Introducing Muted Video on Pandora

We have written extensively about the emotional power of music, and the impact it has on strengthening a brand’s relationship with its customers. We also know that the sight and motion of video ads lead to strong performance and lift in the key metrics advertisers care about. With our new Muted Video offering, we’re able to directly harness that deep and personal connection our listeners have with music to drive these metrics even higher.

What truly differentiates this offering from other publishers? Our Muted Video product always has 100% share of voice as the only ad on your screen. Unlike similar offerings by other publishers, ads on Pandora aren’t hidden in a crowded feed of content and other competing ads. Further, when a video ad is playing, it's not dead sound in the background; it's the station or song that listeners love. Pandora's muted video plays to the soundtrack of your personalized Pandora experience. We know that music inspires positive brain activity and deep emotional connections. In an environment where an advertiser’s messaging stands alone, it’s the nexus of this bond and the video’s moving images that make our offering truly resonate.

Our listeners want to engage with ads on their own terms, and because of that, we’re excited to announce that Muted Video is driven by user choice and not disruptive. A Muted Video on Pandora is only served when a listener performs an action in our app and--as its name suggests--on mute. With this seamless integration into our existing experience, we’re able to capture authentic listener attention from a leaned-in audience, driving key performance metrics for our advertisers. In fact, in our beta we found that:

• 86% more listeners stuck with a brand’s message for at least 5 seconds compared to a 300x250 display ad
• There was a 25% lift in video completion rate compared to industry benchmarks

As a complement to our existing video ad suite and Sponsored Listening products, Muted Video expands the breadth of our video offering and provides another attention-based solution to an industry concerned with a scarcity of premium inventory availability. And, because we are the #1 app in the US in terms of in-view time, with over 80 million listeners performing over a billion in-app actions per day, we can offer brands the scale and data to deliver the right video message, to the right audience, at the right time.

At Pandora, we believe that what’s good for the listener is good for the advertiser. We’re focused on driving authentic attention for advertisers via endemic solutions that don’t detract from, but instead improve the listener experience. With Muted Video’s focus on user choice and its ability to leverage a listener’s personalized music soundtrack, we have done just that. In combining these benefits with 100% share of voice and massive scale, we have a product that is truly differentiated from its peers across the ecosystem.