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.
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