Spotify India Pitches Brands On Festive Audio Ads, Agencies Want Proof
Spotify India's sales head says festive listening is a gap brands are missing, while Zenith and Dentsu X say audio still has to prove what it adds to sales.
Spotify listening coincides with around 18 per cent of FMCG purchase occasions in India, according to Arjun Kolady, head of sales at Spotify India. He is using that figure, and a 34 per cent rise in party-playlist listening over the festive weeks, to argue that advertisers should move more of their Diwali budgets into audio.
Kolady made the case in an interview with ETBrandEquity published on Monday. "Marketing has traditionally focused on eyeballs, but much of consumers' lives happens away from screens," he said. He also cited a 131 per cent rise in streams on TV sets during Diwali and said listeners spend upwards of two hours a day on the service.
Spotify has also tightened its free tier in India to push more listeners towards paying, and labels have tried paid early access on new releases. The ad pitch is aimed at the listeners who stay on the free tier.
What the agencies said
Kavita Acharekar, SVP at Zenith India, said audio streaming already sits in some clients' festive plans, "but its role is driven by the campaign objective rather than inclusion for its own sake." Retail and real estate, she said, use audio through the year as well as in festive bursts.
Anil Solanki, senior director and media lead at Dentsu X, called audio a complementary channel for younger, mobile-first listeners and said measurement standards and attribution are still the sticking point.
Daily game
Today's Guess
Four songs. Clues unlock as you guess.
Get Tracklist
Weekly playlists and our best stories. Free.
The audience being sold
The FICCI-EY Media and Entertainment report for 2026 put India's monthly music-streaming audience at 178 million in 2025. A year earlier it was about 175 million.
Three million new listeners in a year is the figure Spotify's festive deck has to sit beside. Kolady also told the paper that some marketers held back budgets earlier in the year, and that there are signs festive spending could strengthen. More in Business.
(Source: ETBrandEquity interview, 26 Oct 2026)
