MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Spotify has redefined the world of music, shaping both the industry as the world knows it today and the everyday lives of its millions of listeners. To demonstrate how this makes it the ultimate platform for brands to reach their audience, Spotify Advertising’s APAC Creative Strategy Lead Vanessa Goh broke down the science of humans’ connection to audio in her DIGIMAX: IMMAP DigiCon 2023 talk, “Sonic Science: Understanding the Impact of Spotify.”
Vanessa pointed out that sound has been a vital part of how we experience the world, from the sound of our mother’s heartbeat before we even enter the world to the fact that any sonic input is the first thing our brains can process because hearing is our fastest sense. This has carried into people’s listening habits, especially in the age of streaming. In the past decade, Spotify has become a mirror of how people live their lives. Not only are listeners’ tastes reflected in the songs they choose and the playlists they curate, but their listening habits also reveal their emotions, current mindsets, and even the activities they’re doing in real time.
“If you look at the way people listen, it’s very reflective of our lives. You can see people’s moods being reflected in the music they listen to,” Vanessa said.
From pushing ads for products meant to cheer people up when someone is listening to sadder music to advertising comfy mattresses to new parents who are up playing lullabies late at night, how deeply embedded into and reflective of daily life audio is in daily life allows for a more meaningful connection with audiences.
On top of that personalization, Spotify also enables brands to connect with Spotify more efficiently and memorably due to the traits that characterize the listening experience. It has been found that Spotify is a mood booster for many people. It allows them to be entertained and feel digitally connected without the exhaustion of scrolling endlessly on their phones. This means that when you make a connection with them on the platform, you are doing so as the audio content they’re listening to creates an engaging and impactful environment for ads to connect, which improves ad recall.
More notably, 63% of users have confirmed that Spotify is important to their daily routine. The fact that consuming audio is often being done while doing other tasks — chores, working out, driving or commuting, studying, and more — means that you can still connect with the audience while they’re screenless and aren’t looking at other digital ads that compete with yours.
Essentially, Spotify is the key to honing on what brands can offer to listeners and how they can best connect with them because the platform is a meaningful look at users’ lives, one that shows how they are experiencing every activity, every shift in mood, every change in season.
“Everyone has a different way to soundtrack their day,” Vanessa said. “But the point is that they’re soundtracking [it] with Spotify.”
adobo Magazine is an official media partner of DIGIMAX: IMMAP DigiCon 2023.
