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The CPG Guys

16 Sep 2026 · 38m · 19 chapters

Episode artwork

Spotify's Sam Bevan - Performance Marketing Through Cultural Connections

In short

Sam Bevan (Spotify) discusses performance marketing through cultural connections in audio—how Spotify positions itself as a full-funnel, measurable advertising platform for CPG, including retail-media adjacency, omnichannel buying, and agentic AI creative tools.

Guest backgrounds

Sam Bevan is a senior Spotify leader focused on culture, audio, and commerce. Before Spotify, he led SMB advertising sales at Google, Facebook, and Snap (and later Snapchat). Hosts include Flywheel/Omnicom’s PBSB (head of industry/client engagement) and Lara Raj (Think Blue Consulting; father of pop stars Ria Raj and Cat’s Eyes), plus Sri Sri Day four.

Key claims

Audio is underfunded (less than 2% of marketing dollars despite ~20%+ of time spent). Spotify standardizes ad buying/measurement for performance marketers, supports multi-touch attribution, and can connect offline/online via Conversions API.

Notable examples

“coupon XYZ” attribution evolving into promo-code measurement via Conversions API; Spotify’s AI “creator studio” for end-to-end audio assets; fandom vs create-fandom (host reads, events, bespoke integrations).

Written by AI. May contain mistakes.

Chapters

1:56

Festival Insights and Audience Engagement

Discussion about the International Festival of Creativity and audience engagement.

“I have to say you're more like Papa Entourage because you got your posse going with you.”
2:40

Festival Insights and Audience Engagement

Discussion about the International Festival of Creativity and audience engagement.

“And, you know, next year, bigger, better.”
3:56

Introducing Sam Bevan

Introduction of guest Sam Bevan and his role at Spotify.

“Three simple actions that will help us bring you more of the conversation that matters.”
4:52

Sam's Experience at Cannes

Sam shares his experience at the festival and ongoing meetings.

“It's day four of the can, so apologies, slightly raspy voice.”
6:00

Transition to Audio Marketing

Discussion on the shift to audio marketing and its potential.

“I want to remind our audience, check the digital show notes of this episode.”
7:30

Prioritization in Advertising Strategy

Sam discusses how to prioritize different aspects of advertising strategy.

8:52

Engaging Challenger Brands

Exploration of how Spotify appeals to challenger brands in advertising.

“I'd love to jump into your current remit.”
11:12

The Role of Audio in Marketing

Discussion about the importance of audio in marketing portfolios.

“And I just think so often, if I just look at kind of, gosh, my favorite example of this as an industry is I look at the mattress walls and all of these nailed to home mattress.”
14:00

The Appeal of Passive Podcast Consumption

Learn how podcasts cater to audiences who prefer passive consumption.

“Most of our audience wants to consume passively.”
15:00

Authenticity and Community in Podcasting

Discover the value of authenticity and community in the podcast space.

“Yeah, for us as well, the issue has been, we often get asked by other people, who do you compete with in this space?”
Show all 19 chapters
17:03

Understanding Performance Marketing Metrics

Explore how Spotify addresses performance marketing metrics for advertisers.

“We're going to compete because we're confident in the medium, though, that we can perform.”
19:18

The Role of Audio in Digital Advertising

Find out why audio is becoming increasingly important for brand uplift.

“And I think because they are in a better state of mind, there's so many studies that show when you're in a better state of mind, you're more receptive to messaging.”
21:47

The Importance of Measurement in Advertising

Learn about the significance of measurement in advertising success.

“we're just enabling people to do offline online traffic together.”
23:38

Supporting Emerging Brands with Effective Strategies

Understand how Spotify tailors strategies for emerging brands seeking performance.

“And I think also you're typically dealing now directly with sometimes the CEO, sometimes the CMO, the very kind of least.”
27:19

AI and the Future of Media Buying

Explore how AI is reshaping the landscape of media planning and buying.

“So agentic AI and programmatic buying are fundamentally reshaping how media gets planned and purchased.”
28:08

Creating Effective Audio Assets

Learn how Spotify enables brands to create tailored audio content quickly.

“And the best thing about this is we've actually trained the models based on the best practices.”
29:46

Cultural Connections in Marketing

Discover how Spotify helps brands reach consumers through cultural relevance.

“And I think, yeah, the proof of concept was very quickly shown.”
31:35

Iterative Learning in Marketing

Understand the importance of A-B testing and iterative learning for brands.

“intersection of where these moments are being created.”
33:48

Engaging Consumers Effectively

Explore strategies for brands to connect with consumers where they spend time.

“I think at the end of the day, it's constant iterative education, awareness, and training.”
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Transcript

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0:00Brand marketing has one plan. Key account managers have another. The field team is doing something else entirely. Sound familiar? Our sponsor, Salesforce, can help. You can't win at the shelf if your internal systems are fighting each other. With Consumer Goods Cloud, you finally connect trade promotions, retail execution, marketing, and service. Everyone, including your AI agents, is working off the exact same data. And the best part? No massive IT headache. Keep your ERP. Keep your data where it is. Keep working in Teams, Claude, or Salesforce. Drive growth from warehouse to checkout with Salesforce at salesforce.com slash consumer goods.

0:50That's salesforce.com slash consumer goods. Hi, I'm Sam Bevan from the Spotify team, and you're watching us here with the CPG Guys podcast.

1:20Now, here are the CBT Guys. Hello and welcome to this episode of the CBT Guys podcast. I am your impetuous co-host, PBSB. I also moonlight as head of industry and client engagement at Flywheel, the commerce acceleration division of Omnicom. We're recording today's episode at La Résidence of the CBT Guys and the FMCG Guys here in Cannes, France. We're here for the International Festival of Creativity. Joining me is my co-host, the co-founder of Think Blue Consulting, the father of pop stars Ria Raj and Cat's Eyes, Lara Raj. Their fans, of course, call him Papa Raj, though watching him walk around cans all week.

2:00I have to say you're more like Papa Entourage because you got your posse going with you. But to me, he's my BFF, my ride or die, the Thelma to my Louise. Please help me welcome the man known as Sri Sri. Day four. How's Ken going for you this year? What's going on? It felt like a month. But a very fulfilling and fruitful month, I would say, of four days here. We got a few more to go. Lots of content. More importantly, we've hosted a ton of panels, discussions, important topics in the industry. Of course, retail media being one of them. The role of AI and creative. I also want to take a minute, Peter, to thank all our sponsors and partners who are here all week long.

2:40And, you know, next year, bigger, better. All right, Sri. Thank you. Really appreciate this. Before we get to our guest, we have three asks of our audience, right? The first one is subscribe to the CPG Guys on whatever platform you're listening to right now, whether that's Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Music, wherever. Subscribe or follow button, and that way you never miss an episode. Second, leave us a rating. That's very important to us. It takes 30 seconds, but it makes an enormous difference in helping other CPG and retail professionals find us. We've built this community one listener at a time, and a five-star rating is the single best way you can help us keep growing it.

3:22Our favorite number is five. When you're having a hamburger, you know, go to four guys, you go to five guys. So just remember that. And third, follow us on LinkedIn. Between episodes, we publish an enormous amount of thought leadership that helps everyone learn more. It's content from industry analysis, and you're not going to find it anywhere else. It's all built for the CPG and retail media community. You're already a part of it, so search CPGGuys on LinkedIn. Hit the follow. Click the link in the digital show notes. Just get on board the train, right? Subscribe, rate, follow. Three simple actions that will help us bring you more of the conversation that matters.

4:01So let's get to our terrific guest. Sheree and I have had the pleasure of speaking with some of the most forward-thinking minds in brand and consumer engagement. Today's guest is squarely in that category. Sam Bevan is a senior leader at Spotify, where he sits at the intersection of culture, audio and commerce, helping CPG brands connect with consumers in some of the most intimate, attention rich moments of their day. Whether someone's working out, cooking dinner, community work, Spotify's there and Sam's work is focused on making that presence meaningful for brands and measurable for marketers.

4:33Spotify has been increasingly asserting itself as a serious player in the advertising ecosystem, not just as a music platform, but as a full funnel media partner with rich first party data, podcast inventory, and deeply engaged global audience that delivers. Sam, welcome to the CBT guys. How are you doing? Great. It's day four of the can, so apologies, slightly raspy voice. It's got to that stage. I think it's been 50 odd meetings back to back in the heat, down at obviously the infamous Spotify beach. But yeah, great to be wrapping things up in a lovely air-conditioned podcast studio. So I appreciate you guys bringing me in.

