Spotify: Wrapped

Brand

Spotify

Market

Global

Year

2016

Category

Digital & Social

Agency or team

Spotify in-house

Channels

In-app stories, social sharing, out-of-home

The context

Spotify’s product is invisible: listening happens in headphones. The brand needed a moment when users would show it off.

The move

Wrapped packages each user’s top artists, songs and minutes into bold, story-sized cards designed to be shared on Instagram and other platforms, with a matching outdoor campaign built from aggregate data.

How it was executed

1. Packaged each user’s year into personalised, story-style screens inside the app.
2. Designed cards in the exact formats people post on Instagram and other platforms.
3. Ran a matching outdoor campaign written from aggregate listening data.

Spotify turned listening data into a personal year-in-review that users share for free every December.

What happened Reported facts

Spotify reported more than 156 million users engaged with Wrapped 2022 in its first days, up from about 120 million the year before. Each year, it reliably drives app downloads and social conversation at the end of the year.

Why it worked Maer’s analysis

Every share advertises Spotify, and the annual timing turned it into a ritual people wait for.

What to take from it Maer’s analysis

1. 01Data becomes marketing when it is about the customer, not the company.
2. 02Design for the share, in the format people already post.
3. 03Make it a ritual people wait for.

Where Maer applies this

The same thinking runs through these brand templates:

Sources: Spotify Newsroom (2021, 2022). Figures are as publicly reported; Maer Media was not involved in this work and is not affiliated with Spotify.