Brief:

• New Orleans Tourism Marketing partnered with streaming platform Spotify on a campaign to highlight the city's music scene and culture. Select Spotify listeners were invited to attend a live concert by New Orleans performers that was filmed for an upcoming documentary, per an announcement shared with Mobile Marketer.
• The playlist was developed in June, when the city tourism agency worked with Spotify and ad agency 360i to analyze "the authentic sound" of New Orleans, based on fans' listening habits. That analysis culminated in a selection of songs called the "Offline Playlist" from jazz, hip hop, funk, blues, zydeco and indie performers.​
• Spotify collected listener data for the playlist, which New Orleans Tourism used to identify a select group of music fans to invite to the city for the exclusive concert. Spotify created a "Side B" version of the live concert, the first time that one of its playlists was recreated live. A full-length movie of the live show will be released next year.

Insight:

New Orleans Tourism Marketing's campaign on Spotify is notable for several innovations, aside from being the first music playlist that was made into a live version. The campaign shows how marketers can harness Spotify's listener data to create customized playlists and to identify and target audiences based on their musical tastes.

In the case of the New Orleans promotion, the listener data helped to identify people who would be most interested in the city, its current music scene and rich cultural heritage as the birthplace of jazz. As younger adults seek authentic experiences they can share on social media, New Orleans has an opportunity to highlight the city's unique charm and character for visitors. The upcoming film of the exclusive concert will be another opportunity for the city to highlight the talents of its musical community to a much broader audience of potential visitors.

The New Orleans promotion also shows how Spotify can differentiate its platform from other media outlets by emphasizing its audio content and the connections between performers and their fans. The streaming audio platform has expanded its marketing programs in the past few years with the growth of its ad-supported tier to more than 124 million people worldwide. Earlier this month, Spotify unveiled its first branded camera effect on Instagram to drive listenership of a new album from rapper Headie One. In August, Spotify partnered with Anheuser-Busch brand Michelob Ultra on a campaign that highlights its technology to reach listeners with tailored messages based on their location, time of day and weather. Earlier in the month, the streaming company updated its self-serve advertising platform to help marketers reach target audiences based on their listening habits. Samsung and 3M were the first brands to test out podcast listener targeting that Spotify introduced in July.