Spotify / Marco Bertozzi / VP Europe Sales / Marketing in a Screenless World

“No-one is going to remember my career”

This quote comes from Marco Bertozzi - VP of Europe Sales at Spotify this week on the #ShinyNewObject podcast. Despite this negative statement about his career, Marco bubbles with positivity and is powering a mini-movement that celebrates the the wonderful parts of our industry in the form of #LoveAds.

Despite his hippie ideals about adland Marco is one of the most successful sales guys out there - but getting there wasn’t easy. He confides with the audience that he once sent his pitch team to the client’s office for a pitch whilst simultaneously asking the client to come to the agency for the same pitch. This kind of gaffe would send me into spiral of self loathing but Marco seems draw strength from his miss-steps. He happily chirps that “I’m really good at not worrying about things I can’t do anything about.” He tells us that in the evenings and at the weekend there’s not much he can really do to change anything, so why worry?

Life isn’t all about work for Marco and he was keen to talk about his love of running - though he warns of doing “junk miles.” A junk mile is where you repeat your regular exercise and don’t push yourself. If you do what you normally do - you don’t develop. When asked about how he finds time to run sales at Spotify and keep fit - he insists you have to go to the gym during the working week - forcing people to go at lunchtime is an “archaic model.”

Marco’s shiny new object is “Marketing in a Screenless World” - and he’s on a mission to draw marketers attention away from visual marketing. He claims that “The marketing world is obsessed with video” and tells us of the seismic changes in the industry that Voice Tech and Audio will bring.

I agree with Marco that “People are looking for opportunities not to look at their screens” - with connected speakers, podcasts and audiobooks quietly changing the media landscape. But what is the opportunity for brands in this screenless world? In a word - intimacy. When a consumer is listening to audio on headphones cut through is guaranteed with no distractions. Spotify’s ad suite is taking advantage of this - giving brands the opportunity to make dynamic audio ads that  are responsive to the audience in real-time. Snickers used this to powerful effect by spotting when a listener’s music habits took an unusual turn - and served up an ad that called this behaviour out.

If you get the chance to meet Marco then I urge that you do. Or of course you can just listen to this podcast on Spotify, of course.