Advertising in music services, and ad technologies that power it.
adStream is a journal of ad-stalking and interesting commercial sightings in online audio services. It had been a while since we had turned our ad-stalking attention to Slacker Radio. We wanted to see whether Slacker deployed a similar full-court press as Pandora, which frequently covers our phone screen with a graphic ad that must be manually closed to see what’s playing. Continue Reading
adStream is a journal of ad-stalking and interesting commercial sightings in online audio services. As we were browsing for a playlist recently in the web browser view of Songza, we encountered smart use of the palette to display two simultaneous campaigns. Continue Reading
BIA Kelsey released its annual Local Media Forecast for 2015, moving its publication timing to the fall “to align with the annual strategic planning season.” The report breaks out predicted spending growth and decline for a few broad categories, and forecasts the overall local ad-spending market to 2019. Continue Reading
Last week we covered AudioHQ’s launch as a new audio ad network, partnering with 8tracks as a music-service partner. CEO Matt Cutair told us that his company seeks to facilitate a “middle market” between high-end premium sales and programmatic buying. To follow up on the content side, we spoke to David Porter, founder and CEO of 8tracks. Continue Reading
Pandora is working with car dealer Lexus to host a series of four free pop-up concerts in Southern California. According to Pandora’s press release, the streaming radio platform used its Big Data stores to determine the best artists to feature at each concert location. It will extend invitations to the Lexus Pop-Up Concert Series to Pandora listeners who enjoy the headlining musicians and similar artists. Continue Reading
In its most recent Local Commerce Monitor (LCM), an ongoing survey of advertising behaviors among small and local businesses (SMBs), BIA Kelsey found high ranking for ROI (return on investment) when advertising in streaming radio. More survey participants rated streaming radio highly for ROI than they did for over-the-air (OTA) radio. Continue Reading
There are two main revenue paths for online streaming audio: advertising, and subscriptions. The balance of the two differs among music services. We recently spotted some Live365 spots which use banner inventory attached to audio ads to funnel users into subscribing. Continue Reading
AudioHQ, a digital audio ad-repping company, entered the market today with an announcement of a launch partnership with 8tracks, the crowdsourced uploading and listening platform. AudioHQ started in May of this year, and RAIN spoke with CEO Matt Cutair about his company, the digital audio advertising marketplace, and the 8tracks alliance. Continue Reading
After the announcement of its re-launch in July, SHOUTcast has unveiled three new products to complement its existing service. These options offer broadcasters simple approaches to generating revenue, building on the integration with TargetSpot and monetization options promised in the earlier news. Continue Reading
Spotify is getting visual with its latest advertising approach. The streaming service said it will test a new approach on its free version that offers listeners 30 minutes of uninterrupted listening in exchange for watching a video ad. If listeners choose to skip the video, they’ll continue to hear their regular ad-supported tunes. Continue Reading
The Interactive Advertising Bureau will release the first standard template for digital audio advertisements today, called the “Digital Audio Ad Service Template” (DAAST). The breakthrough standard was developed by an industry coalition organized by the IAB (the IAB Digital Audio Ad Serving Template Working Group).
The purpose of DAAST is to promote a technical ecosystem in which advertisers, publishers, agencies, and consumer playback devices are aligned to coherently deliver and track streamed audio advertising.
RAIN spoke to Scott Cunningham of the IAB, and Benjamin Masse, co-chair of the Working Group and SVP of Triton Digital. Continue Reading
In a culmination of recent business developments, music service Rdio updated its apps and refocused its experience to emphasize free, ad-supported listening as a complement to its on-demand subscription service. The revised product line fulfills Rdio’s promise to open an ad-supported, free-listening line of business, as expressed by parent-company Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey in an April earnings call. We tested the iPod/iPhone app. Continue Reading