James Kidwell, Andrew Goetz, & Samantha Lee Pandora: Unleashing Mobile Phone Ads

Background on PandoraPandora Started in 2000 Free internet radio that plays music you want to listen to Uses Music Genome Project – Based on 400 distinct musical characteristics by a trained music analyst – With the help of the musicological information from the project, it recognizes and responds to every individual’s tastes – Resulting in a personalized radio experience

Pandora: Unleashing Mobile Phone Ads Just launched a mobile version two years ago 6 million mobile phone users and growing 27 million total users for online and mobile Has prompted Best Buy, Nike, Dockers, Dominos and Target to buy ads on Pandora to experiment this new medium

Pandora: Unleashing Mobile Phone Ads Mobile marketing in the next years should take off Web-surfing smartphones are becoming a new advertizing medium People around the world, even in this economy, are buying smartphones. Spending money and time engaging with the smartphone of their preference Average user spends 90 minutes a day on Pandora

Direct Marketing A system of marketing by which organizations communicate directly with target customers to generate a response or transaction Technological Advances – SmartphoneSmartphone – Two step strategy – May use one medium to obtain, inquiry and qualify prospect. Typically followed up with a second medium to complete the sale Dominos Pizza has an ad on Pandora where you can order pizza to be delivered from your local Dominos

High Customer Response Target – 27% more people clicked on it’s ad for the release of Christina Aguilera’s Greatest Hits CD last fall than on any other mobile web campaign One of their most effective web campaign ads Linked to a website that offered free ringtones and links to where they could buy the CD. Sono, a home music system company, senior marketing director has never seen better customer response in 20 years 5% of people clicked on the promotion videos vs. 1-2% in the last years 40% of those people watched the whole video Doubled the number of people signed up on list

Discussion Questions How many of you are familiar with Pandora and have used it before? Are you using Pandora on your cell? If so, how do you respond to the ad’s? Do you believe that cell-phone marketing will become a big part of new media advertising in the near future? Would you purchase something directly from a mobile-phone ad?

Sources Lowry, Tom. “Pandora: Unleashing Mobile Phone Ads” 12.htm?chan=innovation_branding_marketing 12.htm?chan=innovation_branding_marketing