Spotify Wrapped by Spotify | Campaign of the Week
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Welcome to Campaign of the Week, where we explore some of the freshest and most exciting campaigns from the brands that are engaging their Gen Z audience and catching our attention every week. Today we’re looking at Spotify’s infamous annual campaign, Spotify Wrapped.
At the beginning of the month, music giants Spotify released their annual campaign, Spotify Wrapped. As one of the most highly anticipated moments of the year for Gen Zers across the world, Spotify Wrapped gathers individuals’ data from across the year and creates a video presentation, and without fail these are shared far and wide by bemused or impressed Spotify users.
SPOTIFY WRAPPED: uhhhh i think someone understood the assignment, and that someone was YOU!
— Matt Buechele (@mattbooshell) December 1, 2021
ME: *silently staring at the saddest combination of music i’ve ever seen*
What’s the campaign about?
Spotify Wrapped is essentially an end-of-year review, in which the brand repackage data and present it in a shareable and entertaining manner. It’s a smart move from Spotify because, as The New York Times puts it: ‘Spotify has collected a lot of data and is now reaping the benefits’.
Facts that are gathered include: top song of the year; top five songs of the year; top five genres listened to; top podcast; top five artists; audio aura; and how many minutes of listening time. For the first time, Spotify has also included a ‘movie soundtracks’ section in their campaign, with songs chosen for your ‘opening credits theme’ and ‘the song playing as you defeat the ancient vengeful spirit’, amongst others.
The language used in the campaign is also perfect for Gen Z, with references to hot topics such as NFTs (‘Whilst everyone was trying to figure out NFTs, you had one song on repeat’) and health and beauty (‘You deserve a playlist as long as your skincare routine’), as well as consistent use of Gen Z slang, using phrases such as ‘vibe check’ and ‘main character’.
As The Hustle point out, the success of Spotify Wrapped is down to its shareability: ‘The slideshow is delivered in a format that looks like an Instagram story with popping visualizations to accompany the music’ and ‘Each slide contains a share button at the bottom, making it simple to share their data on social platforms’. Essentially, the campaign is an opportunity for Spotify users to show off how cool their music taste is on social media… although many Gen Zers are also revelling in the fact that their music taste is so ‘uncool’ that it’s entertaining (think Glee Club and S Club 7).
me getting ready to judge everyone's Spotify Wrapped even though i have the music taste of a 12 year old living in 2013 #SpotifyWrapped pic.twitter.com/rDtmicNVCy
— delaney 🍰 (@laneylooluv) December 1, 2021
Music is massively important to Gen Z, and this is an annual celebration of that – so much so that some have even admitted to listening to what they actually like during the day (e.g. Glee – The Complete Playlist) and then silently streaming ‘cool’ music whilst they sleep in order to increase their listening hours for ‘cooler artists’ (this year’s most popular choices included Olivia Rodrigo and Drake).
According to their website, Spotify say: “2021 Wrapped experience is full of the known and unknown, with fan-favorite experiences mixing with surprising new ones that connect listeners with each other and their favorite creators.”
Why do we love it?
With its references to popular culture and Gen Z language combined with the idea of repurposing existing data, it’s a really smart way of maximising Gen Z engagement, so much so that Spotify users look forward to reading their Spotify Wrapped every year. We love its shareability too, as proven by the enormous amount of memes, hashtags and tweets about it. And, of course, it’s just some good fun! After all, what’s not to love about finding out whether you’re in the top 0.05% of Megan Thee Stallion’s listeners (we weren’t, sadly).
Find out more about the campaign below:
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[Cover image 📷: Screenshot from @spotify on Instagram]
