adStream is a journal of ad-spottings in online music services that highlight how commercials (audio and visual) can be an integrated part of the online listening experience.
Last month we noted real estate site Trulia‘s launch of a $45-million ad campaign promoting its mobile house-seeking app. It was an unprecedented investment for the company, intended to put it head-to-head with competitor Zillow. At the time, Trulia confirmed to RAIN that Pandora was part of the streaming-audio spend.
Since then we’ve had an eye out for the ads, curious about what sort of placement Trulia would occupy in Pandora’s portfolio of ad units and rich-media options. We got one answer this week, and it was the most intensive single-brand commercial experience we’ve noted on Pandora — a three-part messaging effort bookending two songs, encompassing about several minutes of brand-exposure time.
First, a double display block landed on the web-player screen — one unit in the traditional right-hand side location, and another in the spot where the previous track usually resides:
That previous-song spot is important, because it displaces a user function — namely, voting up or down the previous track. It’s a useful function for the scenario in which you’re loving a song, but don’t get to the thumb-up voting feature before it ends. You can do your voting (and improving the whole playlist) retroactively.
Following that song came the Trulia audio ad:
After that, during the following song, Trulia enjoyed a whole-page takeover:
