Ad Feedback - Spanish Ads

[RickNubbz]

This is very annoying. Apparently Pandora has more Spanish speaking listeners in my area than English. I get. Orr Spanish ads than English. 

that balcony about the ad operations team working on a solution. I have a solution - cut down the number of Spanish speaking ads. 

[AdamPandora]

@SaraSteiner88 Thanks for sharing your experience on the Community.

I have sent you a private message with more information.

Hope we continue to see you around some more!

[DmusicGuy]

It seems that it is still not fixed.  I get Spanish adds randomly and it's crazy.

[AdamPandora]

@DmusicGuy The next time a Spanish ad plays on your account, please send over:

• a screenshot of the Spanish ad
• the exact date and time that ad played on your account
• the name of the station or podcast you were listening to when that Spanish ad played

Thanks for working with me on this. 🤝

[MomOfFour]

Agreed! Unless I am listening to a Spanish or mandarin or Italian station, I don’t want ads in that language. PERIOD. I’m taking screenshots and sending them to you doesn’t work. I can’t even turn on the English language CBS news without half of it being in Spanish here in Florida. How about you start playing English ads so that Spanish speakers in North America can learn English instead of vice versa

[Sperfe]

I dont' speak spanish. I don't want to listen to spanish ads

[Bilboyachts]

It is probably a scheme to make us pay to get rid of them…

[M19]

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The next time a Spanish ad plays on your account, please send over:

I also landed on this thread after having countless Spanish-speaking and/or Hispanic-focused ads on all my stations—none of which apply to me.

Where exactly should we be "sending over" screenshots to? Is there a support email address?

[AdamPandora]

@M19 You can attach those screenshots directly in a reply to this thread.

(Please note you won't be able to attach images via email - you will need to open this Community link in a web browser in order to provide attachments)

Alternatively, you can contact our support team directly for further assistance here if you'd prefer to receive help privately via email.

[M19]

Thanks! Here are four I captured yesterday and this morning.

• The audio for the two Wells Fargo ads (same ad, captured two different times of day) is entirely in Spanish and irrelevant since I'm not a Spanish-speaker. (2/22 @ 1:45pm and 2/23 @ 10:10am)
• The Hotels.com one is in English with a very heavy Spanish accent and seems to be targeted at a Hispanic community—which is not this area. (2/23 @ 10:44am)
• The Vaseline one is a Hispanic woman v/o, very heavily leans into Hispanic culture, and again seems odd to be targeted to this area. (2/23 @ 10:21am)
• I don't have a screenshot of it, but there's also an ad for a food delivery service like GrubHub or Doordash, where it sounds like a grandmother is talking to her daughter about all the things she needs to get. It's a mix of English and Spanish but obviously targeted to a Hispanic community.

These were all via web browser. I don't think I get them as often if I'm listening through my phone. I'm getting the Wells Fargo and Vaseline ads maybe a half-dozen times a day, and the food-delivery one a little less but still very common.

Thanks, What other info can I provide?

[AdamPandora]

Thanks for following up, @M19.

Do you happen to remember what station you were listening to when these ads played as well?

Let me know.

[M19]

It's one I created myself with some song seeds years ago called "New Age".

(edit) I just got the all-Spanish Wells Fargo ad on a different station (1980s)—2/24 @ 1:30pm.

[Arleneburton88]

Seems to be all they play anymore. Super frustrating to hear it everywhere. 

[AdamPandora]

Thanks for following up, @M19.

If you happen to grab a screenshot of the food delivery service ad that is in Spanish, please pass that one along as well.

In the meantime, I've passed your feedback regarding the other ads along to our Ads team for further review.

[M19]

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If you happen to grab a screenshot of the food delivery service ad that is in Spanish, please pass that one along as well.

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The one I thought was for food delivery was specifically a Spanish-language Instacart ad. It just played today, 2/27 @ 1:39pm, on my self-created 1980s station:

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In the meantime, I've passed your feedback regarding the other ads along to our Ads team for further review.

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A question for other users... Pandora's responses here, though appreciably quick, all seem to be generic "thanks, we'll pass along this information for review" platitudes. Has anyone reporting the same issue actually heard a decrease in these mis-targeted ads? Given that this thread originated almost two years ago, I'm getting the feeling that reporting isn't actually doing anything.

[AdamPandora]

Thank you for the additional report, @M19.

All reported ads are investigated on a case by case basis.

I can confirm that the following ads have been escalated to our Ads team for further review:

• Wells Fargo
• Hotels.com
• Vaseline
• Instacart

We appreciate your patience in the meantime!

[M19]

Spanish-language Expedia ad, played on my 1980s station, 2/27 @ 3pm.

[mknorris67]

Hello. The station I was listening to was Joss Stone. I cannot do a screen shot because it is playing on my echo dot 

Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

[AdamPandora]

@mknorris67 Unfortunately, that is not enough information for us to look into the Spanish ad you heard.

The next time a Spanish ad plays, please make sure to make a note of the exact date and time that ad played on your account as well.

If you can remember the name of the brand that is being advertised, please pass that information along as well.

Thanks for the help!

[TSullivan23]

@AdamPandora 

I've read this entire thread, and I lost count of the number of times you instructed a Pandora listener to make a note of the exact date and time the ad was heard, send a screen shot, tell you what station we were listening to, note what the ad was for, etc.

Check this out: WE ALL HAVE DAY JOBS, AND WE DON'T HAVE TIME OR INTEREST TO DO THIS TYPE OF DOCUMENTATION FOR YOU.  We have an implicit agreement: you play music or other entertainment for us, and in exchange, we agree to listen to ads that presumably make you some money.  All the people here (including me) are telling you that THE DEAL IS OFF if you can't play ad content that's relevant to us.  Making that ad content relevant is YOUR JOB, not mine.  If you give me settings to tune the ad content and I don't use them, that's on me.  But if you simply prevent me from tuning the content because you refuse to give me appropriate setting options, and instead treat every inappropriate ad as if it's an individual problem, then BYE, FELICIA!

This is a systemic problem on the Pandora platform, and I'm not interested in playing Whac-a-Mole with the Pandora Ad Staff.

(Definition of 'Whack-a-Mole' from wiktionary.org: The practice of trying to stop problems, etc., that repeatedly occur in an apparently random manner; also, the act of dealing with such matters in a piecemeal manner without achieving a complete solution.)

[M19]

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WE ALL HAVE DAY JOBS, AND WE DON'T HAVE TIME OR INTEREST TO DO THIS TYPE OF DOCUMENTATION FOR YOU. 

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For what it's worth, I haven't heard any Spanish ads on my usual stations since posting the previous screenshot on 2/27, whereas before they were guaranteed nearly every day. So, with my tiny sample-size anyway, it feels like progress is being made.