5:12That's one of the reasons people like us. We have the air conditioning. We have restrooms available. We have a charger for all of their devices. Like everyone, when they first got here, they're like, I'm just not leaving. So you may have to call your colleagues. Particularly like four o 'clock in the afternoon, when I say to an audience that we had in here, you know we have a phone charger over there it's like they all gravitate for it like i need my i need my phone charge so when i call my uber it'll it'll actually work that's quite gonna forget the still water and ice oh the that yeah we and the rosé we bought we walked into can with 60 bottles of rosé we're we're we've consumed the rosé okay consumed the rosé but nothing left here I was hoping for a glass.

5:57No, it's really a day for I am. Rose-ed out. It's time for the water again. I want to remind our audience, check the digital show notes of this episode. You're going to find links to Sam's LinkedIn profile. You're going to find links to Spotify's corporate website where you can learn more about their advertising business as we go on with our conversation. So Sam, Sri and I are going to take turns. We've prepared some questions for you. We'll ask them. You answer them. That's how this podcast thing works. You're probably a little familiar. But Sam, you've built a small, medium business in mid-market advertising unit at Google, Facebook, Snap before coming to Spotify.

6:34What drew you to audio with The Next Frontier and why now? I think for me, I've always just been very passionate about ultimately enabling businesses of all shapes and sizes achieve business success. i think one the really unique things about spotify when i was kind of having this initial phone calls with them this is the effort three years ago now was when you just looked at this kind of sheer size and scale of spotify reaching now over six seven hundred and sixty million people the fact that this was just an untapped media for kind of any entry point advertisers to gain access, it really just felt like just audience alone, the park, the medium, audience alone in that engagement, there's just a huge opportunity for brands.

7:23And I think, yeah, when I was looking at the opportunity, audio was like a big part of us. Okay, can audio be performative for a mid-sized brand for businesses that maybe are looking for that kind of more mid-funnel, lower funnel type activity and i think the fact of the matter is the medium could was the tech there and kind of what i've been focused on over the last three years is really partnering with our products and engineering teams on drawing that bridge of how do we just bring the ways that people are used to buying your traditional video display type advertising for the last let's say 10-15 years into the audio space and i think what gets me really excited is this can where the position where our entire ads business is running across the spotify's proprietary ad server at this point and we've created kind of two key entry points uh through both the typical ads manager platform which people are very used to with a lot of kind of the social platforms and a lot of other kind of key display networks but also we've really been tapping into how do we enable omnichannel buying because i think when you think of audio it's one of these rare mediums where you can kind of tell a true story which creates a huge opportunity to again engage with audiences in a way that just not many brands have done in the past brilliant sam welcome to the cpg guys it's a pleasure to have you here especially live at canon amidst what what what i would argue is one of the busiest schedules of our lives.

8:57I'd love to jump into your current remit. You have scale businesses, mid-market, small businesses, customer success, and then expanding the global market. Yeah. If I think about it, that's a massive scope. So how do you think about prioritization of one of those, a couple of those when everything is always simultaneously on? Yeah, I think for me, first and foremost, I'm very fortunate. I've just got an awesome team. uh so as much as uh that's my kind of purview like i've really just got amazing leaders supporting me across uh every aspect what i'd say though for kind of prioritization i think it all really kind of comes down to what i just talked about there around our path towards automation like how are we democratizing that entry point to our media and medium and how we're just enabling brands to partner with us in scalable ways.

9:52And so when you think about all of my purview there, like there's a lot of similarities. If you think about market expansion, how do we enter net new territories? Like the fact of the matter is, yeah, we needed a scalable mechanism in order to do that. And so as much as, yeah, my focus here is kind of running the commercial day-to-day of a lot of these teams, it really is about how we get in that product feedback loop into the fold to ensure that we're building a product which drives success for customers despite their location despite their size because I think often what I love most about my neck of the woods is I have a lot of disruptive brands and typically I often say disruptive brands often paved the way for strategy for some of the larger brands in like two three years time and so yeah very fortunate I love my role predominantly just due to the fact that I'm dealing with.

10:46Often I say the true hustlers, the true like growth seekers in our industry. They do some amazing things that become the playbook. You know, Sam, in an era of marketplaces where Amazon, Zoo Plus, Chewy, Challenger brands in particular have a level playing field. 100%. And so appealing to them as a community that's in need of amplification and audience is a wise strategy. 100%. And I just think so often, if I just look at kind of, gosh, my favorite example of this as an industry is I look at the mattress walls and all of these nailed to home mattress. Oh my God, I have one in my house. But they redefined how people go on that buying journey.

