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Pandora enhances advertiser reach via new mobile holiday initiatives

NEW YORK ? A Pandora executive at Mobile Marketer's Mobile Marketing Summit: Holiday Focus 2011 said the company is gearing up for the holiday season with new ways that its advertisers can engage the music app audience.

During the keynote ?Pandora: How Mobile is Giving New Lease to Old Media? session last week, the exec discussed the company?s plans for the holiday season and how it has changed from last year. The conference was organized by Mobile Marketer.

?We?re redefining radio,? said Kim Luegers director of mobile and emerging media at Pandora, Chicago. ?Pandora is putting their own spin on this.

?We?re going to artists that users would listen to in the summer and take their spin on holiday-focused music and then offer it to our users,? she said. ?We took a real hard look at how we approached the holiday season last year and how we?re approaching it this year.

?There are still a load of people who get jazzed about holiday music.?

David Eads, vice president of product marketing at Kony Solutions moderated the session.

Music to my ears
According to Ms. Luegers, Pandora is offering a 25 percent ownership of all inventory to advertisers, including key shopping dates such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Additionally, the company is rolling out new holiday opportunities to advertisers such as a Tap to Calendar feature, which is a subtly effective reminder for key shopping dates and last-minute gifts.

?It?s really amazing for key dates that you want to remind folks and how the experience plays out on the mobile phone,? Ms. Luegers said.

?User tap on the mobile banner and it opens up the native calendar app, it will load in the vent that you want to set as a reminder and from there the advertisers puts in the information that they want to appear,? she said.

?It?s all controllable and essentially it?s like an free added impression post-click.?

Pandora is also working on a 12 Days of Holiday Giveaways feature that give consumers a chance to instantly win prizes for the 12 days leading up to Christmas.

?You have to make the dollar stretch further,? Ms. Luegers said. ?It?s about what can we do to offer and give away prizes to multiple days.?

The company is also doing a Home for the Holiday Artist Video Series that features custom video series featuring reminiscing about their favorite holiday moments.

?The adoption for mobile video ? especially tablets ? has completely boomed,? Ms. Lueger said. ?Now, it?s not uncomfortable, consumers are adopting it.

?It?s a powerful brand impact tool,? she said. ?Video is not only for the Web perspective, but also can be used on mobile and tablet formats.?

Moderator David Eads

Pandora's Ms. Luegers

Final Take
Rimma Kats is staff reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York