Another year has gone by, and you know what that means: it’s Spotify Wrapped time!
It’s getting to the point that your Spotify Wrapped is just as exciting as Christmas morning. It’s become a ritual of modern-day holiday celebrations. And, more than that, it’s an expression of yourself and who you are as a person without the cringe of setting up a MySpace account.
But it’s also a great example of a brilliant marketing campaign. At this point, who hasn’t heard of Spotify Wrapped, never mind Spotify itself?
The sad truth is that Spotify really didn’t need to do a lot of active campaign marketing. They are sitting on a wealth of privilege from already being the monopoly for modern-day audio listening. Businesses that can’t say that they have a monopoly on one of the five senses will definitely need to work harder, but there is something to be said for such a viral campaign going off. Is it the beauty of simplicity? Is it the personalised nature of the campaign? We explore here to determine how you can use the lessons of Spotify Wrapped for your online marketing strategy.
Make it personal
Spotify Wrapped takes all the data learned from your listening habits throughout the year and delivers them to you in essentially a pretty spreadsheet. It covers your most listened-to albums, artists, songs, genres, and even how much you listened over the year.
This means that in a glimpse, you can see how your music taste is summed up. And considering how much personality we focus on your music tastes as a society, it means you are summed up. This is undoubtedly the main reason Spotify Wrapped is so viral. People share it and get to say “This is me. I am a secret Swifty fan despite listening to metal in public.” People get to be shocked or heartened by their results.
And it goes without saying that “sharing” is the best kind of engagement that every marketing department should strive for. Sharing usually goes hand in hand with other forms of engagement like likes and comments, but also involves another person, or even a lot of other people, leading to…
The importance of word of mouth
But who is listening when you say, “This is me”? Well, your friends, family, and followers are, plus whoever you share your Spotify Wrapped with. This is the online equivalent of word of mouth and it is far more effective. Businesses from every industry can greatly benefit from word of mouth. Entire industries like barbers and hair salons thrive on it. If you’re going to trust someone with your hair, you need someone you trust to give a reference. If you are going to get on the word-of-mouth viral train, you need to give people something to talk about. Think about the features of your business and imaging trying to pitch it, not to an investor, but to a friend you’re meeting for lunch. What would you say?
Make it nostalgic
The other aspect that Spotify Wrapped taps into is nostalgia. That nostalgia might only be for the past 12 months, but it’s something we all like looking back on around Christmas. And if the abundance of re-worked, sequeled, prequeled, and otherwise readapted movies, TV shows, and games from the past doesn’t convince you, Spotify Wrapped certainly should. But unlike Stranger Things converting Stephen King, Steven Spielberg, and other 80’s era Stephens into one convenient TV show, Spotify Wrapped, again, is personal. It puts together your obsessions of the year into one graph, and makes you remember “Oh yeah, I was listening to that when I was still in this job, or when I and my partner were still in that flat, etc.”
Nostalgia is a powerful tool. Even for the past few months. On social media, you can use it to outright ask your users for engagement by asking what they did with your business and why for some nostalgic anecdotes.
However, make it good
Personally, as I write this, I am waiting for an Audible Wrapped. There is such a thing, although it’s not called that. It comes out every year, and every year I’m disappointed. It’s slapdash, undetailed, and frankly ugly. It screams of getting on the bus without knowing why we’re going anywhere.
The important message here is that Spotify Wrapped is very detailed, very highly polished, and feels like something personal to the user. If you’re going to do something along the lines of a Wrapped campaign, put effort into it or not at all.
If you are interested in more affiliate and social media marketing insights, take a look at our blog for all the latest news and advice. Or for a more personalised approach, book a free call with a member of our team.
Or, for the very best advice from industry peers, get your free tickets to gain access to our Amplify Virtual Summit. Coming in January of this year, Amplify aims to bring you the latest affiliate, performance, and partner marketing insights from across the globe. Don’t miss it.
