You might be driving or hitting the gym or maybe you’re on the field doing some tedious works while listening to songs on Spotify, the company which had innovated a better way of interacting with advertisement by enabling you use your voice rather than clicking on those ads.
The company is experimenting with the new voice-enabled ads system which today May 2nd 2019, the company had rolled out although only to the US subscribers alone.
The system works by responding to voice commands such as “Play Now” which will then serve listeners who are using the ads-supported Spotify subscription level after they’ve already given the application the “Audio Voice control” permission when it’s prompted (As in Android OS for example).
The first two of these voice-enabled ads are for Unilever’s Axe brand — which will send listeners to a related branded playlist — and Spotify Studios, which will forward listeners to the Spotify Original podcast, Stay Free: The Story of the Clash.
The thing is keeping your mouth shut will simply take you back to your playlist or at least to the song you are currently listening to. Amazon might be another company that could adopt this feature on it’s Amazon Music streaming service.
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Great audio ads can be really great and more attractive way of driving sales rather than banner ads that floods every web pages on the internet. Audio ads might be even harder to ignore just that the attentions that users pay to them might be doubted.
Adding voice as a way to interact substantially lowers the effort involved to engage, especially during activities that are hands-free by necessity. Listeners may also appreciate being able to take action on something they find relevant or interesting. “Play now” might be the first way to interact, but there’s no reason Spotify couldn’t expand to a much larger set of commands, like “bookmark it,” “send it to me,” or “remind me tomorrow.” We’re so used to interacting with our voice assistants like Alexa and Siri, being able to holler at the ads we hear just seems like a natural evolution. If it takes off, this will be one more nail in terrestrial and satellite radio’s coffin as Spotify edges ever closer to world domination.
The company is reported to also be creating a sort of Virtual Morning Show which is to entertain people while they drive to work early in the morning. Om their website, they have playlist options such as “Your Daily Drive” which mixes tracks and podcasts episodes which would even boost the company’s Podcasting venture as it had been acquiring couple of Podcasting companies. Podcast could just be the next “Blog” which could take Spotify to a more higher ground especially reaching it’s target as it just hit a milestone of 100 Million paid-subscribers worldwide which is really great.
It likely won’t be long before its podcast pool is so deep, it will be able to come up with algorithmically chosen episodes to pair with music, for a customized “show” that perfectly matches the length of your commute. We weren’t able to conjure Your Daily Drive when we went looking for it, but we’ll definitely be keeping our eyes (and ears) open for it.
