Dive Brief:

• Pandora has partnered with ad personalization firm A Million Ads to bring dynamic creative audio advertising to its platform, according to a joint press release. The release said the capabilities will be available "later this year" though it did not specify when. 
• Dynamic audio ads aim to offer marketers on Pandora two key benefits: Real-time personalized ad creative at scale based on listener attributes such as gender, age and zip code, as well as factors like time of day, location and weather; and sequential messaging and targeting to create a storytelling effect through multiple ads.
• Dynamic ads ultimately might give marketers a new way to leverage Pandora's unique data set on its 81 million active listeners. "Our massive data set, combined with A Million Ads' ability to deliver tailored, data-driven audio creative in real-time, gives us yet another way to help advertisers unlock the power of audio," John Trimble, CRO at Pandora, said in a statement. 

Dive Insight:

Dynamic creative has been picking up traction as a way to automate ad targeting and brand storytelling on digital display and video advertising, but Pandora is touting its new initiative with A Million Ads as a first for the audio space. Pandora's data sets are slightly different than those that might be gleaned from formats like digital display, focusing on listening habits above all else, and might give marketers a better chance at making an emotional connection, as music is shown to be a driver of engagement in this area.   

Adding higher-level capabilities to audio ads also speaks to the increasing importance audio marketing has in many brands' overall media mix. In terms of targeting consumers at specific times of the day, music streaming and internet radio services like Pandora are proving popular. Spotify, for example, is now using a Branded Moments vertical video format to hit listeners at six key moments during the day.

Pandora has seen success with similar strategies: Last year, it helped Gatorade revitalize its Propel water brand by honing ads towards its "fitness enthusiast" listener segment. More dynamic creative capabilities should help other brands on the platform segment the exact type of consumer they're looking to message to and automate a cohesive, sequential brand story for that demographic.