Word searches, puzzles and quizzes characterize this year's Spotify “Wrapped” experience, as the audio streaming platform gets more interactive in its use of data to sum up listeners' 2022 habits.

The end-of-year campaign includes outdoor billboards and murals with word searches, including an illustration in Brooklyn in which people have to find hidden pictures of Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny, the year's most listened-to artist. There's also a word search that invites New York to discover the city’s top genres, and trivia quizzes around some of the platform's top artists, including Harry Styles and Taylor Swift.

The campaign this year is designed to lean into “interactivity and play,” said Alex Bodman, Spotify VP, global executive creative, during a virtual press conference yesterday. “We want people not just to get Wrapped, but also play with it.”

Rolling out exclusively on mobile will be a feature that informs users of their listening “personalities”—for example, you might be an “adventurer” who likes to seek out new music, or a “replayer” who likes listening to the same music over and over. Fans will learn which of 16 different personality types they are, based on their 2022 listening trends. There's also an interactive story called Audio Day that gives you a peek into how your music taste evolves throughout the day.

In addition to personalized and editorial playlists, the Wrapped hub on the platform will also feature merchandise from listeners' top artists, along with listings of upcoming events such as tours. Spotify is also offering an expanded range of 40,000 “thank you” videos from artists, a feature it introduced last year but has now enhanced. There's also a soccer-themed partnership between Spotify and FC Barcelona, in which fans can find videos on social from soccer players including Robert Lewandowski, Alexia Putellas, Pedri and Ansu Fati.

Encouraging people to share their Wrapped data is key to the campaign; Spotify revealed that in 2021, more than 120 million listeners shared their Spotify Wrapped (compared to 30 million in 2017). This year, users will be able to share their personalized playlists and mixes on a range of different platforms, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Snapchat. A personalized Snapchat lens will reflect their “Listening Personality” and people can also acquire special items of Wrapped-themed apparel for bitmojis and custom GIFs.

Also new for this year is a Wrapped creator experience aimed at podcasters and artists, giving them an individualized Wrapped microsite experience where they can explore data on all the ways in which their fans listened this year.

The global campaign will run across traditional and digital out-of-home, connected TV, online video, social media, web and in the app itself in 37 markets worldwide, with the app experience available to users in more than 100 markets. 

As in previous years, the campaign was created in-house at Spotify but it will also serve as a toolkit that the brand's teams around the world can use when working with local agencies to build out the push in their respective markets.

It comes as Spotify has continued to add subscribers. For the third quarter, Spotify reported 456 million monthly average users, up from 381 million a year earlier and beating analysts’ projections of 450.7 million. Ad revenue in the quarter rose 19%, which the company said in October was slower than expected due to a “challenging macro environment.”