CANNES — He is better known to Beet.TV viewers as the man who helped grow Publicis’ programmatic advertising business.
But this year Marco Bertozzi jumped out of the agency world and in to a music subscription startup, when he was named Europe VP and head of sales for Spotify.
Why music? Because Spotify has a sizeable advertising business, and because the way in which consumers listen to music leaves a breadcrumb trail of data that is ripe for ad targeting.
“That is creating something like 100 billion data points a day – we are using that data to go on and create the insights we have about the listeners,” Bertozzi tells Beet.TV in this video interview.
“People are playlisting their lies… whether it’s running, commuting, doing the housework, doing a dinner party – all of these give us valuable touchpoint. You are going to be very different at 7am when you go to work to what you are on your tablet at 8pm. We’re giving advertisers the chance to associate with those moments throughout the day.”
Now in its tenth year, Spotify has been on a long journey to offset intensive music licensing costs with revenue raised from a mixture of subscription and advertising income.
With 140 million registered users, it boasts 50 million subscribers – rumored to be double Apple Music’s count. But most consumption is to free users, and Spotify nevertheless aims to monetize them using ads.
“We can jump in and out of the different formats,” Bertozzi adds. “If they’re looking at their phone, we’ll have video messaging for them.
“If they put their phone in their pocket, or their driving or on their Playstation, they’ll get audio ads.”
