Case study
Next episode: Nielsen & Spotify
Decoding the Brazilian podcast listener
Introduction
Tapping into the power of podcast insights
As the world’s leading music streaming service, Spotify boasts a massive global footprint with over 678 million users, including 268+ million premium subscribers across 180+ markets. Recognizing the growing importance of podcasts and aiming to deeply understand Brazilian listener preferences, Spotify joined forces with Nielsen. This effort involved a Nielsen Emerging Custom study with the key goal of analyzing podcast trends to optimize Spotify’s content and identify opportunities to expand its catalog or tailor existing offerings to better resonate with the market.
Objective
Understanding Brazilian podcast listeners
Spotify’s aim was clear: gain a real competitive edge in Brazil’s podcast scene. To achieve this, they sought Nielsen’s expertise to analyze listener habits in detail, pinpoint emerging trends, and establish advertising metrics for optimized performance, considering relevant information for the future of this format.
Challenge
Going beyond broad data
Navigating Brazil’s dynamic podcast landscape posed a key challenge for Spotify’s marketing team, as they aimed to gain deeper insights through granular data needed for strategic decisions. To build a truly data-driven approach, Spotify engaged Nielsen for a tailored study designed to deliver an in-depth understanding of Brazilian podcast listeners and their behaviors.
Solution
Nielsen’s tailored podcast measurement
To address Spotify’s need for granular podcast insights, Nielsen deployed its Emerging Custom solution in August 2024. This involved robust quantitative methodology, featuring custom-designed questionnaires crafted to uncover specific consumption behaviors. A representative online panel of 1,500 Brazilian men and women, aged 18-30 across all socioeconomic levels nationwide, was recruited. Crucially, respondents were filtered to include active podcast listeners on Spotify and another audio platform (at least twice weekly), ensuring the data directly reflected heavy users of podcasts.
Key findings
3 to 4
Diverse listening & growing engagement
On average, listeners explore three to four different podcasts weekly, with nearly half of them (48%) increasing audio podcast consumption in the last six months and 55% increasing videocast consumption.
82%
Highly focused listeners
Podcast content commands remarkable attention, with over eight in 10 listeners (82%) reporting deep immersion, creating a highly receptive environment for advertising.
48%
From awareness to action
Podcasts help brands throughout the full funnel—35% of listeners discover new offerings via this format, and 48% are more inclined to purchase after host endorsements—outperforming social media ads by 8 percentage points.
75%
Podcasts promote mental health
75% of listeners believe podcasts contribute to their mental well-being, and an even greater number turn to podcasts to alleviate boredom (88%) and enhance their mood (82%).
Results
Podcast’s impact revealed in Brazil
Nielsen’s study provided Spotify with granular insights into the significant impact of podcast consumption in Brazil. This valuable data informed and validated their marketing strategies, enabling them to educate the market and promote the effectiveness of podcast advertising to content creators and advertisers. Spotify further leveraged these findings by presenting key data at a dedicated event for these two audiences, offering compelling evidence for investment in the medium.
How it works
Our Nielsen Emerging Custom solution consists of extracting insights and analyzing data collected through an online panel, in which respondents answer a personalized questionnaire evaluating consumption habits and preferences for a given category. The survey was conducted in August, over a three-week fieldwork period (August 18th to September 3rd).
Conclusion
Driving success with data
The insights from Nielsen’s solution regarding consumption patterns, audience demographics, and the cultural significance of podcasts were instrumental in helping Spotify not only demonstrate the value of its format to its clients but also in guiding them to make more strategic decisions for future campaigns. This study also serves as valuable material for educating the broader Brazilian market on podcast consumption.
“Nielsen’s deep dive into the Brazilian podcast landscape has been invaluable,” says Vince Carrari, Director of Sales at Spotify Brazil. “The insights we’ve gained—from listener immersion to the format’s impact on purchase intent—reinforce our position as a leading platform for engaging and effective digital campaigns. This study empowers us to not only demonstrate the immense value of audio to our partners but also to strategically guide them in crafting campaigns that truly resonate and drive action.”
Vince Carrari
Sales Director, Spotify Brazil
Want to talk with our team of experts?
