The end of this odd year has come. And while most people are looking forward to moving on and starting 2021, Spotify aims to create a positive memory of 2020 for its users. Over the past couple of weeks, Spotify users have been sharing their music year in review curated by the music streaming company.
The year in review starts off with a “victory worth celebrating.” With all of the negative Covid records in the news on a daily basis, people have come to associate records with negative events. Spotify attempts to remind its users of the positive connotation of the word by showing users the number of new artists that the users have discovered thanks to the Spotify platform. Not only is the music streaming company attempting to restore the meaning of the word but it is attempting to show the value of the service in order to increase retention.
Throughout the entire year-in-review story, multiple quizzes are included to increase the interactivity of the user and keep their attention. The best part about the quizzes are that they are about you. It is human nature to be egotistical and Spotify knows it. The year-in-review leverages this fact by complementing your listening style and attributing an adjective to it.
Finally, Spotify leverages the power of social media and community for a couple of reasons. First, it allows users to share their top artists and songs on social media in an effort to flood the web with posts related to its service. This promotes brand awareness and potentially increases subscription levels as people who don’t subscribe to the service begin to feel as if they are the only one. Moreover, Spotify encourages users to share a post linking their most listened to artist to thank them for their songs. This creates an intangible benefit to artists who then feel more motivated to keep their music on the platform.
Just in case this does not get enough traction organically, Spotify suggests the #SpotifyWrapped hashtag in order to become a trending hashtag and earn even more eyeballs on this marketing strategy. The hashtag in itself is a subtle hint at the little gift that the company has given its users.
In my opinion, this is a very clever and cost-effective strategy to raise awareness and loyalty for the streaming service. What do you think? Does it seem fake to you? Can you think of ways to improve this strategy?