After a four-year journey in India, music streaming platform Spotify decided to fast-track the Indian Premier League (IPL) to grow its ad operations and business in one of the world's biggest markets.
“Lots of exciting creative solutions and innovations are being presented to excite audiences and brands during the IPL,” Arjun Kuladi, director of sales for the Swedish broadcasting giant, told e4m when asked about Spotify's IPL show. However, he did not disclose the details of the offer.
Richard Frankel, the company's global creative director, was in India last month when Spotify India celebrated its fourth anniversary. Participate in a company-funded study called "Sonic Science 2.0" which claims that sound is one of the most effective means when it comes to remembering a value. The study also found that advertising has 19% more brand influence on Spotify than all other media.
Spotify targets Generation Z and claims to currently work with more than 300 brands, including Visa, Samsung, OnePlus, Amazon, and Mondelez.
With the increase in internet access, smartphone usage and online transactions in India, Spotify sees huge growth opportunities. The company hopes to double the number of transactional users in India from the current 350 million to 700 million by 2030.
More than 40% of Spotify users are Premier Members who run a significant part of their business. However, premium membership is not growing at the rate of recent years due to economic constraints.
To reach out to more young consumers, especially from India, Spotify recently launched a UPI for recurring subscriptions and free trials. Previously, only users with a debit or credit card could access the free trial.
Spotify recently announced a new feature for content creators and fans.
Frankel and Colady shared information about the company's journey in India, its expansion plans and the challenges it faces.
up to the challenge
Arjun: It has been an amazing journey to be the market leader in India for the last 4 years.
On the advertising side, we've worked with more than 300 brands, including media and entertainment brands, FMCG companies, technology companies, hardware manufacturers, financial companies, and travel aggregators. We have won many awards, developed our team, and built strong partnerships with our clients and partner agencies.
However, much remains to be done. Digital audio advertising continues to be a growth space, and as a market leader, our responsibility to help the ecosystem move forward increases. We will continue to increase audio evangelism, teaching and inspiration.
Richard: Being the biggest podcast service isn't really a gift! It is something that must be earned every day. We remain focused on making sure that all of our listeners in India feel that we are a trusted and capable audio partner when they use our platform to bring audio into their lives. When we target audiophiles and audio consumers, we can create the moments, moods, and mindsets that bring them to life.
widely
Arjun: We wanted to move audio to its rightful place in the media landscape, especially considering the fact that more time is spent on audio than watching videos, games, news, etc. Media, technology and consumer goods, and we will bring more advanced measurement and creative solutions to India this year.
Finally, we want to help drive innovation and accountability through programming and automation.
Richard: That's a great question, wide open, so I'm not sure if this answer exactly addresses the area you mentioned, but it got me thinking about growth and how we're managing it, and some things are still "in the pipeline." plays." The most important thing is. The first is to always try to be as relevant locally as globally.
We sometimes delay our market expansion to ensure we can start with the diversity and languages expected in each market. We want to spend as much time as possible building audiences and audience loyalty before asking advertisers to engage with the audience. It's more than a matter of achieving size. Managing expansion with these insights creates more trust, more love for the brand, and lasting opportunities for all of our partners.
in IPL programs
Arjun: Excitement is building around IPL as we help our partners understand how best to use Spotify as part of their media mix.
While the actual viewing of the game will not be on Spotify , we have post-game preparations and celebrations available, on mobile phones, smart TVs, cars, watches, game consoles and home speakers.
Last year, we saw a 113% increase in cricket-related streams on Spotify during the tournament. According to GWI, 77% of free Spotify users are cricket fans and 67% follow IPL. Not only that, 22% of cricket fans on Spotify are involved in fantasy sports and 71% of cricket fans on Spotify use digital payments.
We have some exciting creative solutions and innovations that we've put together that will excite our fans and brands throughout the tournament.
about innovation
Richard: Spotify is currently working on an AI-enabled DJ player, which will be a dedicated AI assistant that will play music based on your preferences. We are also working on NFT-enabled playlists. But Indian users will have to wait for this innovation.
