Spotify Advertising
In our collaboration with Spotify Advertising, we aimed to redefine how Spotify communicates its unique value to B2B enterprise advertisers. We crafted a narrative to resonate with media planners, positioning Spotify as the leading platform for engaging an attentive audience.
Problem
Despite having one of the most engaged audiences in digital, Spotify needed to better articulate its standout value in the crowded advertising space. Our goal was to equip Spotify's sales teams to clearly and convincingly convey this message.
Big Idea
Noise-Cancelling Advertising - Spotifys intelligent targeting means advertising served to listeners is actually welcomed. Spotify advertising cancels out the noise of unwanted interruption and replaces it with content people actually want to listen to. Which, for advertisers, means all ears are on their ads.
Creative Solution
A multi-phase brand campaign...
Phase 01 - A series of special builds in key European cities - noise cancelling oasis where curated Spotify content us used to drown out the noise of everyday life.
Phase 02 - An ABM approach to directly target media buyers and get them buying ad space on the Spotify ad platform.
One of the biggest contributors to the noise was advertising.
From TV and radio to digital displays and web ads, audiences had become accustomed to the overwhelming barrage of irrelevant messages, causing them to tune out and control their environment by ignoring ads and filtering out content that didn’t matter
But tech has empowered people to take control of their surroundings.
This was seen in the rise of noise-cancelling headphones, which reflected the growing demand for personalised, distraction-free listening experiences. People wanted spaces they could shape themselves, creating a world of their own — right between their ears.
What some viewed as noise was often just ill-timed or irrelevant advertising.
Brands that bombarded audiences with the wrong content were ignored, but those that reached people in the right mindset could truly connect. This is noise cancelling advertising.
Crafting the Narrative
We started by developing a sales narrative to help Spotify better communicate the value of Spotify Advertising, building on their existing positioning. We recognised that modern life is noisy —whether it was traffic, construction, conversations, or constant notifications, people were surrounded by unwanted noise.
The Big Idea
With Spotify Advertising, your message reaches an audience that's fully tuned in. In a world full of distractions, people instinctively tune out noise. But when they want to focus, they put on their headphones and choose what to hear. This is where Spotify excels, offering brands access to an exclusive, immersive space where listeners are fully engaged, with no distractions. This is...
NOISE-CANCELLING
ADVERTISING
AWARENESS PHASE
Special Builds
We wanted to make media buyers aware of Spotify’s advertising prowess and bring to life our ‘noise cancelling advertising’ idea. So we conceptualised a series of special builds we called ‘Noise cancelling oasis’ – refuges from the hustle and bustle of busy city life – and the relentless (and un-personalised) advertising that comes with it.
We used clever noise cancelling technology to tune down the ambient noise inside the special builds and played blissful, calming ambient sounds, interspersed every now and then with our key message – The Spotify platform is home to noise cancelling advertising –advertising your customers will actually tune in for.
These special builds were strategically placed in busy creative hubs - this got us geographically close to our target audience of creatives, advertising professionals and media buyers.Moreover, these creative hubs were often in noisy parts of the city and drenched in advertising – which only further emphasised the calming effect of the noise cancelling special builds!
Display
We further developed Spotify’s beautiful illustrated identity to roll out the noise cancelling advertising campaign across various digital placements.
The identity allowed us to be incredibly playful – to visualise fantastical spaces and populate them with people from all walks of life.
AWARENESS PHASE
Social
Advertisers who use the Spotify ad platform get the chance to rub shoulders with premium content and great artists – for a fraction of the price of traditional advertising.
We played up this USP via a social ad series that pairs brands with premium Spotify content.
AWARENESS PHASE
An ABM Approach
This unique visual approach means that we could create an infinite number of avatars that transcended age, race etc. and pair them with an infinite number of unique environments designed to represent the target audience’s music taste – to maximise the appeal of the finished ad – in essence, a hyper personalised ABM style approach.
CONSIDERATION PHASE
How it Worked
Imagine we wanted to target Jenny – a highly influential head of media at Saatchi & Saatchi. We might create an avatar for her and place it in a world that represents her favourite music genre – vintage west-coast hip hop.
Geo-OOH
We used geo-targeted OOH to put the prospect of noise-cancelling advertising on the doorsteps of agencies.
We tapped into the unique culture of each agency to generate a personalised appeal. Saatchi & Saatchi’s slogan is ‘Nothing is Impossible’, so through the clever placements, we showed how we can support their mission.
Moreover, the people featured in this geo-targeted advertising actually resembled the specific heads-of media buying that we were trying to reach.
CONSIDERATION PHASE
Sales Team Tools
We created a branching narrative sales deck that the sales teams could use for multiple audiences. Content that would cover many eventualities means the Spotify sales teams simply walked the client through the presentation and make narrative choices in the room. Indexed layouts, internal links and a deep archive of frequently-requested content meant sales teams would always have the necessary info to hand.
CONVERSION PHASE
Working alongside the sales deck was an interactive desktop game featuring background audio cues that play via a special Spotify playlist.