11:32Oh yeah. They redefined, like, you don't necessarily need to have brick and mortar in order to sell this product. You can actually tell stories, get that message of quality across in different means. I think, again, you now look at fast forward to today, a lot of the strategy that these guys were disrupting the market with five years ago is now just the baseline strategy for that entire category. Sam, fast moving consumer good brands have been historically heavy TV and display spenders. What's the honest conversation you have with a chief marketing officer who still sees audio as a nice to have rather than a core channel in their overall marketing portfolio?

12:11yeah yeah i think this is one of the like common misconceptions that i often just kind of discuss like where does spotify sit i think actually if you look at our platform we're we're evolving drastically and what we offer our core consumer base even hopefully many of you watching this on spotify we're a huge video platform as well and actually earlier this year we relaunched our free tier where what we did is we basically brought a lot of the amazing things from our premium service into free to do a better value exchange for our customer base which drove a very different behavior on our platform where now more than ever people are kind of dual screening with spotify and we call it kind of those screen less moments but also in view moments and so i often think about when people classify spotify as audio even that is the first bit where i'm like well we really aren't actually you're doing more than audio exactly as that was by our conversation when we first opened before we turned the camera on about the cpg guys now making sure that it's video is feeding into the spotify platform exactly and then i do think just audio though as a whole the big stat that i always love to kind of home in on is if you look at where average users are spending their time where they're consuming content it's something crazy like upwards of 20 percent of time is being spent through audio as a medium that's not just us of course all audio but it still captures less than two percent of marketing dollars and so there is this massive disconnect there of highly engaged lent in audience base you're just missing out on you know when sheree and i launched our podcast uh six years ago we actually launched as a youtube channel And after about five episodes, we came to an absolutely intelligent conclusion on that, which was the following.

14:08Most of our audience wants to consume passively. They have other things they need to do. They're not going to sit there in front of a video screen and necessarily watch the entire episode. But if we move to podcast format, they could consume as they go. They can do it on the move. They can do it in bits and drabs. And that was, from our perspective, it was game-changing in our ability to expand out our platform. So, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and I think I just often talk about what I love most about podcasts as a medium is giving users the choice. And let's be honest, there's components of podcasts that, yeah, it makes more sense to be in view for that section.

14:47But then a lot of broader conversation, yeah, you can be kind of multitasking, doing other things. And I think the things of listening is just something which, let's just be honest, is a very uninterruptive experience. It is. And you really have that full attention of the user. Yeah, for us as well, the issue has been, we often get asked by other people, who do you compete with in this space? And I said, we don't talk about competition. We're trying to foster a community of people who think of podcasting as a mechanism to be educated and entertained in our industry. Educatement. Yeah, it's entertainment.

15:20entertainment it you know in in in our industry that is we that is our resource we have to promote other podcasts we don't have to think of them as competition because at the end of the day it's not about owning 100 a share of stomach it's about getting people to consume podcasts and if they do having us be one of them in their rotation is very important that will get the habit going yeah yeah i think the reason people just love them podcasts is it's far more authentic there's yeah less that polished or honest conversations and i think let's just be honest in this damn age what people are craving for is authentic and it's just i think that's why this medium just continues to just see such tremendous growth yeah so spotify is kind of sad that audio ads on the platform are two times more effective than display ads for both purchase intent information intent and then peter and i just came off a pretty heavy conversation on ROAS, attribution, incrementality, things of that nature.

16:19So how does that data that you have land with CPG performance marketers who, like I said, their metrics are pretty straightforward. That's what they measure ROAS. Yeah. I think first and foremost, I'll kind of bring back to what I was saying earlier. The whole investment we've been making over the last two to three years is standardizing our offering to how people are used to buying media. That is pretty smart, right? Like, it makes it easier for adoption. Exactly. And so rather than us trying to reinvent the wheel of how you measure something, actually, how do we meet the advertising community in the middle?

16:54And be like, the methodologies, the ways that you're measuring, you're kind of at a home, your video, whatever medium it is. We're going to play ball. We're going to compete because we're confident in the medium, though, that we can perform. And then I think in terms of performance, I think one of the big things that I often talk a lot about with audio is really making sure that you have a good understanding of like a multi-touch attribution model. Because I think the fact of the matter is, again, a lot of advertisers still are over-indexing on last click. And I think the fact of the matter is, actually, if you think about where people are being inspired, discovering new brands, it's very rarely on that last visual prompt that they saw someone on the internet.

