Is Spotify planning to move into video as well as music? Today it launches a new video advertising unit. The first advertiser is Sony Pictures which is using the player to promote Sony Pictures’ latest cinema release, the Tony Scott-directed crime thriller The Taking of Pelham 123, starring Denzel Washington and John Travolta.
The borderless Flash video player runs inside the Spotify application and allows the user to pause, play, rewind and adjust the player volume. A separate audio message announces the movie’s release date and drives users to click on the campaign banner to view the trailer. We’re not sure how annoying that will be yet but it should beat the adverts for gas providers. Manning Gottlieb OMD is responsible for media planning and buying.
But if Spotify can now run video inside their P2P app, what’s to stop them allowing videos to appear as part of their main content offering? We think: not much.