As part of a comprehensive update, Pandora revamped its mobile experience with a focus on enhanced discovery, better personalization and more on-demand music and podcasts. The redesigned mobile experience is now available to users across all tiers of service, including free/ad-supported, Pandora Plus and Pandora Premium. This follows the streaming service introducing the enhanced experience to select users in October.
Pandora is also launching a multichannel national campaign featuring the brand’s new visual identity via television, out-of-home (OOH) and digital as well as large-scale experiential events.
Pandora’s new mobile experience gives users access to an updated discovery feed that serves custom-curated music and podcast recommendations to each user throughout the day. Additionally, the company introduced a station customization feature called “Pandora Modes,” which grants users more control over the kinds of songs played on their stations. Lastly, the app’s simplified navigation interface allows for better user experience.
Examples of new content that users can look forward to include an exclusive custom playlist from LeBron James, a comprehensive year in review of a user’s playlist and a playlist with the most thumbed up songs from 2010-2019.
Pandora will unveil interactive street murals in key markets and is set to host a live-streamed concert with Halsey, a massive silent disco in New York’s Times Square. Pandora says more immersive experiences with top-tier artists are in the works across the US.
OOH ads for Pandora’s campaign incorporate cheeky copy that tells listeners to, “Play exactly what song you want (for real),” and “You look nothing like you did 10 years ago (yeah, us too).” Old and new images and songs from artists like H.E.R. drive the brand’s fresh points home. The campaign’s television spots, which include songs by Normani and Tones and I, also display another new tagline, “The All-New Pandora: Be You. We’ll Be Your Music.”
In March, eMarketer reported that Pandora will have 72.4 million US listeners this year. With the growth of smart speakers and mobile devices, however, Spotify is expected to surpass Pandora in terms of users by 2021, one year sooner than eMarketer predicted last year. By 2021, it’s predicted that Spotify will have 73.7 million users.