January 14, 2020 • 10 mins
James Kotecki of C Space Studio speaks with Lizzie Widhelm, SVP, Ad Innovation, Pandora.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, I'm James Kotechi. You're listening to the C Space
Studio podcast interviews with technology, media and marketing leaders from CS. Hi,
I'm James Kotaki. You're here with me in the C
Space Studio at CS joining us Lizzie wood Helm, s
VP at Innovation Pandora. Thank you so much for being here.
(00:24):
Thank you so uh. You merged with Serious x M
pan more and Serious XM merged in the last year
since the last CS and so that's had about a
year to kind of percolate. What does that mean? What
does that meant for your team? Yeah, it's been a
lot of things. I mean, first and foremost, we're focused
on bringing new content to the consumer. Um. Serious sex
Um has spent decades building out a treasure trove of
(00:47):
amazing talent, and we're bringing the likes of Howard Stern
and Kevin Hart and then new faces and voices like
Lebron James and Drake and you too um onto the
Pandora platform to drive engagement and drive time spent. So
it's been really fun, but you were primarily on the
Pandora side, and the idea is to keep those brands separate.
(01:10):
Right the brands are separate and people interacted them in
different ways. Absolutely, Um, we believe that serious x them
and it's amazing subscription offering and it's you know, control
and um ownership of the car combined with Pandora, the
mobile powerhouse and the best and personalization will live independently
and reach consumers at different times and offer of course
(01:31):
different forms of audio entertainment, but together with the leader
in audio entertainment. So it's a really compelling um, you
know offering to the consumer. So let's talk ad innovation,
which is right there in new title. What does add
innovation mean at Pandora? What are the latest innovations and advertising? Yeah.
I love my role at the company and specifically at
CES because I spend all of my time focused on
(01:54):
the listener and understanding the changing listener behavior on our
platform and then contextually contextually as that for advertisers building
new products, bringing best practices to them in terms of
creativity and what an audio add should sound like on
all of these devices. Um. So it's you know, connecting
the advertiser to the consumer and innovating with the listener first.
(02:16):
Is there a single best practice you can think of
that might surprise people like, here's something that people always
do that they should never do when they're thinking about
an ad for Pandora. Yes, absolutely don't take your terrestrial
radio ad and bring it into the streaming environment. And
why is that? It just doesn't complement the experience? You know,
Piandora is focused on personalization. We always know the best
(02:36):
next song that you should hear. We also have great
data on your technographic behavior, your life stage, presence of children,
you know where you're at in the day, and so
one size fits all creative approach. Why would you ever um,
you know, why would you ever do that? You're not
going to get the attention you want, You're not going
to get the relevance you want, and you're definitely not
going to get the enjoyment from the listener. So if
(02:57):
I'm an advertiser, does that mean that I need to
be creating in fifty hundred different kind of versions of
my message to kind of fit with all those different niches. No,
absolutely not. And part of innovation that we've worked on
is the ability for dynamic creative to be built for advertisers.
So we spent the last year working with many marketers
to take that best practice which is trying to be
as personalized as you can, try to understand your listener,
(03:19):
and then building technology to do so effortlessly and efficiently,
so they're not sitting for weeks on end, you know,
in a creative brainstorm trying to figure out, oh my gosh,
how am I going to make this personalization thing that
Pandora's told me as the best practice work. But this
is not like dynamic text, right where you can just
insert someone's name or someone's location and just kind of
swap it out bad lib style. Maybe you can do
(03:41):
some of that, but if you're doing that in an
audio format. Of course, we all you know, have had
the experience of calling a phone number and it says
a very robotic voice, and it sounds very artificial, and
it's obviously it's obviously things have just been inserted kind
of robotically, and I assume it basically can't be that. No,
it doesn't sound like that. So a good example, we're
in Las Vegas. We actually work with Visit Las Vegas
and that they are very inter sid and of course
(04:01):
making sure that their marketing to specific cities, making sure
that they're marketing to foodies versus people that love pop
music and then integrating some of those messages into their
creative so we can take signals that we have. You know,
we have the power of the logged in user. It's
a huge advantage for us. So we do know your age,
your gender, what you like to listen to, where you live,
(04:21):
and those behaviors help then shape that ad. So for them,
it's not about saying, Lizzy come to Las Vegas. It's like, hey,
l a listener. You know it's sunny in Las Vegas,
and you know rainy in California, and you love Gwen
Stefani and she has a residency at Plane at Hollywood.