17:39And I think this is where audio, the reason I think it's doing so well for brand uplift, ad recall, all these like upper funnel metrics is it's a very uncluttered environment. If you think about how many visual display ads you get exposed to on a given day, it would be in hundreds, if not thousands, versus in an audio ecosystem, it's to be quite frankly, nowhere near that level of exposure. And then the second thing that I always like to say on this is people are in a very different state of mind when they're on Spotify versus, I hate to, I won't know names, but like the doom scrolling of social media.

18:22Ah, yes. Like the fact of the matter is if you come on to Spotify, you very rarely if ever hear someone saying, oh, doom scrolling. Yeah. Doom scrolling of Spotify. It's literally the opposite. Like one of the things that we've talked a lot about at our activation this year is this concept of fandom. like people are coming yeah so it's where you're engaging with your favorite artists your favorite creators and we often say like it uplifts moods and i think like you you actually mentioned in the open there about the idea of like yeah when you're cleaning your house when you're driving to work like spotify boosts your mood it puts you in a better state of mind because yeah it's helping that hour fly by quicker it's helping you stay in the zone whatever whatever it may be and so So when I think about why we're seeing such effective performance, and especially the metrics you mentioned there, it's because I just think people are entering Spotify in a very different state of mind.

19:17And understanding that mindset is what's going to enable you to create experiences for brand advertisers that win. A hundred percent. And I think because they are in a better state of mind, there's so many studies that show when you're in a better state of mind, you're more receptive to messaging. therefore actually it's probably where you are going to absorb a full story or a full i'd say like this is what i love about audio is allowing creative advertisers to tell stories again story at the end of the day advertising success is based and predicated on storytelling 100 so retail media has exploded as a category primarily because of the purchase signal data right uh and the ability to close loop on measurement yeah to a degree spotify sits outside of the transactional data loop, how do you make the case or do you even make the case that listening behavior is a proxy for buying behavior?

20:08How do you, how do you, when you go to advertisers that are so squarely focused on performance marketing metrics in a closed loop system, what's your, what's your angle to, to get them to say, no, I want to include this. Yeah. So I think again, one of the great things about what we've been doing with our tech evolution over the last two to three years is one, just utilizing the fact that Spotify has logged in users. Yeah. By default, we therefore have a very great way of mapping both audience and measurement capabilities. And so actually it does allow us to start tapping into actually options around what could we do in the retail media space.

20:47Actually, can we do some form of data path? The functionality and optionality for us to do a lot in that space really now is at our disposal because of the fact that we've opened up our own ad server to build for this listen uh the largest retail in the world half of their in-store retail sales are not household attributable because they're paid with cash so you've got 100 user identification through your platform yeah and this is where i get very excited by things like uh we just launched our conversions api which is allowing you to bring offline online information together to really start to again weigh up the performance and i think one of the great examples of this is always audio want to tell as old as times ways to attribute it.

21:31As people were saying in the middle of a podcast or in the middle of a show, use coupon XYZ. It was always hard to traditionally kind of then link that back to the audio. Use promo code, right? Use promo code. But in this new world of, yeah, through the conversions API, we're just enabling people to do offline online traffic together. So again, we've started to dip our toe into ways that we can partner in the retail media space. definitely with our ad exchange in the programmatic world as well. But yeah, we're definitely going to be looking into more optionalities. Okay. So on this show, as he's alluded to, we talk a lot about the commerce moment.

22:10Yeah. The point where brand intent actually converts downstream into actual purchase intent and then through to the checkout process. How is Spotify thinking about bridging the gap between the audio impression and our industry's obsession on point of sell? Yeah, I think it goes back to this whole concept of us standardizing our tech to meet everyone in the middle of how they're doing this across their core mediums today. And so I think the headline that I often say with audio now is we've really brought it into the 21st century, brought it into the exact same playing field for how you're doing this across video, how you're doing this across display, across all of your other digital properties.

22:51and it comes into both the way that we're delivering ads. So the ability to ensure that's being served to the right person through the right audience and at the right stage of the customer journey, but then closing the loop by using measurement methodologies, which people have been leaning into across various other mediums for many years at this stage. I want to remind our audience that Sri and I today are talking with Sam Bevan from Spotify. So, Sam, you joined Spotify from Snapchat, where you led SMB sales, having also done that at Facebook and Google. What's the universal truth about selling advertising to scale and emerging businesses, regardless of the platform?

