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Spotify app to offer 30 mins of ad-free listening if you watch a 15-30 second video ad first

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Spotify currently offers you a choice: pay ten bucks a month to listen without ads, or listen for free but have your music interrupted by audio ads. Those using the Android or iOS app will be offered a third option later this year: watch a 15-30 second video ad in return for 30 minutes of ad-free listening.

Known as Sponsored Sessions, the idea is that advertisers get the ability to run video ads for the first time, while the experience is made relatively painless for consumers by guaranteeing 30 minutes of uninterrupted listening afterwards.

Spotify began pitching the option to advertisers back in June, and Ad Age reports that a number of major advertisers have now signed-up.

Spotify will start testing the video ads in the fourth quarter with a limited number of brands and plans to extend them to all advertisers in the first quarter of 2015.

Coca-Cola, Ford, McDonald’s and Universal Pictures have signed on as the ads’ first global buyers. Kraft Foods, Target and Wells Fargo will be the U.S.-only launch advertisers.

The Spotify Music app is a free download from the Google play store.

Report: YouTube to launch paid subscriptions between $1 and $5/month by spring

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YouTube Ad Blitz

We heard last summer straight from YouTube chief Salar Kamangar that Google’s video service considered introducing subscription-based content that would rival traditional cable channels and see users paying a fee to access some partner channels. Today, a report from Ad Age, quoting “multiple people familiar” with YouTube’s plans, shared some additional details.

According to the report, YouTube will not only charge somewhere between $1 and $5 per month for access to certain channels, it will also charge for some “content libraries and access to live events, a la pay-per-view, as well as self-help or financial advice shows.”

YouTube has reached out to a small group of channel producers and asked them to submit applications to create channels that users would have to pay to access. As of now it appears that the first paid channels will cost somewhere between $1 and $5 a month, two of these people said. In addition to episodic content, YouTube is also considering charging for content libraries and access to live events, a la pay-per-view, as well as self-help or financial advice shows.

Ad Age’s sources said the service could launch as early as the second quarter of 2013 with around 25 channels and a 45-55 revenue split for content creators:
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Google eyes new online measurement metrics for brand marketers; launches initiative at ad conference

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[youtube=http://youtu.be/7yBemw0eW9g]

Google announced it is introducing a new initiative today to reinvent online measurement for brand marketers.

“Today at the Ad Age Digital Conference we’re introducing the Brand Activate initiative, a new effort to re-imagine online measurement for brand marketers and—crucially—to help brands turn measurement into action, immediately,” explained Google’s Vice President of Display Advertising Neal Mohan on the Official Google Blog. “We’re working with the industry and supporting the IAB’s Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) coalition on this project.”

The coalition is committed to developing brand-building online metrics and measurement solutions. Meanwhile, the Ad Age Digital 2012 combines marketing, technology, and media in one place: Chelsea’s Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City. The events start today and end April 18. It is a melting pot of the world’s biggest brands and newest startups.

The conference intends to “connect the dots” between Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley, while highlighting 700 high-level attendees, two days of keynotes, workshops, and networking with celebrated guest speakers.


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