Marketing and business school graduates are familiar with the four Ps of marketing. This model is a method of controlling, both in a simple and more complex way. The companies market to consumers. The products are designed to be valuable and feature-rich. Prices are established and the market areas where they will sell best. To reach the target audience, advertising, public relations, and direct marketing are some of the methods used to promote the company’s products or services. The message is ultimately controlled by the company.

Every company is now competing in two worlds. One is the physical marketplace, and one is the digital marketspace. The future is now, with most services and products being sold in the marketspace (Tapscott 2000). Pandora Radio launched the Pandora Music Project, which covers all 4P’s of marketing. This gives you a bird’s-eye view of how marketing works. Pandora Radio’s history began in 2000 with a new music discovery program. The Music Genome Project was founded by Tim Westergren with the intention of analyzing music analytically. The project analyzes a song’s structure to find similar songs that the listener may enjoy. Savage Beast was originally Westergrens’ company. It took over 30 music theory experts to build the database. Their 2006 library was home to more than 400,000 songs, analyzed from over 20,000 contemporary artist (Joyce, 2006. Pandora Radio is now available on nearly all devices with an app. In 2010, the radio app was integrated into TVs, such as Roku or Sony. The app was implemented by more tablets, including those from Barnes & Nobel and BlackBerry. There were also in-car apps for BMW/Mini and Ford, as well as Wi-Fi-enabled refrigerators made by Samsung (Hampp 2011, 2011). Tim Westergren, the company’s founder, stated that smartphones had transformed Pandora from a service for anyone, anywhere. The company saw a rapid growth of 40 million users to 75 million in just 12 months. Pandora had 40 strategic content partners, and more than 400 devices. It was experiencing rapid growth, but it quickly became one the most popular music discovery platforms. Pandora was able to connect artists and fans via multiple devices. Pandora Music’s rich history has had a profound impact on music industry. The company is well on its way and must now focus on the fourth P, pricing. Pricing Pricing is essential to ensuring long-term profitability and short-term success. Pandora Radio’s media search platform competes against companies like Apple Inc., Microsoft and Amazon.com.

Pandora introduced Ticketfly in 2016, a ticket distribution platform that targeted local concerts based upon the user’s musical preferences. Pandora Premium was added in 2017. This allows users to choose songs instead of creating stations with limited skips.

They have also increased the skips with advertisements and offer offline access. According to The Motley Fool Pandora’s 2016 user base was 78 million. They aim to reach 110 million by 2020. In 2016, Pandora earned $58 million per 1000 listening hours. Their revenue per 1000 listening hours in 2016 was $58 million. In 2018, 2019, or 2020 it is expected that they will reach $60, $70, $80, and $80 respectively. A consolidated view showing the company’s 2020 business plan can be seen below (DiPietro), 2017. Metrics ($in million) Core radio premium Ticketing Consolidated revenue $2,400 $1300 $300 $4,000 Content prices $1,160 $180 $180 Other revenue costs $115 15 N/A $130 Gross margin 47% 44% 40% 42% Operating profit 18% 10% 15% Despite Pandora Media’s challenges over the years (increased competition, declining users) their business plan emphasizes new methods to target and reach customers. Neil Borden invented the term “marketing mixture”. E. Jerome McCarthy (PurleyBranded.com 2018) defined the “mix” as the essential elements that comprise the 4P’s in marketing. These 4 P’s are a combination of the unique selling points Pandora has and help it stand out from its rivals.

The promotion is the next step in marketing. Promotion involves elements like advertising and public relations. To truly maximize its return-on-investment, the Pandora brand needs to be well-positioned. The company’s largest brand-marketing initiative comes out in 2015, 10 year after Pandora’s founding. This multichannel campaign helped to differentiate it from other competitors such as Spotify, iHeartRadio and Apple Music. Simon Fleming Wood, then the company’s CMO, said that they now have the financial resources to invest more in marketing. This was due a 67% rise in the company’s topline revenues from local advertising. Pandora was previously able to create a brand campaign using a digital-only version of “Thumbs Memories.” The new campaign begins with an online video and then goes to television. The new ad features the tagline “The New Song Matters,” which promotes anticipation and the excitement of anticipating the song’s arrival. Fleming Wood is responsible for five teams. He manages a growth-and analytical marketing team and a business development group, which focuses on “getting us in cars and where the next generation will be listening to music.” And Pandora One, its subscription company. He is also responsible for a communications and PR team. He launched “Now Playing”, a campaign to gauge the impact of different loyalty segments. It led to “Thumbs-Up” and “The next song matters” (Rooney (2015)

Since Fleming-Wood left and Tom Westergren became the CEO and former owner, the company has been expanding its services to mobile users through apps for Android, Blackberry, Apple iPhones and iPads. Pandora allows advertisers to sponsor streaming of new albums without charge through its landing pages. It also offers banner ads and radio stations that are branded by the advertiser. Pandora invested in artists connecting with their fans. They launched AMP (Artist Market Program) in early 2015, with audio messages for artists. AMPcast was introduced in early 2016.

Artists can use the program to track data and performance metrics. They also have the option to geotarget artists and send them audio messages. These messages can be shared via social media (Press.Pandora.com (2016)). Pandora is continuing to improve its marketing campaigns so that they can reach both their customers and artists. Promotion is an essential part of any marketing strategy. Promotion can include advertising, sales promotion and personal selling. Advertising strategy deals with any one or two-way communication that takes place with the consumer (marketing-made-simple.com, 2018). Promoting strategy is about understanding your customer and how you can reach them. These questions can be used to build a program that is relevant for all of the marketing mix; segmentation, targeting, positioning, and messaging (marketing-made-simple.com, 2018) Pandora Radio did little marketing in their early days. The majority of the marketing was done by word-of-mouth in the last few years. Pandora’s vice-president of sales marketing Susan Pancio oversees brand strategy and positioning on the B2B side. She spoke out in 2017 about Pandora’s ability to reach a wide audience through its personalized music experiences. They are now focusing on creating a deeper connection with their audience through launching a paid model that can compete against Apple Music and Spotify. Their focus is on Pandora’s music discovery feature (Akopyan 2017, p.

Pandora also partnered with A Million Ads, an ad personalization agency, in 2017 to bring video and display ads into the audio marketplace. These formats increase brand awareness. They include nationally recognized brands such as FedEx and McDonald’s, and local mom-and-pop shops in different markets. Pandora is committed to creating one-to-1 experiences with customers. They also work with partners who allow them to share their knowledge and help others brands reach their customers through music. Pandora also uses its mass data to direct market. This data captures the device type and time they listen to the music, and it is used to match artists for maximum exposure. (Akopyan, 2017,). Pandora Radio is continuing to sponsor the SXSW Music Festival. They are able to meet new people, artists, and advertisers through this huge event. Susan Pancio believes all marketers should consider music as a medium to convey their brand message. One reason is that music has become a must have strategy, and audio ads are a must-have medium.