Spotify wraps up a decade of music streaming data in its year-end campaign

The music giant 's annual 'Wrapped' campaign includes takeovers of Penn Station and Sao Paulo subway line

Published On
Dec 05, 2019

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Earlier this week, Spotify revealed its most-streamed artists of both this year, and the whole decade—and today, the streaming giant unveils its end-of-year ad campaign that once again has fun with its data.

The global "Wrapped" effort this year includes outdoor ads running in 21 markets through the end of the year. Creative features artists including Mariah Carey, Lil Nas X, BTS and J. Balvin. Carey, for example, features in an ad that shows streaming stats for "All I Want for Christmas Is You" throughout the year, while an installation at London’s Westfield shopping mall will transform Carey’s dress into a holiday wonderland with snowfall floating across the board. Another billboard shows how Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" has grown in popularity over the year, with images of a horse getting larger and larger. 

In the the U.S. Spotify will run a takeover of New York’s Penn Station, and across nine major cities in Germany it will run lighted projections to surround the market’s shopping and pedestrian districts. In Brazil, it is transforming the São Paulo yellow line into the "Spotify Line," with stations celebrating the past 10 years in music and culture. Each station will feature data about a specific year with OOH posters riders can take home along with art installations for "Instagram-worthy moments."

Also new this year is the ability for Spotify users to share their own data stats on social media, using the Spotify app. The campaign just kicked off today but users are already sharing their most listened-to tracks on Twitter. 

The work is by Spotify's in-house team. Each market was also able to localize the creative copy—artists, songs, playlists, podcasts—that best reflect 2019 in the market with the support of local creative agencies.

"How do you dance to a decade’s worth of data? Especially when the last ten years have been so wild, and had such a compelling soundtrack," said Spotify's Global Executive Creative Director Alex Bodman in a statement. "With a 'Decade Wrapped,' we celebrate and show appreciation for the fortunate role we’ve been able to play over the last decade: connecting the world’s best fans with the world’s best creators. We hope we’ll remind people of the moments this decade that inspired them to smile, share, laugh—or sometimes just scratch their head. In many ways, it’s a campaign ten years in the making.”