Political advertising on Spotify: Yay or nay?
Spotify adverts are annoying. That is not an observation but a factual comment. Having a listening experience interrupted by Frankmusic or Amy McDonald promoting their new albums is a grating experience. How would you feel though if your service was being interrupted by a political party persuading you to vote though? Well, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. The Conservatives are going to be using the software to promote their party in preparation for next year’s general election. The Conservative party chairman, Eric Pickles, will comment about the current debt situation in the UK before urging all Spotify users to vote for their party. Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said:
We are always looking for new and relevant ways of engaging with people, and I think this Spotify advert adds to an already strong track record of being early adopters when it comes to online communication.
There is no denying that for them it is a smart move and one that might give them an upper hand in terms of trying to get hold of the youth vote (it’s worth remembering that a lot of people that use Spotify are young). But there are a couple of things that concern me. Firstly, as previously mentioned, adverts on Spotify are unbearable, so it would have to swerve past the danger of making the listener want to turn off. Secondly, other political parties would probably need to do the same thing just for the sake of balance. At the end of the day, the sound of the same person making the same political promises gets boring after some time.
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Posted on October 20th, 2009 by Max
Filed under: Features, News
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