At the beginning of 2013, Pandora will be ad-free for all Windows 8 owners throughout the entire year. I think this is a good marketing plan, but I am not sure how much it will drive sales. It is definitely a good start to create attention for the newest phone from Microsoft. I also wondered how they were able to work out a deal like this, so the snippet below should provide some insight:

“Pandora charges $3 per month for ad-free Pandora, or $36 per year. It’s not clear what Microsoft is paying Pandora to make this happen, but it could be as much as $36 for each Windows Phone 8 that it sells, if Microsoft is “paying retail,” as it were.” [AlLindstrom]