The Echo Nest Expands Its Music Intelligence Platform to Digital Music Advertising

SOMERVILLE, Mass., Nov. 21, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The Echo Nest, the industry's leading music intelligence company, today expands its existing music intelligence platform to digital music advertising with the introduction of its Music Audience Understanding solution, a breakthrough offering that enables highly targeted advertising by using music preference to predict high-value demographic and psychographic advertising segments without personally identifiable information.

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The Echo Nest's new solution builds on its existing platform to help ad-supported music services more effectively monetize inventory, help music ad networks command higher CPMs, and help advertisers reach targeted audiences more efficiently and affordably through a more data-driven understanding of their target audience's musical footprint. Initial customers of The Echo Nest's Music Audience Understanding solution include TargetSpot, the world's largest digital audio advertising network, as well as several ad-supported music services.

The introduction of Music Audience Understanding builds upon The Echo Nest's recognized leadership in Music Discovery and Personalization and Dynamic Music Data. The company powers personalized, streaming music and radio experiences for the world's top digital music services including Rdio, Clear Channel's iHeartRadio, Rhapsody and SiriusXM, and has developed personalized, branded music apps for Reebok, Microsoft, Knorr Foods, and other top brands. With its deep understanding of music content and music fan preferences, The Echo Nest is uniquely positioned to power next-generation music monetization solutions that connect brands to target customer segments through music, while protecting consumer privacy.

"With streaming becoming mainstream, music consumption has moved from a broadcast, push-only experience, to a two-way, personalized conversation with each fan. This switch opens up a new world of opportunities for music services to more deeply understand musical identity and create more personalized, social and profitable music experiences," said Jim Lucchese, CEO of The Echo Nest. "The $15 billion broadcast radio advertising industry is based around the well-accepted notion that music is a powerful proxy to audience. We saw an opportunity early on and invested over two years of R&D to help music services turn anonymous listening behavior into high-value audience segments for advertising. The Echo Nest can now analyze music taste and predict non-music affinities in high-value advertising segments."

With Music Audience Understanding, digital music services and ad networks can partner with The Echo Nest to grow advertising revenue by delivering the level of audience segmentation and targeting online advertisers expect, without requiring personally identifiable information or purchasing third-party data.

Real-time segments available with Music Audience Understanding today include:

• Music fans' age and gender;
• Music fans' affinity for 20 lifestyle categories (e.g. Foodies, Gamers, Pro Sports);
• Music fans affinity for 710+ music genres; and
• Music behavioral segments such as "Mainstreamness" and "Freshness."

About The Echo Nest

The Echo Nest is the industry's leading music intelligence company, providing developers with the deepest understanding of music content and music listeners.

Leading music services (Clear Channel's iHeartradio, MOG, Rdio, Rhapsody, SiriusXM, Spotify), editorial, video and social media networks (BBC.com, Foursquare, MTV, Twitter, VEVO, Yahoo!), connected device manufacturers (doubleTwist, Nokia) and big brands (Intel, Microsoft, Reebok) access the largest repository of music data and intelligence through our open API to build smarter music experiences that help fans to better discover, share and interact with the music they love. The Echo Nest's customer base reaches over 100 million music fans every month and over 400 applications have been built on The Echo Nest platform.

Headquartered in Somerville, MA, The Echo Nest was co-founded by two MIT PhDs. Investors include Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Matrix Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and three co-founders of the MIT Media Lab.

SOURCE The Echo Nest