Spotify is a special breed of company.
Despite being a major international company with a household name, for the most part the Swedish business manages to retain consumer trust and keep a reasonably low profile on the scandal front. While this no doubt is in part due to the systems and values that make up the powerhouse streaming platform, it’s also due to the stellar advertising that Spotify brings out year after year with its Wrapped series.
If you’ve had Spotify Premium for a year then you likely would have seen your 100 most listened to songs for the year immortalised in a personal playlist, ready for listening. Spotify sends its premium users a song playlist annually with a bunch of stats showcasing their most listened to genres, artists and more.
Why?
Well here’s the kicker. Turns out lots of people care about their listening habits, and those people want to share their preferences with their friends.
So Spotify made it easy for them, with a sharable card showcasing minutes listened, top genres and more.
The result? Free advertising.
The first campaign went viral, with millions sharing their own cards on social media channels, spreading the word.
Just this response alone was good enough to give the Spotify Wrapped series a regular rollout at the end of each calendar year. But Spotify didn’t stop there, and that’s where things get ingenious – and hilarious…
Billboards.
With the vast collection of data collected by multinational companies around the world, Spotify is in the privileged position of owning a huge amount of data that really only relates to a very innocuous part of someone’s life – their music tastes.
And the streaming giant used this advantage to big effect, with billboards placed all around the world showcasing the interesting, funny and downright bizarre listening habits of the brand’s users.
The impact was huge – particularly for a medium that’s been thought of as a dying breed. The contrasting art style and funny facts and figures from user listening habits helped send this traditional form of advertising on its own viral spree. People around the globe began taking photos of billboards they were spotting in their local neighbourhood.
Three years on from the first Spotify Wrapped series and there’s now a plethora of Spotify billboards that have been captured around the world. We’ve attached some of our personal favourites below – make sure you lookout for new ones when we hit December!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patrick Black is a marketer with a passion for learning how businesses can improve their advertising through science-backed principles. He enjoys writing about marketing much more than he likes to write about himself.
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