And that's a good example of sort of taking my
behavior but not making it so personalized that it's creepy
(04:42):
and weird and sounds robotic. That's exactly where I was going,
So the creepiness factor. If if you had said to
me a couple of years ago that we would be
able to that you'd be able to do that, I
might be asking about that, But I wonder like our
consumers have really kind of gotten over that now, or
is everybody kind of understanding that this level of targeting
is possible and maybe even desirable from the consumer perspective
as well. Yeah, I think the tide is turning. Obviously
(05:03):
there's a lot of thrash and discussion around privacy, but
at the end of the day, we're really focused on
giving value back to the listener in exchange for that data. Right,
we have an ad product that does just that, where
they can lean in to get content from us behind
the paywall and that we serve video up to them
and make that targeted based on what they're getting or
this example of dynamic Audio creative and look, at the
(05:24):
end of the day, it makes their experience with us
more enjoyable if it does feel like it fits their mood,
their lifestyle, their identity. Um. So again, I think you
have to do it right, and you have to be
very mindful about um, you know, using the right signals
and understanding how advertisers can benefit and um that exchange.
If done correctly, it can work really well. And can
(05:45):
people pay for a subscription to get it totally add
free experience. Yeah absolutely, But you know, I'm really proud
of the work we do. We are largely ad supported.
Between Pandora and SoundCloud, which is another great platform that
we represent. We're reaching over a hundred million Americans through
ads and they're not churning to a subscription product because
we've annoyed them. And I'm really proud of that because
we're doing something right. Um, how much more targeted can
(06:09):
ads actually become at this point? Are we starting to
reach a plateau or like an an asymptotic line so
to speak when we look at the graph about how
close to targeting we can possibly get for an individual? Yeah,
I think that in terms of that initial ad advertisers
are really pretty good now. But understanding their consumers, I
think where you'll see innovation as they move through the
(06:30):
funnel and think about what is the sequencing of storytelling
that I'm giving to the listener in our case, I
think there's innovation there. We're actually working on a lot
of testing around voice and trying to understand, you know,
how targeted do we need to be in order to
hit someone at that right moment where voice is maybe
more appropriate. So again, I think it's using that signal
data to anticipate the modality or the called action or
(06:55):
the specific nature of what you want that consumer to do,
and less so of out trying to dig into their
life and really understand much more than we know about
them today. Talking to Lizzie would helma Pandora, what is
the latest on voice What are you learning and what
are you still curious about? Now you're still learning. Yeah,
So we've been testing for about seven months with voice mode,
which is just the ability to interact with Pandora using
(07:17):
your voice to navigate through the service, and then as
that scaled, we've been spending about the last three months
testing with advertisers and the initial takeaway is be fun
and give utility. So an example might be a dryer
sheets ad and instead of just telling them more and
more about the dryer's sheet that they already understand, give
them tips about how to use the dryer sheet that
they didn't know. So say, would you like tips on
(07:38):
how to use dryer sheets? Yes or no? And make
it really simple. At this point, we're just asking for
yes or no, and we're just essentially unlocking more storytelling
through that next phase of that audio ad. And I
love that because it's again not asking them to immediately
put it in your car. Would you like to add
this to your card? No? But adding tips um entertaining them.
We have a lot of good examples that listeners seem
(07:59):
to be loving When Pandora first came out. I remember
listening to it on a desktop computer. You're that old
because I am, and because it was because it was
kind of a new cool thing. And then if obviously
mobile exploded, and I assume that's where the vast majority
of people are engaging with Pandora. But so much of
what you do is obviously based on underlying gear, the
underlying technology that enables all these platforms to happen. We're
here at CS. Is there some kind of gear, some
(08:22):
kind of equipment on the horizon that you think could
be another one of those ways that fundamentally shaped people's
relationship to Pandora. Yeah, I think two things. So we've
seen a d percent year over your growth for connected
devices in the home, right and everybody's here talking about
five G. That will enable more devices, especially screenless devices,
to easily connect, and that's really good for us. It
(08:44):
allows us to increase time spent with listeners. It allows
listeners to bring music into places in their life or
spoken word where they normally wouldn't like in the case
of the mobile device. So I think there's a huge
opportunity this year for us to see another inflection point
in terms of growth because has a lot of the
devices we're seeing really do favor audio and the power
of audio. Um, could we have one of those devices
(09:06):
like in the movie Her, where there's like an earbud
and walking Phoenix is just listening to that all day?
Do you feel like that ultimately could be something that
replaces screens in people's lives are just an all audio
interface with their device, you know, I don't know. I
think we have to see voice as a habit because
for a lot of those use cases, you do need
voice to work seamlessly and have listeners consumers be really
(09:27):
comfortable with voice. We've seen voice move a lot, voice search, Um,
kids are only voice texting, you know a lot of
that growth we're seeing, So I think it's going to
be a minute before you have that comfort level and frankly,
the technology that gives back a really rewarding experience to
the listener or to the consumer, whether you're on a
different platform. Um, but I don't know if we're going
to be seeing her you know this year. Well, I
(09:50):
really appreciate you being here to share that. Lizzie went Helm,
s VP AD Innovation, Pandora, thank you so much for
being with us in the C Space studio. This podcast
is in partnership with the iHeart Podcast Networks M
Hi, I'm James Kotechi. You're listening to the C Space
Studio podcast interviews with technology, media and marketing leaders from CS. Hi,
I'm James Kotaki. You're here with me in the C
Space Studio at CS joining us Lizzie wood Helm, s
VP at Innovation Pandora. Thank you so much for being here.
