Spotify is testing a new advertising offering that allows brands to sponsor one of the platform’s most popular playlists.

Currently in beta test, Spotify may allow brands to sponsor its personalised Discover Weekly playlist – one of the platform’s most popular features, drawing more than 40 million users a month.

According to Spotify, regular listeners of the Discover Weekly playlist stream twice as much as those who don’t, “Our new Discover Weekly ad experience positions advertisers for success and ensures that our fans are hearing messages that embody the ethos of discovery,” Spotify head of global partner solutions Danielle Lee tells Adweek.

For the moment, Spotify only offers brands the ability to sponsor its other editorial playlists. With the introduction of this offering, brands would be able to curate sponsored playlists from end to end.

“Personalisation has quickly gone from a nice-to-have to an expected consumer experience that delights audiences and marketers are craving opportunities to be part of it,” Lee continues.

Fittingly, the first guinea pig for the ad offering will be Microsoft’s AI-powered campaign, ‘Empowering Us All’, focusing on the role of AI in industries such as education, healthcare and philanthropy.

According to the IAB, US spending on digital audio advertising jumped 31% in the first half alone of 2018, reaching US$935 million (AU$1.3 billion).

“Spotify is a technology company”, says head of tech industry for Spotify Casey Weinreich, of Microsoft’s campaign, “the magic with this partnership is we were able to identify a tech partner with a shared ambition to utilise technology, in this case machine learning, to enrich our user experience.”

Spotify says the Discover Weekly sponsorships will be open to native homepage and full playlist takeovers, with the majority of its other ad offerings being programmatic.

Further Reading:

• Spotify makes all ads skippable for free users – a “win” for advertisers? »

Image credit:sgcreative