[ad_1]
Spotify‘s latest advertising product, Live Experiences, lets brands integrate with and sponsor its events for the first time.
The company has hosted bespoke events for over seven years, but it has historically used them as marketing vehicles to promote new products, campaigns or artists, said head of experiential and content production Keyana Kashfi.
“We wanted to make sure that we can still do special things that are owned and operated by us,” Kashfi said. “But now, we’ve figured out a way to open the doors and share that Spotify brand with clients. And this is it.”
Spotify’s productization of events reflects a broader focus on revenue generation and profitability that has swept the technology industry over the past two years, said Jeff Weiner, partner at audio experience agency Work x Work. As part of this effort, Spotify shed 2,300 jobs last year.
Event sponsorships are unlikely to add significant incremental revenue to the Spotify business, which generated $14 billion in 2023, according to public filings. (It previously worked with Tic Tac in November 2019, pausing the effort when the pandemic struck.)
But events sponsorships add touchpoints to Spotify’s advertising business, which can help expand its average deal size, yield robust first-party data and make the company more attractive when competing for premium brand budgets.
“For companies already advertising with Spotify, events offer a way for them to more meaningfully interact with the community they are trying to reach,” Weiner said. “Live events provide advertisers with a bunch of opportunities—data, access and deeper integration—that they couldn’t otherwise get.”
Live Experience events fall into four categories
In its first year, Spotify plans to produce between five and 20 Live Experiences, all free to attend, said Kashfi.
