Dive Transient:
- Procter & Gamble’s Downy is tapping into the rising reputation round audiobook romances for an new marketing campaign on Spotify that promotes the launch of its Downy Mild Mushy + Contemporary material softener, based on a press launch.
- “Virtually Scandalously Mushy Tales,” options 4 authentic, 20-minute audiobooks meant to place softness and freshness as a sensorial escape. Titles embrace “The Different Mattress,” “An Everlasting Slumber,” “The Dragon’s Mattress” and “Kitchen Warmth.”
- Customers can discover the tales by looking out “Downy Virtually Scandalously Mushy Tales” on Spotify, per launch particulars. Audiobooks reached $2.22 billion in U.S. income in 2024, a 13% year-over-year improve, per information cited in launch particulars.
Dive Perception:
Downy’s newest marketing campaign is supposed to offer a bit indulgence for the shoppers who discover themselves continually taking good care of others and for whom a “quiet evening in can really feel a bit scandalous,” based on Redge Abueva, vice chairman of North America material enhancers for P&G, in launch particulars. The trouble additionally faucets into the explosive progress of each audiobooks and the romance subset, which noticed 30% year-over-year progress, per the Audio Publishers Affiliation.
Certainly, romance novel gross sales typically have risen 113% over the previous three years, based on Circana, and are actually the highest-earning style in fiction, producing income of $1.44 billion in 2023. Very like the class, Downy created its tales to have a broad enchantment. One story, “The Different Mattress,” is a thriller by which a lady heads for an evening of indulgence at a roadside lodge solely to be confronted by a personal investigator employed by her husband to observe her. They change into trapped in a laundromat as a storm rolls in and the sparks begin to fly.
A second story, “An Everlasting Slumber,” encompasses a Vampire haunted by her everlasting love, whereas a 3rd, “The Dragon’s Mattress,” encompasses a “dragon man” crashing right into a younger lady’s bedchamber, opening a portal into one other world that “she merely can’t resist.” The fourth story, “Kitchen Warmth,” written by USA Immediately bestselling writer Priscilla Oliveras, depicts restaurateur enterprise companions taking their relationship past the kitchen.
Downy’s marketing campaign faucets right into a rising pattern of manufacturers utilizing the “#BookTok” pattern round steamy romances. Earlier this month, Neutrogena launched a marketing campaign for its new Vitamin C serum that featured two quick tales authored by media persona and content material creator Serena Kerrigan that had been designed to make shoppers “glow,” similar to the product.
The Spotify-based effort comes at a time when the audio streaming platform is working to show to manufacturers the way it can carry campaigns to life. Final month, the platform teamed with Netflix to create a gaming expertise themed round “Blissful Gilmore 2.” Earlier this 12 months, the corporate showcased a number of new ad-buying and administration capabilities, in addition to inventive alternatives via its in-house companies.
Nonetheless, Spotify’s monetary image is a blended bag. Whereas the corporate’s income rose 10% from about 3.81 billion euros, or $4.2 billion, in comparison with the identical interval a 12 months in the past, it posted a internet lack of 86 million euros, or almost $100 million, for the quarter. Month-to-month lively customers on the platform rose 11% to 696 million, and paying subscribers elevated to 276 million, up 12% from a 12 months in the past. Nonetheless, ad-supported revenues dropped to 453 million euros, down about 1% from the year-ago interval.
