The Brief:

BNP Paribas developed a branded podcast, We Love Cinema!, to connect with their film-enthusiast customers. The show is available to stream on Spotify, but BNP Paribas wanted to promote it with ads on Spotify, too. Why? They knew their financial services advertising efforts could reach Spotify listeners who already loved podcasts and people interested in We Love Cinema!’s main topics—film, TV, and comedy.

The Solution:

Spotify podcast listeners are passionate about the shows they follow: nearly half spend between 1 and 4 hours a week listening to podcasts.¹ So to tap into that engaged pool of listeners and grow the audience for We Love Cinema!, BNP Paribas and their agency, We Are Social, ran regular campaigns with Spotify Ad Studio. They booked campaigns for each new installment of the podcast and used Ad Studio's tools to develop audience-tailored creative assets focused on the episode. These assets highlighted the movies and actors discussed in the episode, along with snippets from the conversation. Their CTAs drove clicks directly to the episode, rather than the main podcast page, as part of the “one-less-click” approach to maximizing their CTR.

Using Ad Studio's interest targeting, BNP Paribas targeted listeners ages 16+ interested in podcasts, comedy, and TV & film, but adjusted the targeting depending on the episode's theme. The campaign had a high completion rate of 95%, meaning the vast majority of listeners stayed tuned in to their audio ad for its entirety. The result: a succssful increase in awareness of We Love Cinema!.

The Impact

The targeting tools and strong call to action worked, and of the 1.3 million impressions achieved, BNP Paribas gained over 7,500 conversions to the podcast. What can we say? Spotify podcast listeners are tuned in. They pay close attention, and 81% say they usually engage with the podcast ads they hear on our platform.

“We loved trialing Spotify Ad Studio. It’s a pretty unique solution in terms of driving awareness of audio content and creating ad spots. As it’s a self-serve platform, it’s also really simple and easy to use. We’re very happy, both with the result and with the usability of the tool.”

—Yuan SUN
Paid Media Director, We Are Social