23:35What's your big insight there? Yeah, I think the fact is the smaller a brand is, the more sensitive the dollar. And I think also you're typically dealing now directly with sometimes the CEO, sometimes the CMO, the very kind of least. Yeah. And I think as a result, I actually think one of the big things is it's not a question of like kind of showing performance over time. It's out of the gate, really aligning on what success means for that brand. I think one of the reasons I just love this space so much is I do think, again, it pays the foundation for what bigger brands and things should be thinking about later down the line.

24:21And so I think when you're dealing with this cohort, you just need to remember that every dollar is far more important to them. That dollar is either going to be spent on marketing or payroll, potentially. And it's on us to ensure that for this cohort, they see that return on ad spend out of the gates. They don't necessarily have the luxury to do some of the bigger, brandy, flashy test things. They need to have performance out of the gate. As it goes along, I need this to perform so I can turn around and have enough to invest in the next one. Exactly. And that has got to go. And it's kind of like this step process as opposed to, yeah, I can just, I've allocated my budget for the whole year and I can sit back and let my agency figure out how to make this all work.

25:05Exactly. we're not doing these annual deals or anything like that with this cohort. It really is almost day-to-day optimizing, tweaking. And I always use the word performance pretty liberally because performance for different verticals, for different brands can mean completely different things. I think what's really important when you service this cohort is understanding actually, what does it mean for their bottom line? What do they care about? And that has to be out of the gate how you support this type of business. You've kind of talked about publicly ad manager and ads exchange, and you've mentioned that they're having rapid adoption.

25:44For those that haven't really seen it, aren't curious, what's the message you'd give them? Yeah, I think we've democratized and made it easier than ever to utilize the Spotify audience to grow your business. And I think we've intentionally done a bit of a dual pronged strategy because yeah if you want to go all in on driving performant media ads manager is the best entry point you can do objective-based buying now so even cpg companies looking to collect leads cpg companies that can do aware like you tell us what you're trying to achieve up front and then we guide you through the relevant booking flow and then on the ad exchange front it's an awesome way to dip your toes into understanding the omni-channel impact that audio could have for you and so So, yeah, my biggest probably ask is like, it's easier than ever.

26:35We're here to support. And by not being on Spotify, I truly do believe you're missing out on incremental reach. We agree. And who do they bring reach out to if they get more curious? I think our teams are open if you're obviously partnering with your DSPs. We have direct relationships there. Or if people are just wanting to go straight in to our ads manager platform, We have a whole dedicated build-out team to support. So yeah, ads.spotfire.com, sign up there, and then it's very easy to find someone to speak to to really guard you on your journey. The audience, make sure you check the digital show notes of this podcast again, because it's going to have a direct link to the ad section of Spotify.

27:21So agentic AI and programmatic buying are fundamentally reshaping how media gets planned and purchased. What does Spotify's ad exchange strategy look like in a world where agents may soon be making most of the media buys? I think we're staying very open-minded to how this technology is going to disrupt and evolve things. And yeah, I could be in contact with our product team and it would give you a far more thoughtful, comprehensive discussion on this. And I think as soon as you say the word AI to a product guy, you probably need this to be not a podcast. There'll be like a whole catalog of discussion that you could go down.

27:56I think the very high level of where we're starting to kind of dip our toes into agentic work streams is first how easing the buying flow um so how are we making sure that a customer sets themselves up in the best way not necessarily needing depending on another human to tell them how do we send prompts to them notifications to them so they are set up in the right way out of the gates and then our big thing is um creative i think to your point earlier you made it yeah it's clear audio isn't necessarily a media medium that people have on their plans main thing that we have to do is create that bridge of how do you actually create this creative and so we just launched our last year the ability to make an end-to-end audio asset where you can literally within two to three minutes put in a prompt tell us the type of vibe type voice you want because you've got a creator studio built into the five parts now yeah Yeah.

28:55Wow. That is incredible. Free to use, free entry point. And the best thing about this is we've actually trained the models based on the best practices. So we're not leaving you to cold start, figure out, I'm a new disruptor CBT brand. Like, when should I put my call to action? When should I do this? When should I do that? We've taught the agentic work stream there to actually take all of our best practices over the last 10 years and ensure that advertisers out the gates are getting help. And I think it's an interesting strategy where we're seeing some lean straight in and then just deploying that out.

