SPOTIFY SAYS IT'S STREAMING TOWARD 100 MILLION USERS

Spotify demonstrated its continuing commitment to its ad-supported, unlimited free streaming business by working the attendees of a pair of advertising and marketing conferences in New York this week, mounting what the International Business Times describes as “a full-court press on the world’s advertising professionals.”

The company picked up the lunch tab for IAB MIXX attendees Monday, and Daniel Ek, just hours removed from a root canal, gutted out a transatlantic fireside chat.

“I’m very impressed with the way they’re marketing themselves,” Carla Eboli, the CMO at marketing agency Dieste, told an IBTimes reporter. “I do not recall when I saw Spotify marketing itself so strongly on any other occasion.”

Ek and his decision-makers may not be interested in marketing to consumers, but they’re eager to pitch to the ad community, because there’s gold in them thar hills.

Chief Revenue Officer Jeff Levick played his trump card (you’ll excuse the expression) when he claimed that Spotify will have “close to 100 million” people by the end of the year, compared to the 75m the company announced just a couple months ago. So maybe they don’t have to market to consumers.

That rate of growth has gotten the attention of marketers, the story points out, because it's being driven by millennials. According Ericcson, more than 90% of millennials stream music, and that was enough to draw a crowd: Hundreds of Advertising Week attendees queued up Monday for a panel featuring the chief marketing officers of Spotify and Pandora half an hour before the doors opened.