Spotify has officially launched its dynamic Canvas ad format in Canada, and Shoppers Drug Mart is one of the first retailers to adopt the visually enhanced experience. The campaign marks a major milestone in how retailers engage with consumers through digital audio.
Ann Piper, Head of Sales for North America at Spotify, said Shoppers Drug Mart is” our first retailer and first brand in Canada to utilize our Canvas format. The value of that is they’ve been working with us on the audio side, and we have the unmatched reach there. What Canvas does is allow a visual experience to accompany that.”
“It’s a way for them — because they’re a brand that has multiple products — it’s a way for them to actually showcase these products when you’re actually listening to the ad,” she added. “When you go back into the app, you actually see these visual experiences.”
Spotify’s integrated format is already showing significant results. “We see better performance when audio and visual and video are together in a campaign,” said Piper. “We see purchase intent increase by 27% and we see incremental sales by 66%.”
Asked to explain what the campaign looks like from a consumer’s perspective, Piper described Spotify as a “Daily Companion.”
“You go into Spotify to listen to music or podcasts or even audio books. And so Shoppers Drug Mart as a retailer — it’s a really great place to have that companion side for when you might be on the go… So it’s a way for them to have their message play when someone is listening,” she said.
“In this campaign in particular, they’re going to have friends and family events, they’re going to have different offers going into the summer . . . there’s nine different campaigns that go through October,” Piper explained.
This context-sensitive advertising creates a high-engagement environment. “The value that we find is it’s a really great way and a time of receptivity,” said Piper. “You have someone who’s engaging in Spotify for what we call really nutritious content. So they’re in that mindset of being entertained… and this is a good time for skincare, or SPF for the summer, or maybe some other things that may be good for me.”
“Really, you want advertising to be shown up in a way where someone has their attention. They’re either recalling that or in this particular case… driving in store or driving to Shoppers Drug Mart dot com.”
“At the end of the day Shoppers Drug Mart… they’re in the business of driving sales and so there’s different ways that they need to make sure that customers know about their promotions as well as new customers know about their promotions.”
Beyond Shoppers Drug Mart, Spotify works with other major retailers, though this particular initiative marks a first. “Shoppers Drug Mart is our first to take advantage of this Canvas unit, which is a bigger, new creative way that Spotify continues to show innovation in terms of the fan experience,” Piper said.
She added that retailers are also tapping into Spotify’s Ad Exchange, another innovative ad tech tool. “The value of that is it allows customers like Shoppers Drug Mart to bring their own data and targeting to be able to buy, create, and measure within Spotify,” said Piper. “We’ve seen about 64% growth in advertisers utilizing Spotify Ad Exchange.”
Piper also offered a deeper look into Spotify’s Media Mix Modeling (MMM) research, which shows high ROI for advertisers. “A couple of things that we’re finding — for retailers and even a lot of different brands — have what we call MMM, media mix modeling, that they do,” she said. “They take different levels of data sources to understand how their campaigns are performing.”
“We’re seeing that… for every dollar that I’m putting in Spotify, I’m getting a return on that dollar plus,” she added. “We deliver 20% incremental reach over radio, 25% over TV, and 21% over social.”
Shoppers Drug Mart’s use of Canvas and Ad Exchange tools is a continuation of their partnership with Spotify and parent company Loblaw. “Shoppers Drug Mart is an example of that kind of a continuation of how we work with Loblaws and that team,” said Piper.
In addition to retail, Piper highlighted Spotify’s Loud and Clear initiative, which supports artists by ensuring transparency around payouts and streaming data.
“One of the research projects that we do is called Loud and Clear,” she said. “We wanted to highlight Canada because the number of Canadian artists who generated over $50,000 Canadian, $100,000, $500,000 and over $1 million from Spotify alone in 2024 has more than doubled since 2017.”
She continued, “The royalties generated by Canadian artists from Spotify alone reached nearly $460 million Canadian, and that’s up 5% year over year… and approximately 40% of all royalties generated by Canadian artists on Spotify were from independent artists or labels.”
In a strong endorsement of Canada’s global reach in the music industry, Piper concluded: “92% of all royalties generated by Canadian artists on Spotify in 2024 were from listeners outside of Canada, placing Canada as one of the leading markets for exporting music globally.”
Sabrina LaRosa, Senior Director of Media Strategy for Loblaw Companies Limited — which includes Shoppers Drug Mart in its portfolio — shared insights into the retailer’s recent campaign with Spotify.
Spotify approached the company with what LaRosa called “a unique opportunity.” She explained that “first, it was a beta that basically translated into now an opportunity we could test.”
The test came in the form of a Super Redemption Event, a recurring promotional program at Shoppers Drug Mart. “It’s a promotional event that’s focused on communicating value to customers where you can redeem PC Optimum points and receive extra value on your purchases,” said LaRosa. “So essentially it’s an awareness window to stretch your points further than usual — what Canadians get — for that.”
According to LaRosa, the timing was strategic. “We took advantage of it during Canada Day long weekend, in store and online,” she said.
When asked why the retailer decided to pursue this collaboration, LaRosa pointed to the potential for scale. “We do a regular promo events, but when Spotify came to us with this unique beta, we were like you know, it’s interesting to see how we can get scale with a lot of Canadians during a very busy weekend,” she said. “To really convert them from going obviously to their weekend enjoyable events, but just try to get them in-store and to buy.”
She added that the team at Loblaw embraces experimentation. “We love doing test-and-learns and just really pushing ourselves to try new things, just to see if we get the conversion rates the same — or if not stronger — from it,” said LaRosa.
Spotify’s involvement brought with it a fresh format. “This different format that Spotify has — which they were never able to sell, this unit that they had — we’re just looking for ways to break through, just trying to see if we get the same conversion rates that we have, or if not stronger,” said LaRosa. “Just to drive that top-of-mind awareness, get people to shop — which is really the opportunity to do there.”
The results? According to LaRosa, they were more than promising.
“What we do on our end is, we have a test and control,” she said. “We have our PC Optimum database. We can see then after those audiences who were targeted if they went into store to buy, and we saw a significant lift from that.”
LaRosa confirmed that “it was probably one of our most successful events this year so far, which is amazing.”
For LaRosa and her team, cutting through the digital noise is a key objective. “Again, it’s just breaking through some of that noise and clutter just to find ways to showcase to Canadians: this is the best opportunity from a promo stand to redeem your points,” she said. “And partnering with people like Spotify just to help us break through on that — we just really did it to its core.”
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