PANDORA ELIMINATES MIDDLE MAN WITH AMPCAST

Pandora has come up with a wicked-clever way to connect artists with fans. AMPcast, as it’s been dubbed, is a social-media-inspired feature that enables artists to record spontaneous audio messages on their mobile phones and target fans who are listening to their music on the Internet radio service.

What’s especially cool about this brand new promotional tool—available on Pandora’s Artist Marketing Platform (AMP)—is that it’s completely self-serve, i.e., artists don’t have to go through channels to make direct connections. If, for example, they’re on tour, they can use AMPcast to alert fans about local dates or share stories from life on the road. They can also include a link for fans to buy an album or tickets.

What makes AMPcast so effective is that it’s targeted: These messages directly precede their own songs as they’re served up to their fans.

“AMPcast has the potential to change the odds for musicians,” said Tim Westergren in the announcement, disseminated Tuesday morning. “This powerful tool, combined with the scale and reach of Pandora, gives every talented and hard-working artist a real shot to build a career in music. Marketing and promotion for artists will never be the same.”

Westergren and RCA breakout artist G-Eazy explains the usefulness of the innovative tool in the clip above. “Pandora is changing the game with this one,” he says.

This new tool is available starting today to a select group of artists and will launch to all artists registered on AMP within the coming months. If you’re not signed up yet, you can register at amp.pandora.com, so you can start using all of Pandora’s promotional tools.

AMPcast builds on the success of Artist Audio Messages, introduced in February 2015, with 152m messages heard by listeners during that time. The acquisitions of Next Big Sound and Ticketfly have helped to deepen this partnership by providing additional data to artists while making it easier to connect with fans through live events.