Spotify: Data ‘Wrapped’ Up

By: Dakota Anderson

It's a tradition we have all come to love: at the end of each year, Spotify releases the year 'wrapped.' It's a campaign funnels the insights that big data can give us into funny and eye-catching ads. Each year the campaign puts out multiple touchpoints: Spotify users get their own personal music listening data from the year, public playlists are created highlighting various combinations of songs from the year and billboards are posted all over the world with the data-turned-ads.

2017's Wrapped campaign showed a theme of '2018 Goals.' The combination of real music analytics with cleverly written copy made this out-of-home campaign one of the most successful ones of the year.

The usage of big data is spreading and becoming the norm to inform us of what we are doing as a society. We are now able to see what people are searching online and even what music they are listening to. That information can then help us see the trends of social issues. 

All of the ads Spotify created seemed to have language that dipped in both light and dark humor. Some even played off of major issues of last year. Including Vice President Mike Pence's negative views of the LGBT community. As seen in the photo below, Spotify created an ad highlighting a playlist called "DADDY PENCE COME DANCE," incorporating the social issue and langue that their target audience can relate to. 

 

Most people think of big data and analytics boring and overwhelming. But this act from Spotify is the perfect example of using big data in innovative ways - like creating an award-winning campaign. In a time when huge brands with huge marketing budgets are fighting for the most iconic campaign of the year, Spotify is using its wits (and it's data) to create something one-of-a-kind.