Spotify strikes a cord in APAC

London-based Spotify – a free music streaming programme – made its grand entrance in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday; and in less than 24 hours, it climbed to the second spot in the iTunes store.Having made its name in Europe since 2006, Jonathan Forster (pictured), general manager of Spotify, said its success comes from its affordable membership rate – which allows users to listen to music offline as compared to its free version.“We’ve put a lot of effort in trying to make the whole process free – that was the entire founding philosophy behind Spotify,” he said, adding that the hefty library and ease in sharing songs are its winning edges over competitors like Grooveshark and 8tracks.“Digital music didn’t come along until the 2000s, where suddenly, you can access everything, see what your friends are downloading, but back then the channels were mostly illegal.“But we found that it’s not that people didn’t value music, it’s not like they like to break the law. So the trick for us is to think how can we possibly compete with piracy, which was why we wanted to make a platform that was quick, clean and fast to access.”Spotify is also an easy-to-share platform – fans can log in through Facebook and follow friends’ or admirers’ favourites instead of passively waiting for playlists to be pumped out.But most importantly are the ad offerings, of which include traditional web formats paired with audio pushes – much like a radio ad – and bespoke brand submissions where clients can express themselves through creating playlists for their fans under a certain theme or inviting users to submit tunes.These ads are also targeted to the right users through information Spotify initially submit – such as age, location and gender – as well as their music preference.“Obviously, privacy is a really big thing for us. But we try to keep advertising as relevant as possible.”Currently, its advertising partners in Malaysia include Heineken, KFC, Maxis and Standard Chartered; CSL and McDonalds in Hong Kong and H&M and Subway in Singapore.Though Spotify has launched marketing pushes in global markets – like when Coca-Cola Australia printed its label across all its cans asking fans to share the music from the year from which they were born – Forster said for now, he will leverage on word of mouth in allowing the product to grow in the region.“For now, we’ll leave it to word of mouth: let the product run its course. Through sharing on Facebook, for example, we want to be the music highlight of someone’s party on the weekend,” he said. “It’s great music, and we offer it for free: so we’re going to let it grow organically for awhile.”