Pandora seeks to disrupt radio by competing for share of listeners, and ad dollars. At the same time, Pandora watches its audience growth, which has been more or less stable at about 76-million users per month.
To further that second priority, Pandora is launching its first online ad campaign (according to Inside Radio) with a $5-million buy on socially oriented sites like BuzzFeed, Twitter, and Facebook.
The New York Times reports details of the execution, which was conceived in collaboration with creative agency TwoFifteenMcCann. A small sample of Pandora users, who used the “thumb up” feature in Pandora for a track by electronica instrumentalist Lindsey Stirling, were sent into a one-to=-one video chat with the artist. Part of the experience was high-tech: The user could change the color of lighting in the studio where Stirling was chatting and performing.
Pandora has coined the phrase “thumb gifts” as a key tagline for the campaign. While only a tiny sample of users receive the elaborate experience depicted in the commercials, the subtext is that using Pandora’s interactivity (voting tracks up) results in personal gifts of customized music.
The ad campaign is online-only, appropriately.