As the countdown to Christmas continues, the Spotify brand – and its Wrapped campaign – has once again managed to make its way to the top of everyone’s social media accounts.
Now one of the most successful and shareable marketing ploys on social media, the popularity of the personalised annual round-up and analysis of users’ behaviour has ballooned since it launched in 2016, with more than 156 million users engaging with Spotify Wrapped last year.
Shared by everyone from sullen teenagers and die-hard music fans to parents whose playlists have been dominated by Disney sing-a-longs, there’s something wonderfully intimate about seeing what people have really been listening to on their commute, in the car and at the gym over the last 12 months.
Wrapped then presents this information with colourful graphics designed to be instantly sharable across Facebook Reels or Instagram Stories, adding another layer of the personalisation and character which has helped to make the campaign such a viral hit.
After all, if there’s one thing people really like talking about on social media it’s themselves.
Describing this year’s Wrapped as the “realest” so far, Spotify head of global marketing experience Louisa Ferguson said there was something about 2023 that felt “especially chaotic” with regards to how people consumed culture.
“We really wanted to acknowledge that feeling because it felt very accurate to 2023. Amid all this, we realised that ‘your Wrapped doesn’t lie’. The data is real. And so we leaned into creating the realest Wrapped ever.”
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The 2023 campaign is the biggest Spotify has ever delivered, with individual reports being created for users across 170 markets and in more than 35 languages. It’s also been given a more prominent position within the app itself, with a number of integrations spanning the interface and making it hard to ignore – there’s even a shoppable merch option which takes you straight to official product from your ‘top artists of 2023’.
This sort of interactivity and engagement is crucial to the Wrapped campaign but Ferguson reveals the “new way of thinking about marketing and product” is also key to the year-round user experience.
“Wrapped is the capstone of what has been an incredibly delightful year of Spotify interactive experiences,” she says.
“Originally, we believed these experiences needed to be short and sweet. But we’ve found that there’s a cohort of fans that really want to go a level deeper. They want to engage. This was really exciting because it inspired us to do even more data-rich, complicated experiences.
“We also learned that market nuances really matter, and for Wrapped, these learnings just reinforced the need to think critically about global versus local campaign executions.”
Spotify is also putting on “tons of events” around the world to help celebrate the past year in music, which will be complemented by out-of-home experiences with interactive components. The overall top artist will also be revealed via a special billboard moment in several cities across the world.
“I think what’s become really wonderful about our Wrapped celebration for the global top artist in particular is that it’s given us permission to really deliver special experiences for fans,” adds Ferguson.
“Some of our coolest, craziest work comes from those collaborations. Critically, it’s a celebration for the fans as much as the artist. We’re able to recognise both and celebrate the achievement.”
Despite all the additional noise, the core of the campaign continues to rely on fans wanting to talk about the music they love, bringing the conversation to life beyond the app.
“We’re always looking to push the boundaries, and we know that every year, there’s debate that Wrapped inspires. We welcome that, and we expect this year will be no different,” Ferguson says.
“But first and foremost, something that happens in real life is friends asking each other ‘what’s on your Wrapped?'”
