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Spotify app to offer 30 mins of ad-free listening if you watch a 15-30 second video ad first

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Spotify currently offers you a choice: pay ten bucks a month to listen without ads, or listen for free but have your music interrupted by audio ads. Those using the iOS or Android app will be offered a third option later this year: watch a 15-30 second video ad in return for 30 minutes of ad-free listening.

Known as Sponsored Sessions, the idea is that advertisers get the ability to run video ads for the first time, while the experience is made relatively painless for consumers by guaranteeing 30 minutes of uninterrupted listening afterwards.

Spotify began pitching the option to advertisers back in June, and Ad Age reports that a number of major advertisers have now signed-up.

Spotify will start testing the video ads in the fourth quarter with a limited number of brands and plans to extend them to all advertisers in the first quarter of 2015.

Coca-Cola, Ford, McDonald’s and Universal Pictures have signed on as the ads’ first global buyers. Kraft Foods, Target and Wells Fargo will be the U.S.-only launch advertisers.

The Spotify app is a free download from the App Store.

Via Engadget

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Comments

  1. PMZanetti - 10 years ago

    Ads are the bane of existence. Worst part here?: you’re still watching a 30 sec Ad whether you listen on for 30 minutes or 3 seconds.

    I’d rather pay. At least Spotify gives you the choice. What has happened to Hulu is just a disgrace: they ask for a hefty monthly payment (considering what they have to offer) and then bombard you with horribly repetitive (read: ineffective) Ads.
    A 40 min tv episode has 6 Ad breaks! Each shows you 3 Ads, and staggeringly they are usually the same 3 Ads for all 6 breaks! Talk about maddening.

  2. Computer_Whiz123 - 10 years ago

    Well now at least you can look away/put down your phone for 30 seconds while the ad plays…

    Then you get FREE music for 30 min.

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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