Spotify to soon serve video ads including mobile spots in exchange for ad-free sessions
Video spots are coming soon to Spotify.
As reported by AdAge, Spotify has introduced a couple of new ad formats for its free music streaming service, which it launched in December last year. These new formats both use video, and they come in addition to the company’s existing audio and display ad formats.
One of the ad formats is called Video Takeover. Initially available on Spotify’s desktop clients, Video Takeover is a 15- or 30-second commercial with video and display, served during an ad break between songs in a music session.
The other ad format, called Sponsored Session, appears to be of greater interest, especially to mobile users. Sponsored Session is so named because it gives users of Spotify’s mobile apps, including Spotify for iOS, an option to watch a 15- or 30-second video ad in exchange for a 30-minute, ad-free music streaming session.
Check out Spotify’s promo video for its new video ad formats:
If you can’t see the video embedded above, please click here.
Spotify is scheduled to soft-launch the new video ad formats with select brands in the fourth quarter of this year and officially launch them for all advertisers in the first quarter of next year.
Spotify’s launch partners include Kraft Foods, Target, and Wells Fargo in the U.S. and Coca-Cola, Ford, McDonald’s, and Universal Pictures worldwide.
I subscribe to Spotify’s premium ad-free service, so advertising is not part of my music streaming experience. But if you’re a user of Spotify’s free service, would you be interested in engaging with the new video ad formats, particularly the mobile-focused Sponsored Session?
