful and exciting brand, and an intelligent team, really makes coming to work each day very easy. I also love the fact we have so many opportunities to collaborate and learn from our global teams. Recently the AUNZ team hosted Team India, Team Japan and Team SEA in our Sydney office and we had the opportunity to understand the JAPAC market dynamics as a team and build out solutions that were Spotify-centric, but market-specific.
What’s the biggest challenge in your role?
We have so many new platform updates being shipped for both advertisers and users, huge amounts of audience data and insights to share, and of course new creators to showcase, there is always so much to talk about. A constant challenge is how we prioritise the updates for our stakeholders and partners. The beauty of the Spotify experience is that it's always personalised to the listener and audience, think about your Daylist, Release Radar, or Discover Weekly, they are such great personalised products. So we try to make sure our connection with partners, is exactly that, personalised.
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