29:31And then others are using it for A-B testing before maybe we then create a more polished human touch version. What's been the reaction from your S &P clients? This has got to be like groundbreaking for them. Yeah, to be honest, it's one of the areas, I'd say, hockey stick moment changes in the business. And I think, yeah, the proof of concept was very quickly shown. I think we've had over 20 ,000 ants and antizers testing it out of the gate. So definitely a product market fit there. But I think what's been interesting, it hasn't necessarily just been SMBs leaning in. This has actually been large enterprise.

30:06Really? That's so fascinating. Intuitively, I think, well, they've got an agency and their model is to, you know, charge them a lot of money for that service. And here you come along and you're helping them save because you've just built it into you. use our platform and you have access to this tool yeah i think it's worth for agencies that naples do ap testing at scale okay allows them to iterative and all those things so there's so many reasons to why even the large brands are kind of leaning in out of the gaze very good you know when i think of spotify and the platform you just talked about creators all the artists that are on spotify podcasts that are on spotify i think it's safe for me to say that you're at the intersection of culture, creativity, and commerce at the same time.

30:52Yes. How do you feel about Spotify's role in helping CPG brands show up more culturally versus commercially? Yeah, I think when we think of our ways that brands can partner with us, we are very high level bucketing into two ways. We have ways in which you can surround yourself with culture. We call it fandom. and then there's ways that you can create fandom and so i think the create fandom is where we create really bespoke opportunities to do things like host reds host readers really have that host read that maybe or so that host of a podcast that your community love be the voice of your brand we allow you to do custom integrations with events we allow you to really be at that intersection of where these moments are being created.

31:43And then on our scalable media offerings, this is where we say, yeah, culture happens on Spotify, to your point. This is your ability to insert yourself into the conversation. Brilliant. Sam, here's your opportunity to kind of speak to our audience of brand marketers and help them understand most often where are they missing the mark in terms of audio fitting into their portfolio and how can they correct that? I often think we overboil things in our industry. We love to make things more complicated, of course, than they need to be. And I do think sometimes the main thing that I still see people tripping up on is getting out of that mindset of testing and iterating.

32:33That to me is the best way for brands to both growth hack to kind of understand what's resonating best, what's not kind of learning. But I just think not enough brands use things like A-B testing tools. And it's something we built into our platform out of the gates. And it's one of those ones where, again, when we talk to brands about it, again, that they lean in, they do it. But I just say to brands, whether it's that or just any form of having a test and learning gender, it's just critical for brands to see success. As I think, Clu, right, if he gave you a magic wand and we said... The Harry Potter wand.

33:14Talk to CMOs, VPs of marketing, SVPs of marketing, essentially brands, stewards of CPG. What's that one big message you'd leave them with? Oh, I think it goes back to what I was saying in the very beginning of the podcast of think about where people are spending their time? And are you capturing them? Yeah, very well said. It's actually a very powerful question you're asking the industry. And Peter and I, the CPG guys, we're convinced they're not. So what do we do, Sam? How do we change that? I think at the end of the day, it's constant iterative education, awareness, and training. And then I think it's also conversations like this, where we don't make it seems it's like this daunting i'm gonna have to do this do that like you're just trying to make it clear that it's actually not as complicated to utilize where people are spending their time and then the other bit which i love to always double click on and this is me not doing uh digs or anything like this but it's also what where people are spending their time in terms of consumption but what state of mind it's meeting the shopper and the consumer where they are both physically and mentally.

34:28Exactly. Couldn't sell it better. Sri, we've had in the past conversations on audio as it pertains to in-store retail media. This is our first conversation about audio and more, we'll call it audio plus because it's more than just audio in an offsite world. What are your, what's your big takeaway from our conversation with Sam? It's how, while I can go in 50 different directions, I'm going to go to how Sam close the episode out. I think the industry and marketers need to ask themselves a question, really introspect and really deep dive and ask themselves a big question. Are you truly present where the consumer is today?

35:10And Spotify is one of those platforms that are present. Are you there? Are you taking advantage of it? If that's where the consumer's attention is going, shouldn't you be there present in an economy which is now a war for attention? You know, Gary Vaynerchuk writes a book about it, The Attention Economy. I'm familiar with that one, but that's good. Thank you, Sri. For me, the big takeaway is that Spotify is a platform that engages fans. And that's a different mindset. And brands need to attune themselves to exactly what that is and contextually make themselves relevant to that audience. So it requires a different approach.

