● Study shows that Spotify provides incremental reach to every radio station on a weekly basis, with an average of 10% across Europe.
● Across the 15-34 age group, Spotify adds a minimum of 14% incremental reach to UK commercial radio stations, up to a maximum of 21%
Spotify can today reveal the findings of a new multi-market research study, conducted by global market research provider TNS. The study measures the reach and quality of Spotify’s free, ad-supported audience compared with that of commercial radio, and the incremental reach Spotify* provides to commercial radio stations across Europe for audio advertisers.
The study, which surveys over 20,000 respondents in 10 European countries including the UK, marks the first time Spotify has been studied directly alongside other commercial platforms. The results show that Spotify provides incremental reach to every radio station on a weekly basis, demonstrating that Spotify is in a unique position to reach audience segments that are difficult to reach through commercial radio, due to a shifting audio landscape in which streaming media is rapidly growing in terms of audience penetration and time spent listening.
To read the full study, click here. The UK-specific data is also attached.
The key findings from the report revealed that:
● Across all age groups, Spotify provides incremental reach to every radio station in the UK in terms of weekly reach*.
● Across the 15-34 age group, Spotify adds a minimum of 14% incremental reach to UK commercial radio stations, up to a maximum of 21%.
● The study’s findings reveal that people are more likely to pay attention while listening on Spotify* than they do to commercial radio.
The results also reveal key differences in audience listening behaviours that demonstrate why Spotify and radio are complementary media for audio advertisers. Radio listening occurs most heavily in the morning and then decreases during the day, and ‘driving’ is the most common activity people do while they are listening. Conversely, Spotify listening builds steadily throughout the day and peaks in the evening; for this audience, ‘browsing the Internet’ and ‘relaxing’ are the most common activities performed while listening.
These results prove the extent to which Spotify and radio are complementary media for audio advertisers.
David Cooper, Spotify’s Director of Sales, UK, said: “This TNS study aims to help media buyers understand the quantity and quality of the Spotify audience, and the extent to which Spotify can complement and extend a broadcast media buy. By identifying when and where Spotify reaches an audience that does not engage with radio, we hope to improve both media buyers’ understanding of the audio market, and to grow the audio market as a whole.”
Thomas Balaam, Business Director Exchange – Radio at Mindshare, who was given an early review of the study, said: “As the digital audio market continues to grow in the UK it is essential that we can we can understand listening habits and measure the incremental reach digital audio services offer when combined with traditional radio. This research will give us insights that will help us create improved audio advertising plans for our clients.”
Tom Coare, Associate Director at OMD, added: “With the audio landscape changing rapidly, it’s great to see Spotify investing in a study like this. The results show that Spotify and radio are complementary media and when used together they improve reach efficiencies for advertisers.”
Spotify is now working with a powerful data processing and media planning tool which has incorporated the study’s findings, allowing Spotify to deliver highly tailored buying insights to media buyers. Spotify can use the tool to build highly targeted media plans for brands advertising on Spotify and identify the incremental audience reach Spotify can provide over other media.
Jonathan Forster, Spotify’s VP EMEA, Advertising and Partnerships, added: “We believe that there is enormous growth potential in the audio advertising industry, not just in terms of the huge opportunity to connect with a hard-to-reach demographic through Spotify, but also in terms of the potential to grow the European market to the scale of the US audio advertising industry – which is worth around $8 billion; exponentially more than that of Europe currently.”
The survey was conducted through standardised questionnaires via TNS panels and was carried out across 10** European markets in June 2015, having engaged more than 20,000 respondents, with a minimum of 2000 respondents per market.
*Spotify’s free, ad-supported service
**The 10 countries studied are: UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland.
