Together, Pandora, the popular music streaming and automated music recommendation internet radio service, and Placed, a leader in location-driven insights and ad intelligence have completed over 400 campaigns. At the LSA’s Place Conference in New York City, Jim Watson of Placed joined Mat Butts of Pandora on stage as he presented a summary of what they had learned from their extensive experience working together.
Mat explained how Pandora’s users enjoy the service not only directly via their mobile app, but also through, for instance, the connected car. As a result, Pandora offers a variety of opportunities for advertisers to reach the listeners including:
- Mobile audio
- Mobile display
- Mobile video
- Mobile interstitial
- Sponsored listening
- Connected car
Mat highlighted that when content was well matched to the listener’s current context, for instance a short video on a WiFi-connected device preceding a period of uninterrupted music streaming, often the listener would appreciate the message occasionally going as far as sharing positive sentiments with the brand on social media.
With over 400 campaigns from which to draw results, Mat and Jim shared with the audience a table comparing ad product performance by vertical. Verticals included:
- Quick-serve restaurants
- Casual dining
- Fashion
- Automotive
- Telecom
Among the top performing combinations were sponsored listening for telecom, mobile display for automotive and mobile video for casual dining. Combining the location-aware capabilities of the Pandora app with Placed’s location-driven insights to reach the right listener at the right place at the right time, and by measuring performance and applying insights on each subsequent campaign, the pair offer advertisers an increasingly effective channel to reach their target audiences.
In the case of a big CPG for instance, the brand gains the ability to prove and argue to a retailer, “We drove people to store, give us the shelf placement we want.” Indeed the scale and measurable success of the campaigns, which Mat and Jim candidly shared, was one of the many highlights of the conference.
