Advertisers are in a battle for attention. They spend enormous amounts of time, energy, and money to captivate current and prospective customers. Yet most ads wash right over distracted consumers armed with incredible ad-avoidance skills. DVRs, ad-blockers, cutting the cord, and a tendency to multitask further diminish advertising’s impact.

Situation: With superior engagement (+24% over television, +27% over social, +18% over digital, and +34% over radio), Spotify should be a go-to platform for savvy, attention-seeking advertisers.[1] Yet less than 2% of marketing spend goes toward the entire digital audio category, Spotify included. Our business-to-business target of advertising decision makers considers Spotify after lower-attention channels. If they consider it at all.

Brief: Get advertisers to understand and act on the fact that Spotify Advertising allows them to reach audiences that actually listen.

Objective: Increase interest in Spotify Advertising’s brand and offering.

[1] Spotify Sonic Science Study https://ads.spotify.com/en-US/news-and-insights/sonic-science/

To vividly demonstrate what makes Spotify Advertising so powerful, we dramatized attention itself. Rather than deploy the standard approach to business-to-business advertising, stating our case with statistics about audience engagement or arguing against traditional (and more popular) media channels, we brought the Spotify experience to life, capturing the immersive, engaged flow state our listeners live in.

Our campaign, the first-ever brand platform for Spotify Advertising, depicts Spotify as an oasis of attention and engagement – a protective auditory bubble – amid a chaotic world. Inside the “Spotify bubble,” listeners find respite, calm and the ability to tune out everything but their chosen soundtrack.

We resolve on a simple but powerful imperative, enticing our audience to advertise with Spotify Advertising, so they too can “reach the most immersed audience.” Because when your brand is on Spotify, you get – to quote our tagline – “All Ears On You.”

For Spotify, the business need was straightforward: Grow usage in the Spotify Advertising product by raising the profile of Spotify’s digital audio ad platform. But the communications challenge was doing so in a way that would capture interest and drive consideration in a more engaging and emotionally resonant way than data-driven proof points alone.

Our strategy? To establish Spotify Advertising as more than just a marketing channel. So we introduced a new positioning, a powerful and distinctive brand capable of standing out in the crowded advertising landscape, particularly among busy advertisers inundated with rationally compelling but boringly unpersuasive B2B marketing messages.

Spotify is home to the most immersed audience on Earth. And we showed its power by imagining the world of a Spotify listener.

We open on a noisy interpretation of the real world as people go about their day in a busy city. Then, in the midst of it all, we find a Spotify listener –fully engaged with what she’s hearing and feeling. Someone who, upon hitting play, is enveloped in an immersive, warm Spotify bubble that represents the listening experience. We watch her journey through the world as she floats beyond and above the chaos. Along the way, we find other listeners fully engaged with their listening experience –protected from the noise around them.

To mirror the spot’s breakthrough and immersive experience, we shared the film across social media during a key media planning period to show how an audience of true listeners always stands out from the crowd.

We set out to raise Spotify Advertising’s profile as a B2B brand with marketers. Our “Bubbles” campaign, which introduced the new “All Ears On You” brand platform, exceeded all expectations.

Total impressions topped 327 million across all media. More crucially, the campaign outperformed historical benchmarks for Awareness and Reach, with hero video besting those benchmarks by at least 25%.[1]

Interest also spiked, with more than 4,000 form inquiries to the Spotify Advertising website from net new customer prospects and a nearly 200,000 visitor bump in website traffic.[2]

All told, our campaign propelled an already thriving ad business to the next level, contributing to 75% year-to-year growth and annual sales topping $1.1 billion in revenue for the first time ever.[3]

[1] Spotify Internal “B2B UVP Wrap Report,” December 2021

[2] Spotify Internal “B2B UVP Wrap Report,” December 2021

[3] Spotify Advertising Internal Data