(00:24):
Thank you so uh. You merged with Serious x M
pan more and Serious XM merged in the last year
since the last CS and so that's had about a
year to kind of percolate. What does that mean? What
does that meant for your team? Yeah, it's been a
lot of things. I mean, first and foremost, we're focused
on bringing new content to the consumer. Um. Serious sex
Um has spent decades building out a treasure trove of
(00:47):
amazing talent, and we're bringing the likes of Howard Stern
and Kevin Hart and then new faces and voices like
Lebron James and Drake and you too um onto the
Pandora platform to drive engagement and drive time spent. So
it's been really fun, but you were primarily on the
Pandora side, and the idea is to keep those brands separate.
(01:10):
Right the brands are separate and people interacted them in
different ways. Absolutely, Um, we believe that serious x them
and it's amazing subscription offering and it's you know, control
and um ownership of the car combined with Pandora, the
mobile powerhouse and the best and personalization will live independently
and reach consumers at different times and offer of course
(01:31):
different forms of audio entertainment, but together with the leader
in audio entertainment. So it's a really compelling um, you
know offering to the consumer. So let's talk ad innovation,
which is right there in new title. What does add
innovation mean at Pandora? What are the latest innovations and advertising? Yeah.
I love my role at the company and specifically at
CES because I spend all of my time focused on
(01:54):
the listener and understanding the changing listener behavior on our
platform and then contextually contextually as that for advertisers building
new products, bringing best practices to them in terms of
creativity and what an audio add should sound like on
all of these devices. Um. So it's you know, connecting
the advertiser to the consumer and innovating with the listener first.
(02:16):
Is there a single best practice you can think of
that might surprise people like, here's something that people always
do that they should never do when they're thinking about
an ad for Pandora. Yes, absolutely don't take your terrestrial
radio ad and bring it into the streaming environment. And
why is that? It just doesn't complement the experience? You know,
Piandora is focused on personalization. We always know the best
(02:36):
next song that you should hear. We also have great
data on your technographic behavior, your life stage, presence of children,
you know where you're at in the day, and so
one size fits all creative approach. Why would you ever um,
you know, why would you ever do that? You're not
going to get the attention you want, You're not going
to get the relevance you want, and you're definitely not
going to get the enjoyment from the listener. So if
(02:57):
I'm an advertiser, does that mean that I need to
be creating in fifty hundred different kind of versions of
my message to kind of fit with all those different niches. No,
absolutely not. And part of innovation that we've worked on
is the ability for dynamic creative to be built for advertisers.
So we spent the last year working with many marketers
to take that best practice which is trying to be
as personalized as you can, try to understand your listener,
(03:19):
and then building technology to do so effortlessly and efficiently,
so they're not sitting for weeks on end, you know,
in a creative brainstorm trying to figure out, oh my gosh,
how am I going to make this personalization thing that
Pandora's told me as the best practice work. But this
is not like dynamic text, right where you can just
insert someone's name or someone's location and just kind of
swap it out bad lib style. Maybe you can do
(03:41):
some of that, but if you're doing that in an
audio format. Of course, we all you know, have had
the experience of calling a phone number and it says
a very robotic voice, and it sounds very artificial, and
it's obviously it's obviously things have just been inserted kind
of robotically, and I assume it basically can't be that. No,
it doesn't sound like that. So a good example, we're
in Las Vegas. We actually work with Visit Las Vegas
and that they are very inter sid and of course
(04:01):
making sure that their marketing to specific cities, making sure
that they're marketing to foodies versus people that love pop
music and then integrating some of those messages into their
creative so we can take signals that we have. You know,
we have the power of the logged in user. It's
a huge advantage for us. So we do know your age,
your gender, what you like to listen to, where you live,
(04:21):
and those behaviors help then shape that ad. So for them,
it's not about saying, Lizzy come to Las Vegas. It's like, hey,
l a listener. You know it's sunny in Las Vegas,
and you know rainy in California, and you love Gwen
Stefani and she has a residency at Plane at Hollywood.
