Have you ever watched a video on Spotify? Well, the company is betting you will.
Bloomberg reports that Spotify is actively recruiting YouTube creators to upload and distribute their videos on the service.
According to the report, Spotify “isn’t interested in acquiring the rights to produce the programming or exclusively sell ads on it. The company just wants the shows to be made available on the platform to beef up its video catalog.”
Why This Matters:
Spotify’s video ambitions are no secret. However, to this point, scale has been an issue.
Spotify rolled out video for a select number of podcasts only in 2020. They’ve grown that library ever since, with more than half of the top 20 podcasts on Spotify — think Joe Rogan and Call Her Daddy — now including video. Today, there are over 250,000 video podcast shows on Spotify.
But, of course, this is all podcast content and not everyone likes podcasts. To broaden its video mix, Spotify launched “Clips” in March 2023. Clips are under-30-second vertical videos artists can upload to their profiles, songs, and albums. Now, Spotify wants to really juice its video content and bring in UGC YouTube creators.
The ultimate goal is, of course, ad revenue. Spotify already shows video ads to audio listeners when the app is in view. By expanding on its video content, Spotify can sell more, higher-priced inventory or maybe justify a higher-tiered subscription.
At Spotify’s first NewFront event this year, Ann Piper, head of sales in North America, reinforced the ad goal. “We’re ready to compete for more than audio budgets in digital advertising,” she said. “With more video on the platform, we want to connect brands with users when they’re looking at their screen.”
Right now, Spotify offers two video ad formats, a full-screen takeover with sound, and a muted format users can choose to engage or dismiss.
Experts React:
A month ago, Sam Bevan, Spotify’s global head of emerging and scaled advertising, published a LinkedIn post talking up the value of Spotify for brands.
“Spotify is my essential daily companion,” he says. “So, why does this matter for brands? The fact is that 93% of content engagement on Spotify translates directly into ad engagement. This means more chances to reach your audience, more focus on your message, and more success for your campaigns.”
Our Take:
With its YouTube creator push, clearly, the goal seems to be to grow the library and then fully deliver on the ad opportunity once there’s more scale (though that effort is already underway). But can it really compete on video?
Spotify dominates its users’ attention, sure. However, there’s an intentional aspect to video consumption that’s hard to ignore. When you want video, you go to YouTube or TikTok. When you want audio, you turn to Spotify or Apple Music. YouTube and TikTok started with video and evolved to include music because music is a big part of their content mix. Can Spotify do the reverse? We’ll see.
Still, Spotify’s scale, the attention it gets, and its engagement-based video ad formats (which require users to be actively viewing the app) make it tough to ignore as a platform.
