NY Times Explores 'Behavioral Targeting' Of Pandora

Pandora Targeting Your Advertising

Webcaster PANDORA is now using the same methodology that helps pick music that listeners may like, and applying it to advertising. THE NEW YORK TIMES reports PANDORA, "has started data-mining users’ musical tastes for clues about the kinds of ads most likely to engage them."

“It’s becoming quite apparent to us that the world of playing the perfect music to people and the world of playing perfect advertising to them are strikingly similar,” PANDORA Chief Scientist ERIC BIESCHKE told the paper.

How does it work? THE TIMES explains, "Consider someone who’s in an adventurous musical mood on a weekend afternoon, BIESCHKE said. One hypothesis is that this listener may be more likely to click on an ad for, say, adventure travel in COSTA RICA than a person in an office on a MONDAY morning listening to familiar tunes. And that person at the office, BIESCHKE says, may be more inclined to respond to a more conservative travel ad for a restaurant-and-museum tour of PARIS."

This online customization od advertising is known as behavioral targeting.

“The advantage of using our own in-house data is that we have it down to the individual level, to the specific person who is using PANDORA,” BIESCHKE added. “We take all of these signals and look at correlations that lead us to come up with magical insights about somebody.”

Pandora Listenership Up 13% Over December 2012

PANDORA has released new metrics that were reached in the month of DECEMBER 2013.

* Listener hours for PANDORA during the month of DECEMBER 2013 were 1.58 billion, an increase of 13% from 1.39 billion during the same period last year.

* Share of total U.S. radio listening for PANDORA in DECEMBER 2013 was 8.60%, an increase from 7.58% at the same time last year.

* Active listeners were 76.2 million at the end of DECEMBER 2013, an increase of 13% from 67.1 million during the same time period last year.

Pandora Targeting In-Car Ads

MEDIAPOST reports, "PANDORA will begin rolling out in-car advertising this month in the form of 15- and 30-second spots that run across the 130 vehicle models as well some 270 aftermarket music-listening devices in cars."

BP, FORD MOTOR COMPANY, STATE FARM and TACO BELL are all reportedly on-board with PANDORA.

“With an 8.6% share of total U.S. radio listening and unmatched growth and adoption of PANDORA in the car, we are now seizing the opportunity to connect advertisers with a more targeted audience than traditional radio can provide,” said PANDORA CMO SIMON FLEMING-WOOD.

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