Ad Age: Spotify sees 2nd big marketer depart in as many weeks

Dive Brief:

Spotify is losing its VP of brand creative Jackie Jantos, Ad Age reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The music streaming company had no further comment on the news when contacted by Marketing Dive.
Jantos, who started at Spotify in 2013 and previously held roles at Coca-Cola and Ogilvy & Mather, helped to establish and guide the company's in-house creative arm, which now has more than 90 workers, Ad Age said. Senior global brand director Alex Tanguay and global executive creative director Alex Bodman will take over the in-house team for now. Jantos' creative initiatives frequently centered on political and cultural causes, such as an "I'm With the Banned" campaign that supported refugee musicians impacted by the U.S. travel ban on seven countries, five of which have Muslim-majority populations.
The news marks the second major departure from the music streaming service's marketing team in as many weeks. Last week, CMO Seth Farbman left the company amid a "broader effort to realign" the department, according to a securities filing reported on by The Wall Street Journal. A source told Ad Age that Jantos' leaving the company is not directly related to Spotify's effort to decentralize its marketing business and focus on smaller teams that work on more specific marketing functions.

Dive Insight:

While the reasoning behind Jantos' departure is unclear, it following so closely on the tails of Farbman's shows a considerable shakeup of marketing leadership at Spotify during an important transitional period for the music streaming giant and ahead of the often busy fourth quarter, which includes the holidays.

Spotify, launched 10 years ago, went public in April this year and has seen several key names leave in the time since, including head of artist and industry partnerships Mark Williamson, global head of internal communications Angela Watts, head of artist and label marketing Dave Rocco and head of creator services Troy Carter, according to the Journal.

Spotify also operates in an increasingly crowded category where exclusive artist partnerships and innovative marketing are necessary to stand out. The company competes for listener's ears with Apple Music, Tidal, Pandora and streaming offerings from tech giants like Google and Amazon. It offers both ad-supported and paid models, which had 180 million monthly active users and 83 million subscribers, respectively, in Q2 results reported in July.

The company's business performance since going public has generally met analysts' expectations, but the loss of executives like Farbman and Jantos could hinder its creative efforts, which have frequently impressed critics. Ad Age called Jantos' work on a David Bowie tribute that took over a New York City subway station "stunning." Spotify has also earned industry praise for out-of-home efforts that are informed by data from listener's playlists — a project that Farbman helped to lead.