5 Minutes with Spotify's Emma Vaughn

Spotify, an industry leader in everything audio, is innovating in a surprising space: video. Driven by a surge in talk show-style podcasts and a younger generation looking for flexible multimedia experiences, Spotify is building beyond your earbuds.

That, of course, is music to advertisers’ ears. And Emma Vaughn, the company’s head of advertising, business development and partnerships, is leading the strategy to bring more brands onto the platform. She sat down with The Current editor in chief Stephanie Paterik to discuss new ad formats, the attention economy and the data that makes her bullish on audio’s growth.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

To start, I want to talk about what our team refers to as big swings. What’s that big, ambitious, maybe scary goal or project that you’re working on right now?

Absolutely. There are a few, but one of them is video. Spotify is super invested in video based on the consumption that we’ve seen. It’s grown year over year by 48% across the board.

But it’s not that we’re trying to be just another video platform. What we’re trying to be is to have that flexibility, for the consumer and for the brands, of foreground and background consumption. It’s that intimacy. And because our users use Spotify more than two hours a day and the engagement is so, so high, we want to be able to provide every kind of service for them.

So that’s a really, really big bet. And also, how does Spotify do video uniquely? It can be adjacent to music, it can be a video podcast, it can be a music video. There are so many different elements. Video is a big part of our ad strategy.

Right now, we’re rewriting the rules of creativity for an omnichannel environment. I’m thinking constantly, “How do we break out of that 30-second spot?” Do you have any creative insights that you’re passing along to the brands you’re working with?

Yes, a ton. Rockstar is actually one of our first clients with Creative Lab, and what we realized is we know the intent of a consumer in different settings.

So, a podcast consumer is very unique. It’s usually very fan based because it’s a host-based format. The host reads obviously are effective because [audiences] have the relationship with the talent, but simultaneously because they have that loyalty with the show. Even if [the ad is] not a hosted read, even if it’s dynamically inserted, there’s already a trust level there with that podcast. So, knowing how to tap in to what the consumer sentiment is in that moment and how they’re listening.

And it’s the same with music. We know the mood that the person is in. One of the things that we are constantly testing and learning about is that consumers are 15% happier and calmer when they’re listening to Spotify. It is a happy consumption experience. So how do we then take the creative and amplify that, so it continues to make people feel good?

There is so much innovation happening in our space right now. We’ve talked about some of it. If you had to name one piece of innovation that is going to change our industry the most in the next year, what would you choose?

So, I’m of course going to be the cliche and say AI, but AI means so much right now. The ability to make content that really resonates in a faster and easier way is going to be huge.

But I don’t mean it as a supplant to the creative minds really understanding your consumer and understanding your brand message, etc. It’s a compliment to it. I think that a lot of people in the industry, on the marketing side [and] the sales side will be able to focus more on the strategic aspects of creative and then use AI to get that done efficiently.

What’s the biggest challenge facing our industry?

The biggest thing is we often forget that there’s only 24 hours in the day. So, the attention economy, in terms of the competition to grab people’s eyeballs, ears, whatever it is and keep people really engaged is one of the biggest challenges out there. And we’re really lucky in that sense, not only just because of the consumer stickiness [of audio], but because of the intent when you’re listening to Spotify and the amount of consumption per day that people are doing. We have their attention.

The reason that video is so important is it’s something that can be foreground or background. Making advertising effective, whether it’s foreground or background, is something that is a challenge but also super exciting.

I’m a New Yorker, so I always give the example that in the subway,15 years ago, everybody would have a book. Then six years ago, everybody would be looking at their phone. And now you just have your AirPods. And it’s this evolution of how we take people’s attention and how we optimize against that, given that there’s so many options out there. I think the potential is huge. I’m excited about it.

As a leader, you’re clearly forward-looking. So how do you stay current? How do you make sure you’re seeing around corners and getting past your own blind spots?

It’s so interesting because I constantly think about this question too. What else should I be reading? What else should you know? And what I realize is obviously, one should be reading as much as possible and staying up to date with all of the trades out there, but also the bigger geopolitical trends.

My husband is a foreign-policy journalist, so I might be biased in this, but I do think what’s so interesting is when I take a step back from reading my usual tech and media trades and I sit down with The Economist, for example, understanding what’s happening in the world. Taking yourselves outside of our digital ad silo helps to understand, “Oh, these are the trends.”

Everything is about human trends, human sentiments, that are going to start to impact us. The other thing is — and it’s cliche — but having relationships in the industry and conversations with people from different areas is just a game changer in terms of really understanding what their incentives are. Not just people from different companies but different functions.

I actively try to make sure that I’m out there in-market hearing about what other companies are solving for, what people care about, what their KPIs are.