Analysis & Recommendations: Spotify Wrapped
Back from a brief flu hiatus - this week I thought I'd look at Spotify Wrapped as a great example of earned media. Every year it comes out and every year people all around the world are excited to receive a summary of their listening stats. I'll be briefly looking at the story behind Wrapped, reflections on the feature, analysing some new features and offering my recommendations for next year. Let's get into it!
A very brief history
Originating in 2016, Spotify Wrapped celebrated its 7th birthday this year with lots of new features. Past features included astrological signs of a user's top artists, oldest song they've listened to, quizzes and personalised playlists. The company's head of marketing claims the marketing campaign's effectiveness in increasing Spotify's app store ranking is partially due the "Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)" phenomenon whereby users become interested in and loyal to the app so they don't miss out on sharing the results with their circle at the end of the year.
Reflections
One thing I find interesting about Spotify Wrapped every year is how out of the blue the feature is released annually, almost hidden in the app (although upon investigation it seems they do promote it through billboards and TV ads but I have never come across any paid campaigns myself). This year, my Wrapped feature appeared hidden behind other playlists and I only got a pop-up notification inviting me to flick through my results around three days after I had spotted and gone through them already. You would think Spotify would do more to promote and increase excitement around a feature that brings them so much free word-of-mouth advertising. They could send emails or including pop-up countdown notifications in the app (e.g. "5 days 'till wrapped!"). Still, I think their apparent discretion actually works really well for them for a few reasons.
While it can be an effective tool to build up hype for a new release, I think in general consumers can get a bit tired of pre-release announcements and countdowns. Spotify Wrapped has done well not to follow this path because:
(1) it avoids that exhaustion that can come with being over-notified about an annual release;
(2) it's a genuinely fun surprise coupled with a rewarding feeling of finding the results for yourself and;
(3) it encourages an enhanced word-of-mouth phenomenon because the first users to find their Wrapped are driven by an urge to tell their friends that it's out.
For example, this year, our flatmate came into the kitchen at lunch to tell us the 2023 Spotify Wrapped was out and the whole house got together to go through our results. In previous years, I remember finding out once I saw everyone else sharing on Instagram, leading me to joyfully visit the Spotify to see if my results were available too. It is a rare and powerful thing for a consumer to be moved to action in such a way (jumping from one app to another) with all the ad noise that exists in social media. Additionally, by getting people to post Wrapped on their personal stories, Spotify avoids having to pay for ad space on Instagram that people often skip anyways once they spot the mandatory "ad" notifier on the video or picture.
Another reason why it is good that Spotify Wrapped appears slightly out of nowhere is because it ads an air of mystery to a feature that has a high-risk of losing its popularity factor due to anti-Spotify Wrapped movements. Last year, weaved between Instagram stories of Wrapped results were stories with statements mocking those who shared them. Luckily for the company, this year there has been a reaction against this sentiment as exemplified by the viral TikTok below:
By avoiding the big countdown hype, Spotify inherently increases the coolness factor (yes this is quantifiable) of Wrapped by making it lowkey. Moreover, while users can share the entire Wrapped story if they want, the app also provides a clean and aesthetically pleasing summary page at the end with all the most important stats. This is a brilliant move from Spotify because it gently nudges the user to not overwhelm their friends with lots of information which would increase the likeliness that people will feel spammed and decrease the overall effectiveness of the marketing campaign.
Some new features this year
Sound Town: So much came from this odd little feature. Under this heading, Spotify connects each user with a town in the world where residents have the most similar music taste. However, they provided little further explanation. Music editor Chris Farnsworth hypothesised their methods in matching users and cities, stating "it just seems like they throw a dart at a board to be honest". As a result, there has been high levels of engagement and activity online where people have discussed crazy conspiracies [refer to image below] which has kept the feature relevant days after Wrapped was released this year.
Me in 2023: This existed last year but there were new characters included to a current total of 12 (see here). This increased personalisation will allow for higher distinction between users and therefore increase the motivation to showcase your particular result. I got Vampire!
Your Artist Messages: Now this was a fun one. Depending on who your top artist was (mine was Samia), you received a thank you video acknowledging your devotion as a fan. Really special touch.
Creator Wrapped: As a small-time musician who runs in small-time musician circles, my Instagram feed was full of artists sharing their "Creator Wrapped" or stats of how many listeners, streams, hours and countries listened to their music. For a company that is looking to cut down on profits shared with smaller artists, it is an interesting strategic move. Many growing artists still shared their Creator Wrapped despite resentment towards the upcoming policy.
What I would add or take away next year
Encourage a funnier, more personalised message from your top artist: This would definitely be in Spotify's and the artist's best interest. This year the funniest and sweetest messages went viral and contributed to the wider reputation of musicians in some cases. For example, this video and its comment section mock the artists and bands that put little effort into the video for their fans. I think it can be a powerful tool to promote artists and their music if done correctly and should definitely be used to its full potential next year.
Location: I would not include this again next year. For one, I don't think many people's locations will change. This is because unlike the new characters, it seems everywhere in the world was already considered so it's not like they can add new places and few people will have drastic changes in their music taste. It was very popular this year because of the strangeness of the results and the opaqueness of the metrics used but there will be no shock factor next year if it's done again and therefore it will be less effective.
Movements/Moments in time: Instead, I think it would be really cool to place people in a moment in time and movement. For example, it could be as niche as "Muswell Hill 1975", "Woodstock 1969", or even "Brazil during Carnaval" and "South African World Cup". While it will definitely require a bit more effort it will foster a connection in the user's mind between Spotify and music history while also adding a more interesting, personalised and even humorous element to the currently purely geographical feature. The more random and strange, the greater the effect too.
Merch: I think Spotify Wrapped has amounted a large enough following to start offering merch. Let's commoditise this feature a little (and maybe start giving back to the artists?). Is there a risk of decreasing the quantifiable cool factor in doing this? Yes certainly, if done wrong. To combat this risk, I would make it a quite lowkey feature, not highly promoted and definitely exclusive. I would also work with interesting and hip visual artists to make the items themselves aesthetically pleasing and original. "Vampire" candle?, ironic "Burlington, Vermont" T-shirt? So many fun things to play with. For Creators, Spotify could also offer them a physical little plaque with their stats to commemorate their successes in that year.
0.0001% of listener prizes: For the top fans of different artists, exclusive gifts and prizes would definitely create a lot of hype and word-of-mouth. Statistically the biggest Adrianne Lenker fan on the app? Lets get you a free sign-up to her one-off songwriting workshop. Statistically the biggest Pitbull fan? Lets' get you a signed pair of his iconic aviator sunglasses.
Spotify Awards: They seem to have tried this on a small scale in 2020 but they can definitely bring this back, either in person or more interestingly, digitally. In a story format, they can announce winners of classic categories like "most streamed artist" or "biggest rising star" defined by data from the app but there could also be categories voted on by Spotify users such as "best album art" to encourage engagement. This could create a lot of hype, with artists going on social media to ask their fan bases to vote for their music and art for different categories, in turn increasing the free promotional aspect of Spotify Wrapped that has granted it its success so far.
Thank you for reading!
Bibliography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify_Wrapped
https://slate.com/culture/2023/11/spotify-wrapped-2023-burlington-vermont-sound-town.html
https://www.them.us/story/spotify-wrapped-sound-town-burlington-berkeley-cambridge-you-may-be-gay
https://newsroom.spotify.com/2023-11-29/wrapped-user-experience-2023/#:~:text=All%2Dnew%20ways%20to%20enjoy%20Wrapped&text=We're%20bringing%20listener%20favorites,genres%2C%20and%20songs%20this%20year.
https://mixmag.net/read/spotify-reportedly-will-start-paying-less-royalties-to-less-popular-artists-news#:~:text=Spotify%20will%20reportedly%20start%20paying%20less%20royalties%20to%20less%20popular%20artists,-The%20streaming%20service&text=Spotify%20has%20announced%20it%20will,royalties%20to%20less%2Dpopular%20artists.
https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/best-music-merch-gifts-2023/
Comments
Post a Comment