James Kidwell, Andrew Goetz, & Samantha Lee

Pandora: Unleashing Mobile Phone Ads

Background on Pandora

• 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 – Smartphone– 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 email 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”

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_22/b4133052597112.htm?chan=innovation_branding_marketing

• www.pandora.com