Don’t Call Spotify a ‘Streaming Platform’ Anymore

Photo Credit: Spotify

Spotify rolls out interactive carousel ads to draw more marketing dollars, calling itself an “interactive multiformat ecosystem” in its new era.

On Tuesday, Spotify announced the addition of interactive carousel ads in a bid to draw more money across its marketing channels and generate sales.

The move also makes the platform more visual, which has led Spotify to calling itself a “streaming platform” no longer. Instead, the company says it’s an “interactive multiformat ecosystem,” but we’re doubtful that users will care about the change in preferred nomenclature.

Spotify’s new swipeable ads enable brands to highlight up to six different products, with each slide including its own image, link, description, and optional pricing and/or promotional information. These ads will show up in the app’s Now Playing view and appear on the screen while users are engaging with content.

“The user experience is becoming a much more interactive, audio, and visual experience,” said Brian Berner, Spotify’s Global Head of Advertising Revenue and Partnerships. “It’s just time for us to make sure that our ad strategy reflects the trends we’re seeing and the user engagement we’re seeing from our consumers.”

Carousel ads as a concept were really pioneered by Meta over the last decade and a half. But Spotify’s inclusion of them serves to provide more visual enticements for users who are spending more time watching, and not just listening, to content on Spotify. It coincides with the company’s push to include more music videos and podcasts with full video.

“What we’re trying to build from an ad strategy is to challenge that preconceived notion of audio just being an upper-funnel reach play, and build a full-funnel suite,” Berner explained. “Do I think overnight we’re going to go from upper funnel to suddenly driving bazillions of app installs? Not overnight. But when I think about the next five years… we are absolutely trying to challenge the status quo and show Spotify to be a full-funnel offering.”

Advertisers can actually pay to be the only featured brand on a given playlist and ensure that their ads are the only ones that run during playback. For users, this equates to fewer ad breaks throughout the duration of a sponsored playlist. Both carousel ads and sponsored playlists will be shown to users of Spotify’s free, ad-supported tier.