Spotify #2019 Wrapped Campaign: Why It Worked

No matter who you ask in the marketing world, you’ll likely hear that social media campaigns are a huge asset to your marketing efforts. And they are! Beyond the endless myriad of family photos and rants about mundane events, there’s a huge opportunity for marketers to explore and boost brand awareness, visibility, and consumer reach.

In fact, social media is the perfect place to build and strengthen your brand’s relationship with consumers, especially since social media is used by 48% of the global population.

As with all marketing campaigns, planning, creating, promoting, and tracking an effective social media campaign is easier said than done.  Social media is tricky, and marketers need to be savvy with their digital efforts and attuned to their consumers in order to make an impact.

Unfortunately, according to Gartner, many social media campaigns fail to reach that connection, with about 50% of campaigns failing on an average basis. This can sound discouraging for any novice marketer but while many social media campaigns fail, there are some special gems that make a huge impact. One such campaign is the Spotify #2019 Wrapped Campaign—a campaign that was highly successful and even viral among consumers.

In this blog, we’ll explore what Spotify’s #2019 Wrapped Campaign was and why it was very successful so that you, as a marketer, have an idea of how it’s done!

 

What was Spotify’s #2019 Wrapped Campaign?

In 2019, you may recall the avalanche of posts of people’s most-listened-to songs and musicians of the entire year. If so, you can thank Spotify’s brilliant social media campaign that soared in popularity at the time.

According to DMB, this social media campaign actually started in 2015, when it was known as “Your Year in Music”. It was eventually re-named “Wrapped” in 2017, and consisted of Spotify gathering compilations of their user’s data and sending it to their users. Users would receive lists of the artists, songs, albums, and podcasts they would listen to the most.

What made Spotify 2019 Wrapped Campaign better was that it went bigger. Rather than just send consumers compilations of their most-listened-to songs and albums of the year, they would summarize their consumer’s musical habits and tastes over a decade.

Essentially, Spotify was giving its consumers a chance to view how much their musical tastes have evolved over time. The company also made it easier to share this type of content on various social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

As reported by Forbes, more than 60 million Spotify users engaged with the campaign’s feature and even included 1.2 million postings on Twitter.

 

Why was Spotify’s #2019 Wrapped Campaign so successful?

There are countless reasons why Spotify’s #2019 Wrapped Campaign reached viral popularity among their target audience. These include the following:

• The concept of FOMO. The term FOMO stands for “Fear of Missing Out” and it’s a phenomenon that permeates social media at large. It’s the idea that people feel anxiety about missing out on an exciting or important event that their peers or community are participating in. In this case, it worked to Spotify’s advantage. As soon as consumers saw their peers sharing their annual playlists, they wanted to join in on the experience as well. This further enticed consumers who weren’t using Spotify to consider using it.

 

• A strong connection to emotional triggers. Humans are emotional creatures, and most of their shopping behavior is motivated primarily by emotions (not reason). Spotify’s 2019 Wrapped Campaign did an excellent job of establishing an emotional connection through nostalgia. Most people feel a positive emotion when they think of a past memory. As such, remembering an old song from their childhood years or dancing to their favorite song at a high prom can really make a lasting emotional impression on a person.

 

• Focus on community. Spotify’s 2019 campaign was incredible to share on different social media platforms. Consumers didn’t need to stick to one platform to showcase their playlists; they could share them on all social media sites and get away with it! This allowed consumers to feel part of the community. Additionally, the playlist was highly personalized for each individual person and even musical artists so that they could strengthen their community bond, which further boosted the campaign’s uniqueness.

The perfect combination of personalization, the emphasis on the FOMO effect, and the connection to emotion are what made the campaign a success. They’re the reasons why your IG, Facebook, and Twitter posts were filled with your friend’s and family’s Spotify Wrapped playlists.

 

What improvements can be made to Spotify’s #2019 Wrapped Campaign?

By now, you already know why Spotify’s #2019 Wrapped Campaign was a massive hit. However, there are a few ways that Spotify can improve its campaign for the next couple of years. They can continue to expand their community focus by seeing what playlists and artists are popular on a global scale, rather than just a user’s current location.

The company can also leverage newer platforms like TikTok or video-sharing platforms like YouTube to make their target consumer’s experience much more interactive.

Creating and running a social media campaign is challenging, to say the least. There’s no guarantee that it’ll be a total success unless you’re clever about how you approach and implement your strategy. Spotify was able to maximize triggers and their consumer’s needs to facilitate the necessary emotional connection that’ll move them towards action.

If you’re able to leverage these key features in your social media campaigns, you’ll be able to make the most of your marketing efforts.

 

Check out my post, Brand Strategy Challenges and How Content Marketing Can Help Overcome It.