And that's a good example of sort of taking my
behavior but not making it so personalized that it's creepy
(04:42):
and weird and sounds robotic. That's exactly where I was going,
So the creepiness factor. If if you had said to
me a couple of years ago that we would be
able to that you'd be able to do that, I
might be asking about that, But I wonder like our
consumers have really kind of gotten over that now, or
is everybody kind of understanding that this level of targeting
is possible and maybe even desirable from the consumer perspective
as well. Yeah, I think the tide is turning. Obviously
(05:03):
there's a lot of thrash and discussion around privacy, but
at the end of the day, we're really focused on
giving value back to the listener in exchange for that data. Right,
we have an ad product that does just that, where
they can lean in to get content from us behind
the paywall and that we serve video up to them
and make that targeted based on what they're getting or
this example of dynamic Audio creative and look, at the
(05:24):
end of the day, it makes their experience with us
more enjoyable if it does feel like it fits their mood,
their lifestyle, their identity. Um. So again, I think you
have to do it right, and you have to be
very mindful about um, you know, using the right signals
and understanding how advertisers can benefit and um that exchange.
If done correctly, it can work really well. And can
(05:45):
people pay for a subscription to get it totally add
free experience. Yeah absolutely, But you know, I'm really proud
of the work we do. We are largely ad supported.
Between Pandora and SoundCloud, which is another great platform that
we represent. We're reaching over a hundred million Americans through
ads and they're not churning to a subscription product because
we've annoyed them. And I'm really proud of that because
we're doing something right. Um, how much more targeted can
(06:09):
ads actually become at this point? Are we starting to
reach a plateau or like an an asymptotic line so
to speak when we look at the graph about how
close to targeting we can possibly get for an individual? Yeah,
I think that in terms of that initial ad advertisers
are really pretty good now. But understanding their consumers, I
think where you'll see innovation as they move through the
(06:30):
funnel and think about what is the sequencing of storytelling
that I'm giving to the listener in our case, I
think there's innovation there. We're actually working on a lot
of testing around voice and trying to understand, you know,
how targeted do we need to be in order to
hit someone at that right moment where voice is maybe
more appropriate. So again, I think it's using that signal
data to anticipate the modality or the called action or
(06:55):
the specific nature of what you want that consumer to do,
and less so of out trying to dig into their
life and really understand much more than we know about
them today. Talking to Lizzie would helma Pandora, what is
the latest on voice What are you learning and what
are you still curious about? Now you're still learning. Yeah,
So we've been testing for about seven months with voice mode,
which is just the ability to interact with Pandora using
(07:17):
your voice to navigate through the service, and then as
that scaled, we've been spending about the last three months
testing with advertisers and the initial takeaway is be fun
and give utility. So an example might be a dryer
sheets ad and instead of just telling them more and
more about the dryer's sheet that they already understand, give
them tips about how to use the dryer sheet that
they didn't know. So say, would you like tips on
(07:38):
how to use dryer sheets? Yes or no? And make
it really simple. At this point, we're just asking for
yes or no, and we're just essentially unlocking more storytelling
through that next phase of that audio ad. And I
love that because it's again not asking them to immediately
put it in your car. Would you like to add
this to your card? No? But adding tips um entertaining them.
We have a lot of good examples that listeners seem
(07:59):
to be loving When Pandora first came out. I remember
listening to it on a desktop computer. You're that old
because I am, and because it was because it was
kind of a new cool thing. And then if obviously
mobile exploded, and I assume that's where the vast majority
of people are engaging with Pandora. But so much of
what you do is obviously based on underlying gear, the
underlying technology that enables all these platforms to happen. We're
here at CS. Is there some kind of gear, some
(08:22):
kind of equipment on the horizon that you think could
be another one of those ways that fundamentally shaped people's
relationship to Pandora. Yeah, I think two things. So we've
seen a d percent year over your growth for connected
devices in the home, right and everybody's here talking about
five G. That will enable more devices, especially screenless devices,
to easily connect, and that's really good for us. It
(08:44):
allows us to increase time spent with listeners. It allows
listeners to bring music into places in their life or
spoken word where they normally wouldn't like in the case
of the mobile device. So I think there's a huge
opportunity this year for us to see another inflection point
in terms of growth because has a lot of the
devices we're seeing really do favor audio and the power
of audio. Um, could we have one of those devices
(09:06):
like in the movie Her, where there's like an earbud
and walking Phoenix is just listening to that all day?
Do you feel like that ultimately could be something that
replaces screens in people's lives are just an all audio
interface with their device, you know, I don't know. I
think we have to see voice as a habit because
for a lot of those use cases, you do need
voice to work seamlessly and have listeners consumers be really
(09:27):
comfortable with voice. We've seen voice move a lot, voice search, Um,
kids are only voice texting, you know a lot of
that growth we're seeing, So I think it's going to
be a minute before you have that comfort level and frankly,
the technology that gives back a really rewarding experience to
the listener or to the consumer, whether you're on a
different platform. Um, but I don't know if we're going
to be seeing her you know this year. Well, I
(09:50):
really appreciate you being here to share that. Lizzie went Helm,
s VP AD Innovation, Pandora, thank you so much for
being with us in the C Space studio. This podcast
is in partnership with the iHeart Podcast Networks M
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