Personalized radio service provider Pandora significantly extended its mobile marketing options for advertisers with an application for Microsoft's Windows Mobile devices.

Windows Mobile is the second most popular mobile operating system nationwide, according to comScore/M:Metrics. The move is intended to position Pandora to ride the wave of a projected mobile advertising market of $12 billion by 2013, according to research firm Informa Telecom & Media, a significant uptick from the $1.72 billion spend projected for 2008.

"Our goal is to build out the platform to make Pandora available ubiquitously across all carriers, operating systems and devices, so that consumers can access Internet radio anywhere they are," said Tim Westergren, founder and chief strategy officer of Pandora, Oakland, CA. "Mobile is a cornerstone for us, because so much radio listening is done on the go.

"The mobile audience is an asset you can advertise to in every environment and every part of the day," he said. "Our listenership, which was pretty much 9 to 5 on weekdays, grew to include later and earlier times as well as weekends.

"From a marketing perspective, it was a real objective for us to be anytime and anywhere radio, with graphical, audio and video ads optimized for whatever mobile device a consumer may have."

Pandora recently reached 2 million downloads of its iPhone application.

"As far as interactivity and click-through rates, consumer engagement has been really high for iPhone ads -- it's wound up being a great platform for marketing," Mr. Westergren said. "Geo-targeting and eventually location-based services may make it even more powerful."

Mass merchandiser Target recently expanded its banner ad campaign with Pandora to promote its exclusive sale of Christina Aguilera's new CD release (see story).

Pandora's core demographic has been consumers ages 18-34.

"That's been a real sweet spot for us," Mr. Westergren said. "IPhone was our first big hit in terms of raw usage, which was the first free mobile version of Pandora.

"Windows Mobile is a large and growing platform, so we wanted to knock that one off, too," he said. "Mobile advertising has been a really pleasant surprise -- the iPhone grew faster and we grew critical mass faster than we expected."

Pandora has proprietary integration with Google-owned advertising network DoubleClick.

For the first time ever, Pandora will be freely available on the Windows Mobile platform, further delivering personalized radio beyond the PC.

Pandora listeners can download the Windows Mobile application by visiting http://www.pandora.com/on-windowsmobile.

The application will feature the same functionality as the online and iPhone versions of Pandora, such as creating new stations, bookmarking songs and rating songs with thumbs up or thumbs down.

The Pandora application is now available on select Windows Mobile handsets, including the Verizon MotoQ9c, the Verizon HTC XV6900, the Sprint MotoQ9c and the Sprint HTC Touch.

Pandora expects to release Windows Mobile applications for additional handsets after the first of the year to further expand its reach as well as its mobile marketing options for advertisers.

Pandora now free on Sprint
Pandora also announced that its mobile radio service will shift from a subscription model, which was $2.99 per month, to a free, ad-supported model on more than 20 Sprint mobile phones.

The free Pandora app will be available to all Sprint customers who have compatible handsets and a data plan.

"We've actually been partnered with Sprint for 18 months, which was initially a subscription service on all devices, because our mobile ad platform was not there yet," said Jessica Steel, senior vice president of business development for Pandora, Oakland, CA.

"We've come a long way, and now Pandora is available for free on a number of devices, including the iPhone, and that's been a huge success," she said.

"Sprint has been our partner through all of these developments, they saw the success of Pandora as a free ad-supported app, and they wanted to be a part of that as well.

"Pandora is a very popular mobile application, as evidenced by the iPhone success, and Sprint wants to have the apps that consumers want to use.

"As phones become about more than just talking, they want to have the experiences that consumers want, with Pandora chief among them."

Sprint was the first carrier to launch a mobile version of Pandora in May 2007 and currently supports Pandora on many handsets, including the Samsung Instinct.

"We're radio, and radio has always been supported by advertising, it's always been free, and we're following that model," Ms. Steel said.

"Consumers want to take their music with them wherever they go, and they can access us on the Web or on their mobile device," she said.

"It's an exciting time at Pandora watching what's happening with smartphones, because music is one of the applications everyone wants on their phone."

Pandora's mobile marketing strategy is shaped by the fact that high-speed networks are the norm and smartphones are gaining critical mass.

Pandora wants to be able to offer its mobile advertising clients an array of options, including location-based tools to find concerts and restaurants, on every mobile platform.

In 2007, smartphones only accounted for 11 percent of total handsets shipped worldwide, according to Strategy Analytics.

The research firm sees a dramatically different composition by 2012 where smartphones will comprise nearly 30 percent of shipped handsets, representing 452 million devices.

Pandora is banking on that evolution to continue at the same accelerated clip.

As with the iPhone and the surge in applications in the App Store and corresponding rapid adoption by consumers, not to mention iPhone competitors such as the Android and the BlackBerry Storm, the market seems to be gathering momentum despite the down economy.

Pandora is a personalized Internet radio and music discovery service available anytime and anywhere on the PC, in the home and on mobile devices via partnerships with AT&T, Apple and Sprint.

Pandora is based on the Music Genome Project begun in 2000, an analysis of popular music.

Each song in this collection is analyzed by more than 30 trained musicians and assessed against nearly 400 distinct musical attributes such as melody, harmony and rhythm to capture its unique musical identity.

Using this information to build playlists based on musical similarity, listeners can enter a favorite song or artist and launch a personalized listening experience that includes discovery of new bands, artists and songs.

Pandora has a growing user base of more than 20 million registered listeners, a database of more than 550,000 songs and national advertisers such as Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Honda, Procter & Gamble and Nike.

"We don't really do a whole lot of marketing right now, we rely on grassroots marketing, as we have a big word-of-mouth network," Mr. Westergren said. "We'll post announcements on a blog and the word spreads pretty quickly.

"Over time we'll partner for promotions with Microsoft, the carriers and handset manufacturers," he said. "The iPhone audience grew entirely by word of mouth -- we didn't spend ad or marketing dollars on that and we anticipate similar viral growth with other mobile apps, including Windows Mobile."