Interacting with ads on Pandora could earn you one hour of uninterrupted listening

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If you interact with a rich ad on Pandora for at least fifteen seconds, the Internet radio service will reward you with an hour of uninterrupted listening free of advertising, the company announced in a blog post Monday.

They’re calling it Sponsored Listening and it’s available now to all advertisers, meaning this feature will be available on a per-ad basis.

After experimenting with Sponsored Listening in September of last year, Pandora saw some rather positive feedback from its beta testers which apparently produced “a measurable return on investment for advertisers.”

Pictured above and below: Sponsored Listening’s interactive 360-degree product views on Pandora.

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After you engage with a brand’s video or rich media unit for fifteen seconds, Pandora will automatically reward you with an hour of uninterrupted listening.

The company claims that Sponsored Listening resulted in a twelve percent lift in brand awareness and a cool thirty percent increase in purchase intent for advertisers during the beta period.

Sponsored Listening ad units at advertisers’ disposal include video ads, swipe-able slideshows and interactive 360-degree product views. Launch brands for Sponsored Listening include Land Rover North America, Corona Extra, Gatorade, truTV and Yuengling.

Details on Sponsored Listening and ad units available to advertisers are available on Pandora’s website.

Pandora’s most recent iPhone update introduced two interesting nice-to-haves: one invites you to Shazam a song to launch a new station and the other lets you hum a tune to SoundHound, again to launch a new station from that artist on Pandora.

Pandora’s iOS app is a free download from the App Store.

Source: Pandora