News & Insights

How parents take charge on Spotify

The challenges (and joys!) of parenting have reached new levels in 2020. Home has become school — and the office — as parents balance full-time jobs with digital learning. Extra-curricular activities like sports and theater have been canceled, forcing parents to find new ways to fill their kids’ time. And one place they’re turning to educate and entertain? Spotify.

Families are listening together more than ever before — 1 in 3 listen to Spotify with their children and we’ve seen a 19% spike in time spent with Kids playlists so far this year.1 On Spotify Free in particular, users have been streaming family and parenthood playlists for over 21 million minutes monthly.2 From our first-party streaming data, we’ve been able to see how families are listening. Read on for a few key takeaways.

  • Cars and connected devices are fit for family streaming sessions. The Kids Moment is 23% more likely to be streamed in-car and 38% more likely to be streamed on home connected devices like Smart Speakers, TVs, and Game Consoles.3
  • Families are streaming big-screen favorites. Soundtracks, Movie Tunes, and Hollywood-related genres make up 36% of listening time within the top Kids genres.4
  • Families are listening in other moments, too. Users are spending a lot of time listening to kid-friendly playlists in the Chill, Party, Sleep, Yoga, and Commuting moments.5

But parents aren’t just streaming Spotify for their kids — they’re using it to entertain themselves too. Turns out, they’re balancing family-friendly tunes and podcasts with grown-up content after they put the kids to bed.

  • Cars are a streaming time machine. When they’re not listening to Kids playlists, 24% of parents’ in-car streams are in genres within Oldies, Throwbacks, 80’s and earlier decades.6 Good thing the cars are modern enough to have an aux cord. (Or Bluetooth.)
  • Parents turn up at night. After 8 p.m., parents are streaming more from the Dance Pop, Hip Hop, Rap, and Latin Pop genres.7

So, how can you reach these parents on Spotify? Consider sponsoring some of our top family playlists — like Pop 4 Kids, Kids Party, Family Road Trip, and Movie Music: Kids Classics — to get your family-friendly message heard in these key moments. Along with delivering real-time audio ads while your audience is in the moment, you can also retarget parents who have previously listened to the family moment on Spotify.

Get in touch to learn more about how to reach parents while they’re listening in the right context — with a message that makes sense for your brand.

1 Spotify/Qualtrics Group Listening Survey April 2020; Spotify Internal Data, January/July 2020, Spotify Free Users, Global 2 Spotify Internal Data, 4 week period as of 4/12/2020, Spotify Free Users, Global 3 Spotify Internal Data, Q2 2020, Spotify Free Users, Global 4 Spotify Internal Data, Q2 2020, Spotify Free Users, Global, Top 20 genres 5 Spotify Internal Data, Q2 2020, Spotify Free Users, Global 6 Spotify Internal Data, Q2, 2020, Spotify Free Users, Parents Segment, Global 7 Spotify Internal Data, January-June 2020, Spotify Free Users, Parents Segment, Global

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