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Pandora exec: Digital media budgets need to be platform-agnostic

CHICAGO ? A Pandora executive at the Results 2013: Mobile Marketing Day said that as the company sees 75 percent of usage taking place on mobile, marketers need to be thinking about cross-screen advertising opportunities.

During the ?Pandora ? The Mobile Craze: How Personalized Content is the Future of Media? session, an executive spoke about how mobile plays a key role in the company?s growth. Additionally, the session presented a few brand examples of Pandora campaigns.

?At Pandora, mobile is the core of what we do, more so than any other publisher,? said Brian Colbert, vice president of mobile advertising sales at Pandora, Oakland, CA. ?We have all of our eyes focused on mobile and how do we build this business.

This is something that we really spend a lot of time talking to our clients about is that you really have to think about your digital media budgets from a very platform-agnostic approach ? it?s just about the impressions, not the screen,? he said.

Results 2013: Mobile Marketing Day was hosted by the Chicago Association of Direct Marketing. The event was co-sponsored by Microsoft, Sumotext and Mobile Marketer.

Mobile listening
Mobile plays a big role in how consumers access Pandora with 75 percent of consumer usage taking place on smartphones and tablets.

Pandora reaches 1.2 million smartphone users with 5,000 mobile registrations taking place every hour.

Additionally, 20 percent of Pandora?s users access the company on more than one platform each month.

Mobile brings in 55 million unique visitors, and Web brings in 26 million unique users.

Mobile challenges
Per Mr. Colbert, there are three main problems with mobile advertising.

The first is challenges around targeting and tracking specific groups of users.

The second is about creative. A lack of great mobile creative is one of the reasons that holds back advertising dollars, according to Mr. Colbert.

Given the small sizes of devices, mobile campaigns can outstrip desktop campaigns in brand recall and effectiveness, which is why creative is crucial.

The final challenge is a lack of research and insights in the industry that publishers need to prove mobile?s use case to advertisers.

One of the ways that Pandora looks at ad effectiveness is through demographics and location. Through heat maps, Pandora can see how users interact with Pandora both by city and by smaller pockets of data.

Brand influence
Mr. Colbert also presented a few examples of brands that have worked with Pandora.

Gatorade for example ran a campaign to help promote its G-series line of drinks.

The brand used both audio and banner ads to drive users to a branded radio station. This combination is Pandora?s secret sauce on mobile, per Mr. Colbert.

The campaign ran four to five months ago and resulted in 772,000 station adds. This represents the number of times a consumer added the Gatorade brand to their playlists.

In total, 570,000 hours were listened to, and 96 percent of listening happened on mobile devices.

Similarly, Red Bull recently ran a campaign to promote three new flavors of energy drinks (see story).

Per Mr. Colbert, what makes this campaign stand out is its creative. A landing page lets consumers swipe their finger across the screen to launch three different radio stations.

Pepsi is another example of a brand that used a mobile device?s built-in camera in a Pandora campaign last year that encouraged consumers to snap pictures of products (see story).

?Mobile can be just as powerful, if not more powerful than the desktop platform,? Mr. Colbert said.

?Our mobile advertising philosophy is really simple, and we deal with a lot of premium brands, and we say this all the time ? brands matter,? he said.

?From a user standpoint, they do not look at is as Pandora on the phone, Pandora on the desktop or Pandora on the tablet. It?s just Pandora for them and that is how advertisers need to think too.?

Final Take
Pandora's Android app