Spotify Free users can now watch a video ad and get 30 minutes of uninterrupted listening in return

[Shawn Knight]

Streaming music service Spotify is going visual. The company on Monday announced they’re getting into the video business by launching a pair of video advertising products targeting a slice of its 30+ million free users around the globe.

The new Spotify ads come in one of two different flavors. First, brand partners can buy 15- or 30-second “takeover” ads that target desktop users. Video ads for desktop will only be shown if the desktop client is in view – otherwise, a normal audio ad would be played instead.

The second type of ad is the one getting the most attention today as it allows mobile users to watch a 30-second commercial in exchange for 30 minutes of ad-free listening.

Spotify has signed on a number of high-profile brands for the new video ads including Coca-Cola, Ford, McDonalds, NBC Universal pictures, Target and Wells Fargo.

Specifically, the ads will be shown to what Spotify calls a “highly engaged” audience – those that spend an average of 146 minutes a day (or more) listening across multiple devices. The ads will only be shown to users in six markets for the fourth quarter: Germany, France, Spain, Sweden, the US and the UK. Spotify plans to expand the campaign globally next year.

No word yet on how much Spotify is charging advertisers for the spot but regardless, the market for video ads in general is massive. According to eMarketer, US advertisers are expected to spend $1.44 billion on video ads for mobile devices this year.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/57996-spotify-free-users-can-now-watch-a-video-ad-and-get-30-minutes-of-uninterrupted-listening-in-return.html

 

[AnonymousSurfer]

This is a pretty good way to compensate if users don't want to listen to ads every 3 or 4 songs. I bet Spotify even makes more money this way through video ads. As a premium member, I'm not angry at this and I'm still going to stick with my premium, just because I listen to music so much on my phone and computer that to me it makes more sense to pay $10 a month for access to my playlists of over 1000 songs. Anyone still using iTunes is an *****, and those that use Pandora are just misguided. Why listen to radio on Pandora when you can listen to radios and save songs in playlists? Clearly spotfiy is the better choice

 

[trgz]

Been, or rather 'was', a free Spotify user since 2008 (I got invited before it went fully public) and to be honest I rarely use it these days. I've seen such a degradation in it's service over the years with many, almost hundreds, of songs disappearing from my playlists and the inclusion of many distasteful social media and dating adverts that I might log on once every six months to check a tune out.
update: I just logged on for the sake of this comment and the interface seems less 'social-media'-like but the inter-song ads clearly have not been targeted at me and my previous listening choices. And still, the red X doesn't shut it down - do they not know how to minimize to the tray? Poor

 

[Kibaruk]

This is a pretty good way to compensate if users don't want to listen to ads every 3 or 4 songs. I bet Spotify even makes more money this way through video ads. As a premium member, I'm not angry at this and I'm still going to stick with my premium, just because I listen to music so much on my phone and computer that to me it makes more sense to pay $10 a month for access to my playlists of over 1000 songs. Anyone still using iTunes is an *****, and those that use Pandora are just misguided. Why listen to radio on Pandora when you can listen to radios and save songs in playlists? Clearly spotfiy is the better choice

Your comment was spot on to the point you started throwing **** to the fan, it's unnecesary. Keeping your comments on what is good and what is not it's fine, telling people they are anything less (even using crude vocabulary) for using something is not cool.

Back to topic, I'm into this although my country is not being targetted, anywho.