It's a Wrap

November 29, 2023


In its ninth year, Spotify Wrapped is the biggest it’s ever been. With 574 million listeners, Spotify has realized its place in the cultural zeitgeist and uses Wrapped to play up to our expectations and more.


In 2023, Spotify dedicated Wrapped to two primary factors: authenticity and personalization. As spoken by Marie Roenn, Global Group Creative Director at Spotify, “Everywhere we show up we’re going to double down on what is real. Wrapped is a moment of truth, it reflects the year you had, backed by data”. The issue of realness is much more than music, as we continue the uphill battle against ‘fake news’ and try to grasp the unprecedented arrival of AI tech. The fight for truth and embracing what is real is no better exemplified than by online dictionary, Merriam-Webster, declaring ‘authentic’ its word of the year.


Leading up to Wrapped 2023, Spotify had taken a page out of Taylor Swift's playbook and teased both the launch and her reveal as top global artist using Easter eggs. Hints had been sprinkled throughout the pre-launch of Wrapped such as cats, red lipstick, and all things TS on social media and with billboards across the  to preview her reveal as the top-streamed artist of the year, and to build hype for the day-of.


As for personalization, Spotify has built out an in-app Wrapped feed on mobile and desktop for users to fully absorb everything Spotify has to offer. Eager for our personal slice of the Spotify pie, the desktop landing page for Wrapped crashed almost as soon as it was released. 


In addition to what we are familiar with such as top tracks, top artists, new genres, and time listened to, Spotify has introduced a swell of ways to connect with the community and your favorite artists within the app itself. Sound Town is a new Wrapped feature that matches users to a city based on similar listening habits and tastes. Another new feature is Me in 2023 which assigns users a listening character specific to them from how you used Spotify. The most personal feature is Artist Messages, where you can view short clips of some of your favorite artists thanking you personally for being a fan. 


Of course, what’s the fun in keeping this all to ourselves. Spotify has not only made these features shareable, but they encouraged it with every feature a part of Wrapped being able to be shared across the most popular social media channels. In an interview with Variety in 2021, Spotify vice president and global executive creative director Alex Bodman said: “I’m sure we’d all love to sit down and say it was a marketing stroke of genius, but when it was first built it was a loyalty play. I don’t think we had any idea that people would want to share it so much.”


While YouTube and Apple Music offer nearly identical recaps of listening habits based on how you use their respective apps, there’s something about Spotify Wrapped that continues to pull on the emotions of its users and make it the music recap of the year.


For updates on the latest trends in digital marketing and how companies continue to keep it real in the new world of AI; be sure to follow SparkShoppe on social media and keep up with our blog!

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