Man proposes to girlfriend through Pandora audio advertisement

By Mike Flacy May 16, 2012

Hundai Veloster Pandora — Image used with permission by copyright holder

As explained in great detail on his personal Tumblr blog, a recent University of North Texas graduate named Kyle Taylor proposed to his girlfriend Maggie by convincing the support staff at Pandora to create a special advertisement for her. Prior to coming up with this plan to use Pandora, Kyle mulled over ideas such as using Portal or a series of Internet memes to pop the question. After this girlfriend purchased a new Hyundai Veloster, Kyle devised a plan where he would use the Pandora application in the automobile to help him with the next step in their relationship.

After reaching out to the support staff at Pandora, Kyle was put in touch with the technical and creative teams in order to pull off this feat. Kyle worked with the advertising team to create and record a personal message with a professional voice actress, but the ad trafficking had to figure out how to deliver the ad to Kyle’s Pandora account and avoid playing the advertisement for other Pandora users.

According to an interview with TechCrunch, Pandora CTO Tom Conrad indicated that Kyle tweaked his demographic data to a much older age and used a rural zip code to avoid a populated area. The ad trafficking team specifically targeted the ad to that demographic data, thus likely preventing anyone other than Kyle to hear the advertisement.

Kyle decided on his graduation date to “pop the question” through the Pandora advertisement. While Maggie was watching Kyle in the graduation ceremony, a friend altered the login details on the Pandora app in the Hyundai Veloster. After the ceremony, the couple left to celebrate at a restaurant and Kyle selected a custom music station to cue the advertisement. After the advertisement played (click here to listen), Kyle said “I know this isn’t the most traditional proposal, but Maggie, will you marry me?” Of course, she said “Yes!” and the couple went to go deliver the good news to their families.

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