The CMO's MO: Spotify's Jan-Paul Jeffrey on brand opportunities, challenges and boxing

The CMO's MO: 9 questions with dynamic APAC marketing leaders, insights and personalities revealed.  Want to be featured?

Campaign Asia-Pacific from today has launched The CMO's MO—an all-new take on interviews with leading APAC CMOs as they share their marketing mantra, trends for the future, what keeps them up at night, while giving us a peek into the person behind the title.

Now this is not your typical CMO interview. For starters, it isn’t boring, lazy or plain corporate speak. We chat up with the who’s who of the region’s leading marketers, keep the tone conversational, crisp and throw in questions that allow leaders to shine a light on their plans, passions projects and personality for the year ahead.

This works for two reasons. One, our readers get valuable insights from dynamic leaders we feature and second, it’s natural for the CMOs to want to talk about things they do best. Our mix of questions puts the marketer in their sweet spot, and it reflects in the flow of the conversation that follows.

We pose a set of 15 questions of which the CMO must choose to answer nine in one to 150 words. If we’ve piqued your interest and you wish to get featured, contact the team here. 

We're kickstarting the series with Spotify's SEA head of marketing Jan-Paul Jeffrey. Jeffrey has led a successful marketing career with brands like P&G, L'Oréal, Jet Star Asia Airways before heading Spotify's SEA division in 2019. In a stint defined by leading, learning and constantly evolving into tech and insights to further the business, Jeffery talks about his marketing outlook, popular trends and some personal trivia below. 
 

1. What are the three biggest marketing challenges for your brand right now?

Consumers have more control than ever over the content they consume and the brands they engage with. With so much advertising and content vying for their attention, it’s tough to stand out. As marketers, it's our job to come up with innovative and engaging ways to capture and keep their attention.

On Spotify itself, consumers have access to over 80 million tracks and 4.7 million podcasts, all for free. With so many options for how to spend time and what to consume, it's important for us to create compelling and engaging marketing campaigns that showcase the diverse and exciting content and product innovations taking place in the company. We want to excite different fan communities and get them talking about Spotify in a fun and engaging way.
 

2. What are the three biggest opportunities for your brand?

With so many options for consumers to choose from, it's more important than ever for us to showcase the incredible creators and content we have to offer. Take our recent 2022 Wrapped campaign, for example. It's a celebration of the past year and an invitation to join in on the fun.

We understand that no two listeners are the same, which is why 2022 Wrapped encourages you to explore your unique audio kaleidoscope and share it with the world. Dive into all things #SpotifyWrapped—from our annual top lists to the musical genres and personality types that make up your listening experience. It's all about highlighting the diversity and richness of the music and creators on our platform in a fun and engaging way.
 

3. 2023: survive or thrive? Elaborate.

Thrive. There will be so much good music and podcast content coming in 2023, it's exciting time for the brand.
 

4. Where are you investing your marketing budgets this year? In what areas are you increasing or cutting spend?

Consumers in the region spend a lot of their time on social media, messaging apps, ecommerce platforms, and streaming platforms to stay connected with friends and family, shop, watch videos, listen to music, and have fun. We want to tap into this trend and invest in campaigns that resonate with the youth and create more two-way connections between creators and fans through audio.

For example, our recent Wrapped 2022 campaign and Kpop On! campaign created moments that consumers wanted to share and talk about. We also partnered with Netflix's Stranger Things to create a personalized "Upside Down Playlist" and our latest in-app experience, "Playlist in a Bottle," captures your musical preferences in 2023 and allows you to revisit them one year later.

We want to create delightful moments for our users that they will want to share and talk about, in a playful, fun and engaging way.

5. Trendjacking the metaverse train: is it for your brand or not?

Yes to metaverse. You have to understand your consumers, their habits and where the next customers will come from. Kids these days are growing up in the metaverse, playing games like Roblox. My kids and their friends live in Roblox, they make friends, and it’s a completely natural part of their lives. To connect with our younger audience and promote the brand in a fun and interactive way, we partnered with artists like Stray Kids and Sunmi to create K-Park, a whimsical wonderland dedicated to the vibrant world of K-pop on Spotify Island inside Roblox.

Spotify Island on Roblox is a virtual island where users can interact with each other, listen to music from Spotify, create their own virtual spaces, customise their avatars, and play mini-games while listening to their favourite music on the app.

6. What kind of a CMO are you? Answer using maximum three adjectives.

7.  Tell us one personal thing about yourself that others might not know.

Bring on the football and Thai boxing! I am a huge fan of these sports, although at my age, my body is not as resilient as it once was. But that’s not stopping me from loving every moment of it.

 

8.  What’s your favourite brand campaign that you participated in or wish you had?

I absolutely love The Unusual Football Pitch campaign, being a Bangkok resident at the time and a huge football fan. The idea of giving back through an innovative campaign is truly amazing, I wish I had thought of it. And let’s not forget the McDonald’s BTS campaign, talk about creating a buzz!

 

9. What keeps you up at night as a CMO?

The thought of our growth. Are we growing fast enough?