Woolies and Pandora launch in-store radio stream, urging shoppers to listen at home
Woolworths has launched a curated radio station in partnership Pandora that promises to give shoppers a healthy dose of Australian music while they are in store.
The supermarket is also urging customer to download the Pandora app and listen to the stream when they are not in a Woolworths Supermarket.
Coles has already partnered with Nova to stream curated radio to stores and also on digital radio, claiming it is the number one digital radio station in the country with a cumulative figure of 148,000.
The launch of Woolworths Radio – Powered by Pandora, comes after six months of development by the supermarket and Pandora and represents one of the biggest deals for the music streaming service since it launched in Australia.
The station will run 24/7 and will be piped into 970 supermarkets around the country. Woolworths has already been using Pandora to stream music to its BWS bottle shops.
Woolworths general manager for marketing operations, Rod Evenden, said the move to a curated music stream aimed specifically at shoppers was an important step for the retailer.
“Woolworths is very focused on delivering a great in-store experience for our customers, and we are delighted to have partnered with Pandora and Mood Media to provide our customers with songs and music they enjoy and can relate to,” Evenden said.
“Music plays an important role in setting our mood, whether it’s in a Woolies store, travelling in the car, or cooking dinner at home. Now customers can tune into great music via Woolworths Radio on the free Pandora app.”
Gleave: Woolworths wanted to “partner with a progressive, strong company to deliver music”
Rick Gleave, Pandora’s ANZ director of business development, said the new feed was a step up from Woolworths’ previous system of what he called a “store forward solution” where music was recorded on CDs and then piped through stores.
“What they were after was to be able to partner with a progressive, strong company to deliver music,” he said.
“Consumers are in store for 25-30 minutes at a time and our solution is a cleverly curated set of playlists designed specifically for Woolworths shoppers.”
Pandora will mix up the music selection based on the time of day using its Music Genome Project system in order to match music to time of day, so morning shoppers will get a completely different experience to those shopping later in the day or the evening.
“There has been a significant amount of work to make sure this music is appealing to every shopper,” Gleave said. “It has also been designed for staff.”
Pandora will also curate the music to match seasons and events such as Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.
Woolworths will open the platform to advertisers and the links with Pandora will be promoted in-store, urging people to download the app and listen to Woolworths Radio at home and in the car.
Ummm….. what?
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Hmm marketing space for Woolies?
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It’s strange they’re streaming the same music to each store considering there should be significantly different demographics based on location…
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I’d rather listen to cats fornicate
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Following the US here. They have in store DJs. Knew it was coming. But why no Spotify?
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Woolworths Pandora certainly makes for a more enjoyable shopping and working experience for customers and staff alike.
Plus, neighbouring stores do play a different variety of music. Some stores consist more of 90’s hits, or more modern beats. Though each store is different!
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