Episode 108 - Spotify Ad Reviewed by Danone, Volando and Avon Cosmetics
Spotify have decided to serenade a bunch of Chief Marketing Officers and made lots of money from it. How did they pull this off and what is the appeal of this week’s ad on Advertisers Watching Ads, chosen by Contagious?
Our guests Sarah Dossett (Marketing VP UK & Ireland at Danone), Abeed Janmohamed (Founder & Director at Volando), and Kristof Neirynck (Global CMO at Avon Cosmetics) gave this 3.33 out of 5. This award-winning campaign pretends to show real-time personalisation, but is that the whole story? And does it really do all it could to leverage data?
Watch the ad and let us know what you think!
Episode 108 - Spotify Ad Reviewed by Danone, Volando and Avon Cosmetics
Transcript - It’s not perfect, but you get the idea!
Tom Ollerton 0:00
Hello, and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. This is a weekly show where brands watch other brands' ads.
My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative, and we are brought to you this week as ever by our much loved partners, Contagious, who helped choose the ad this week, so please go and check those guys out after the show. But before we get to this week's ad, let's meet this week's guests.
Sarah Dossett 0:28
I'm Sarah Dossett, Marketing VP for Danone in the UK and Ireland.
Abeed Janmohamed 0:33
Hi, I'm Abeed Janmohamed, Founder and Director of Volando Growth Consultancy.
Kristof Neirynck 0:38
Hi, I'm Kristof Neirynck. I'm the Global CMO for Avon Cosmetics.
Tom Ollerton 0:42
What a panel! Thank you so much for joining us this week. So Spotify have made an album's worth of songs about Chief Marketing Officers...
They commissioned the artists to write bespoke tracks based on the CMOs' music tastes.
This resulted in $1 billion worth of sales, apparently. Let's see the ad.
So it's customary to give the idea a vote out of five. So, one, two, three... A three, a three, and a four! That puts Spotify mid-table. So much there to talk about. Kristof, what was your first take on it?
Kristof Neirynck 3:42
In the film, and that's why I was intrigued, it was kind of positioned as this really exciting, real-time example of, you know, personalization based on, you know, personal music tastes. But actually, when you then go on Google, somebody called their Enterprise Marketing Head, basically says that, they actually got in touch with the CMOs, asked them about their preferred music genre, and then basically wrote the lyrics together with them and got the whole thing approved step by step. I mean, it's hardly an example of real-time personalization, is it? So that's why I was a bit disappointed when I, when I found out more. They won, I think four Cannes Lions, a CLIO award. They had tons and tons of press articles. So from that perspective, it was probably considered a success.
Tom Ollerton 4:23
And in fairness to them, they don't claim it in the advert for it to be personalized. So I'm interested to know Kristof, why you see that as a critique of the ad in and of itself?
Kristof Neirynck 4:31
Yeah, no, but in the ad, they said like, they pulled music preferences from the CMO. And actually when you go on the Spotify website, the way they, they, they position themselves as hyper-personalized advertising, not unless of course you play Bonnie Tyler, "Total Eclipse of the Heart," over and over and over again, maybe that says something, but what you need in terms of help from a product, but you know, still some questions there on that link between the music you listen to and you being a prime prospect for a certain brand.
Sarah Dossett 4:59
I think if I look at the positives of the ad, from a brand consistency point of view, you just knew it was from Spotify. It was very similar to what they've done before. You've seen ad campaigns of how they've leveraged insights, whether that's at Christmas or New Year, it felt really consistent with what the brand stands for. And actually, the single-minded message around audio is being underutilized came through. From a brand tone, from a brand message point of view, that was super clear for me. I just then questioned the scale because again, a bit like Kristof, okay, nice to have personalized messages, some of these CMOs, but the noise and the buzz that it created, I could not find that online at all. So it just felt like a really nice thing to do to five or six CMOs, which I also question mark, why they didn't really know the power of Spotify targeted audio ads at the same time as well. So I would, if I was Spotify, dig into that insight of why they don't know, rather than just raising awareness.
Abeed Janmohamed 6:02
So I think the lack of authenticity was something that, I think frustrated me, partly because having spent most of my life into, in data and advertising, I know what they're capable of. And this was something that was a little bit like, you kind of done 25-30% of what you can do. And if you've done it in a slightly more authentic way, I think you could have really pushed it out there and... You know, okay, they won some awards. Great. But I think, it was, it's just, it just left me a little bit, something slightly missing. What would be good is to take, you know, 20-30 other CMOs and say, "Right, lets consent to us scraping your data and looking at your data. And then let's actually see what they do and see how that comes across." It will be interesting to see how they... What data or how they could leverage their data to be able to almost aggregate around their data.
Sarah Dossett 6:46
In the context that we're operating at the moment where TV inflation is going crazy. Actually, from a timing point of view, as I was viewing this... A reminder of other mediums for some of these big CMOs, I think that simple line, whether it's engagement, we can debate the fact there, but simply that audio is underutilized, I think, the context of this year with inflation, that's where success could have been driven. And that's where it, it's just like, the one message that stands out for CMOs.
Kristof Neirynck 7:16
If they would have reached out to me personally to do this, while I'm clear, I would have been feeling very honored. Flattery works, right? So, so maybe I would have had another conversation with them. And maybe in the end, set up a trial, I don't know. But, and clearly having one of those platinum discs on your wall is always nice, but you know... Especially if the songs are how amazing you are as a CMO.
Tom Ollerton 7:37
The only way that Spotify advertising works is if you don't have a premium account. But generally speaking, if you're speaking to an unpaid Spotify audience, they're going to be a lower value customer. I'm curious to know your thoughts on that.
Abeed Janmohamed 7:49
I think that's where there is that slight disconnect. I think if they were to go almost take that extra step now and sort of follow that up with something, I think that would for me would get them back into the space where they need to be.
Tom Ollerton 8:00
So Sarah, what do you think the industry can learn from this?
Sarah Dossett 8:03
A lot of industry clients are relying on their big media agencies to bring them the insights. But actually what Spotify have done here, they've gone straight to clients. And I think probably more and more, with data, with insights, that's going to drive that direct relationship. And I think that's where you're getting that direct awareness generation and the right question to be asked, but not many media will do that, that rely on the big networks to replay that to their clients.
Abeed Janmohamed 8:34
It's interesting because I was on a panel in 2012 with Rory Sutherland talking about Spotify and their data capabilities. They talked about the unknown unknowns back then. And the ability to use, to leverage data. So it was interesting that this was something that basically, you know, they were trying to showcase their data capability in the right way. So I thought that came through, I think the audio piece of that came through again, so kind of ticking the box there. A little bit gimmicky, in the way that they sort of obviously picked out those CMOs.
Kristof Neirynck 8:57
You know, I don't necessarily spend my whole day just, you know, having an ambition of having a Cannes submission. You know, in this case, I don't know, internally, if that's maybe the reason why they did it. Because you know, if you think about their objective of reaching their target audience, well Cannes is full of it. If I would run off their campaign brief, which is, you know, find a PR campaign or an idea that basically raises awareness among CMOs, then clearly, they are at Cannes, they're at the CLIOs. In that case, I would actually probably purposefully design it for that rather than making sure that the execution is picture perfect.
Sarah Dossett 9:30
Yeah. Absolutely.
Tom Ollerton 9:32
Abeed, Sarah, Kristof, thanks so much for your time.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Listen to our ‘Shiny New Object’ Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and Soundcloud.