35:49But Sam, thanks for taking time out of a very busy schedule to sit down in our makeshift podcast studio here and speak with the CPG guys. We really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. And again, the air comm. Fantastic. Thank you. We aim to deliver. To our listeners at the over 45 ,000 followers on LinkedIn, thank you for doing what you do every day, whether you're building brands, driving retail partnerships, deploying technology or shaping the future of commerce. You are the industry we cover, and this podcast exists because of you. If today's conversation sparked something for you, a new idea, maybe a fresh perspective, I hope there was a lot of fresh perspective today.

36:30It certainly was for Sri and me. Maybe it's just a reminder of why this industry is worth showing up for every day. Share it. Tag us. Tell a colleague. The more voices we bring into this community, the sharper all of us get. Until next time, keep pushing the conversation forward. I'm PVSB on behalf of my co-host, Papa Raj. This has been the CPG Guys podcast. Goodbye.

37:14in this episode should be construed as advice from CPG Guys, LLC, or the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for research on any subject matter. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by CPG Guys, LLC. The views expressed by guests are their own, and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. The views expressed by CPT Guys LLC do not represent the views of their employers or the entity they represent. CPT Guys LLC expressly disclaims any and all liability or responsibility for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or other damages arising out of any individual's use of, reference to, or inability to use this podcast or the information we present in this podcast.

From the publisher

The CPG Guys are joined in this episode by Sam Bevan, Global Director, Mid-Market, SMB & Global Expansion at Spotify, the most popular global audio streaming service with 365m users, including 165m subscribers across 178 markets.

Follow Sam on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuelbevan/

Follow Spotify Ads online at: https://ads.spotify.com/

  1. You’ve built SMB and mid-market advertising businesses at Google, Facebook, and Snap before landing at Spotify. What drew you to audio as the next frontier — and why now?
  2. Your current remit spans emerging and scaled business, mid-market, SMB, customer success, and market expansion globally.  That’s a massive scope. How do you think about prioritization when everything is simultaneously “on”?
  3. CPG brands have historically been heavy TV and display spenders. What’s the honest conversation you have with a CMO who still sees audio as a “nice to have” rather than a core channel?
  4. Spotify has stated that audio ads on the platform are two times more effective than display ads for both purchase intent and information intent. How does that data land with CPG performance marketers who are laser-focused on ROAS and attribution?
  5. Retail media has exploded as a category because of purchase-signal data. Spotify sits outside the transactional data loop — how do you make the case that listening behavior is a proxy for buying behavior?
  6. We talk a lot on this show about the “commerce moment” — the point where brand intent converts to purchase. How is Spotify thinking about bridging the gap between audio impression and point of sale?
  7. You joined Spotify from Snapchat, where you led SMB sales, having also held SMB-focused roles at Facebook and Google. What’s the universal truth about selling advertising to scaled and emerging businesses — regardless of platform?
  8. You described 2025 as a “breakout year” for Spotify’s emerging and scaled business, driven by rapid adoption of Ads Manager and Ad Exchange. For CPG brands that haven’t yet leaned in — what are they leaving on the table?
  9. Agentic AI and programmatic buying are reshaping how media gets planned and purchased. What does Spotify’s ad exchange strategy look like in a world where AI agents may soon be making the media buys?
  10. We’re here at Cannes Lions, the festival of creativity. Spotify sits at the intersection of culture, creativity, and commerce. How do you think about Spotify’s role in helping CPG brands show up more culturally — not just commercially?
  11. What’s one thing CPG brand teams consistently get wrong when they approach audio creative — and how should they fix it?
  12. Final question: if you could wave a wand and change one thing about how the advertising industry thinks about audio and Spotify specifically, what would it be?

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DISCLAIMER: The content in this podcast episode is provided for general informational purposes only. By listening to our episode, you understand that no information contained in this episode should be construed as advice from CPGGUYS, LLC or the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for research on any subject matter. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by CPGGUYS, LLC. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.

CPGGUYS LLC expressly disclaims any and all liability or responsibility for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or other damages arising out of any individual’s use of, reference to, or inability to use this podcast or the information we presented in this podcast. 

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