Spotify
In Spotify's US ad campaign a group of teenage cheerleaders head to the store to stock up on toilet paper.
Spotify uses flashbacks to tell a girl's story of her teenage cheerleading team and their secret "Toilet Paper Committee." The TPC put on bandannas and war paint, pile into a car with mass amounts of toilet paper, and find the best houses to hit.
It's a sweet tale, but the end of the ad is where the music component (and sales pitch) comes into play. Ludacris' "Roll Out" plays throughout because as the ad's narrator says, it was the TPC's anthem that got them pumped up before they carried out their practical joke.
The ad, which is one of three new spots from Ogilvy & Mather New York and its partner agency David, uses the hashtag #ThatSongWhen, and the tagline "You have the story. We have the song." It's a mechanism for the company to connect with listeners, sharing personal stories where music is the connecting thread, and it's those conversations that may help get more music fans to trial Spotify for the first time.
Spotify hit 10 million paid subscribers and 30 million free users globally in May. The company has not released its global financial results for 2013 yet, but in 2012 reported a 128% increase in revenue to €434.7m. In that same year its net losses also increased 29% to €58.7m as it embarked on its aggressive international expansion plans.
Pandora, one of Spotify's biggest competitors, reported 77 million active users at the end of May with subcriptions accounting for roughly 18% of its total revenue, which hit $218.9 million for the second quarter. iTunes Radio has 20 million users, but Apple doesn't separate the service's financials out from the overall revenue delivered by its "iTunes/Software/Services" unit.
Here's the full Toilet Paper Committee spot: