Dive Brief:
- Spotify brought back its "Wrapped" campaign analyzing listener habits, with 2021's theme based around users continuing to express themselves in unique ways despite the absence of a sense of normalcy, according to an announcement.
- The annual effort encompasses the in-app experience; out-of-home (OOH) ads; short fan films spotlighting artists like Billie Eilish; and a "Good Soup" truck run in partnership with bone broth brand Brodo that is inspired by a meme. The app component features Spotify's Stories-like offering and includes an interactive "two truths and a lie" game, an "aura" visualization based on common music moods and a movie narrative that pairs a user's top songs and artists with different scenarios.
- Spotify is letting users share their custom Wrapped cards on TikTok for a limited time, adding to other platforms that carry the functionality like Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. The data-driven company tradition, which started in 2016, has proven to resonate with consumers eager to discuss their tastes with friends and followers while reflecting on the year.
Dive Insight:
Spotify is weaving a tighter narrative into its 2021 push around Wrapped, which has become a repeat success story in generating online chatter for the audio streaming platform around the holidays. This year, the app is leveraging the uncertainty of a second pandemic year as the touching-off point for championing individuality in a data-driven way.
"We've spent a lot of time dreaming about a return to 'normalcy' but as we sat down and began reflecting on this year we realized there is no such thing as 'normal' and that's something worth celebrating," said Alex Bodman, VP, global executive creative director at Spotify, in a press statement.
The campaign profiles users by digging into habits like top artists and songs, range of music genres and the number of minutes spent with the app. Spotify is taking that information and tying it into a "2021: The Movie" idea that frames people's preferences around scenes that nod to cultural trends dominating the online discourse.
"While everyone was trying to figure out what NFTs were, you had one song on repeat," reads one card before revealing the listener's most repeated track. However, some media watchers have found the attempts at topicality strained and inauthentic, as reported by Mashable, suggesting Spotify might have latched onto these subjects without ensuring they were the right fit for its audience.
To engage fans, the platform worked with 170 creators on videos thanking users for listening to them enough to place them on personalized Wrapped rankings. Spotify additionally set up private, password-protected Greenroom spaces where devotees can hear directly from their favorite artists and creators.
Shareability is another element of Wrapped, and this year Spotify is integrating a new Blend feature that allows users to build collaborative playlists with their friends. It is also expanding the ability to share Wrapped findings to TikTok for the first time, an attempt to tap into the video-sharing platform's focus on music and viral audio tracks.
On the social media front, Spotify is promoting short videos based on new "normals" that consumers have linked to various artists. One spot notes that Billie Eilish appeared in more than 265 playlists dedicated to gardening, a hobby that has taken off as many people continue to work at home.
Similarly, "Good Soup" appeared on 13,000 playlists, leading Spotify to send out a Brodo food truck in New York City that carries the Wrapped branding. The Good Soup meme is derived from an audio clip of Adam Driver on the HBO show "Girls," but became a sensation thanks to TikTok in 2021.
