james wika 
Spotify’s self-serve ad platform, Ad Studio, launched this week in Jamaica, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, making this innovative advertising medium available to even more artists around the globe.
Ad Studio is a tool on the Spotify platform that allows artists, brands and businesses to easily run audio and video ads. Advertisers can create a campaign within minutes, and the platform provides flexibility and control to set up and manage campaigns in real time. Never made an audio ad? Spotify makes it easy — you can build a custom audio ad (for free!) right in Ad Studio, in as little as 24 hours.
Spotify has already launched Ad Studio in other markets, including America and Europe, and looks forward to the impact this will have in emerging markets like Sub-Saharan Africa, where audio streaming is on the rise. In order to advertise with this tool, advertisers need to spend a minimum of KES 27,000. Ad Studio provides advertisers with free audio creation tools including background music mixing, voiceover talent, audience targeting and real-time reporting.
“Reaching audiences with Spotify Ad Studio is efficient and easy,” said Christopher Li, Director of Digital Planning & Products APAC at Live Nation and Spotify Ad Studio user. “You can decide to target listeners by genre preferences, interests, and context, etc. It only takes us a few minutes to create a campaign, and the free voiceover service saves a lot of effort, too.”
As the world leader in audio streaming, Spotify brings music and podcasts to nearly 365 million users in 184 markets, across hundreds of devices. This is where young people are — and where young people go, marketers follow. 71% of Spotify Free listeners are under 35 and the median age of podcast listeners is 27.
In Nigeria alone, over 100 million citizens are active internet users. Of this number, 57,9% use music apps — up from 54% last year. The median age in this market is 18, meaning that the majority of smartphone users are Gen-Z. Similar to Ghana and Kenya, the Gen-Z market is increasing, and many young people are streaming audio.
The launch of Ad Studio is another way Spotify is leading the way in audio innovation globally, and providing advertisers with the opportunity to grow their audiences in these emerging markets.
