Dive Brief:

• Wendy’s is using Spotify’s new Branded Moments mobile ad product in an open-ended campaign that started on Jan. 2, according to a report in AdExchanger. Wendy’s has worked with the music streaming service before and is a launch partner for Branded Moments, a vertical video format Spotify announced in mid-October last year. 

• Branded Moments targets mobile listeners on Spotify’s free streaming service based around six different 'moments' of the day: chill time, workout, party, dinner, focus and sleep. Branded Moments play at the start of playlists and, when viewed to completion, provide 30 minutes of commercial-free streaming, though display ads still crop up during that window.

• Wendy’s will sponsor the 'dinner' Branded Moments slot, per AdExchanger. The food brand will combine its customer data in fields like credit card information with Spotify’s to better target the promotion. 

Dive Insight:

Catching consumers on the fly via mobile moments and similar location-based tactics is gaining traction with major brands, as Wendy’s latest deal shows. Music, in particular, can elicit strong emotional reactions in listeners, and while hunger isn’t necessarily an emotion, it certainly fits a similar bill. The brand hopes an appealing video ad placed in front of a properly curated playlist may be enough to keep consumers' mouths watering and lead to a purchase.

"When you're driving to lunch and you’re not sure if you’re going to go right into McDonald’s or left into Wendy's [...] we need to make sure we’re in the back of your head through our broader brand advertising and in front of you right as you’re starting to turn that wheel," Brandon Rhoten, VP and head of advertising, media and digital marketing at Wendy’s, told AdExchanger. "Streaming audio is one of those checkout line target moments where we can hopefully persuade you before you make the decision."  

Spotify, for its part, has been building out better marketing offerings on its free streaming model of late, with Branded Moments arriving as the platform’s first foray into vertical video units and a natural partner to brand-sponsored playlists. Major advertisers have started to take notice of Spotify’s popularity as well, with WPP’s Data Alliance inking a deal to gain access to the listening preferences and behaviors of up to 100 million users in November.  

"[We] are humanizing 'quant' data by harmonizing it with music preferences as a new window into the mood and emotion of global audiences during daily moments" said Nick Nyhan, CEO of WPP's Data Alliance, in a statement. "It's not about 'just' having data anymore, it's about finding new ways to create connections through emotion." 

WPP noted at the time that musical attributes as specific as the tempo of a song can be key to predicting consumer moods and lead to more relevant targeting. Which music genres trigger hunger pangs probably varies greatly from person to person, but Wendy’s is smart to combine its own customer data with Spotify's to better optimize the campaign on that front.