As music streaming continues to grow, interest is growing among advertisers seeking to reach music fans. Now Spotify is making it easier with its new Playlist Targeting feature, letting advertisers leverage Spotify’s listener data to bring ads to the desired demographic, VentureBeat reported.
“Brands can now target audience segments based on who they are (age & gender, geography, language), what they’re listening to (playlist, genre), and when and how they’re listening (time of day and by platform/device),” noted Spotify in their press release.
Of course, the potential exists for advertisers to make some bad choices, pushing out ads that may be insensitive to listeners – imagine an ad for divorce attorneys when you listen to songs about breakups, for instance. Hopefully marketers will use some common sense when applying Playlist Targeting to avoid such errors.
Ad targeting is getting more sophisticated as technology improves, and Spotify’s new feature is just one more example of this. We may yet get the technology that helps us ensure we see ads that are relevant, informative, and interesting, and keeps us away from ads we find annoying or irrelevant. It would be nice if, while ads are being served according to the mood indicated by our song choices, the ads themselves don’t destroy the mood.
