once a year, spotify Disrupt your morning listening routine music In the shower or while on the way to work to post’Spotify Wrapped‘, a personalized annual summary detailing what each user has artist, Song And the genres you’ve heard the most. And, like every year, people are eager to share their musical interests social networkConverting platform listings to a guarantee of success.
This incident was repeated this Wednesday. Thousands of users have visited all over Spain social network As Instagram, x one of the two blue skyBut also for private applications like WhatsAppSpotify to share Wrapped Podium with your friends and followers, opening the door to great digital debates that strengthen the campaign of the biggest platform music In streaming Of the World. What is the reason for its success? Why do we love sharing the music we listen to?
Music as a personal creation
Music has a strong emotional component. It can make us think, bring back old memories or improve our mood. But, beyond this, it plays an important role in social and cultural cohesion between individuals. As the French sociologist analyzed the last century Pierre BourdieuSelectively share our musical tastes – as well as moviesThe series Or books – is a method of manufacturing Identification What we want to present to society, something that defines us and reinforces our affiliation with a certain group.
A study was published in 2006 in the journal psychological science It turned out that students who knew each other Internet They were more likely to talk about their musical preferences to better understand each other’s personalities. People who listen to the same music as us like us moreAnother study in 2011 pointed out. with the emergence of digital platform And this phenomenon has become more evident with our continued contact with them.
philosopher udal espluga He goes further and explains that the “imperative of self-expression” behind sharing these lists is a response to “productivist pressures”. “Below platform capitalism We are bound to act as entrepreneurs ourselves. More than a narcissistic or vain desire to stand out or achieve Attention “This competition responds to a structural political condition, which commits us to an economy of neoliberal subjectivity where we have to constantly produce ourselves,” he explains.
Users as ‘influencers’ of the brand
Aware of this, Spotify used this factor to relaunch its brand and achieve more interaction With your users. Until 2016 it published a Best of the Year list, but in 2017 it decided to use its own database. data Personalizing these lists with rankings and statistics that explain our tastes and consumption habits. This decision was immediately successful. If your list reflects a guilty pleasure, you’ll probably keep it to yourself, but if the result confirms your perspective, it might make you want to share it with others, even if you’re a fan yourself. by identifying bad bunny, Taylor Swift Or a local punk-rock group that only plays small venues.

Emphasizing this point, Spotify makes it users who act as ‘influencer‘of the brand, thus systematically generating a huge debate on social networks which becomes a powerful and free advertising campaign. advertisingThis resonance also reaches the media, which contributes to increasing the campaign. Its goal is to: carefully design lists so that we’ll want to share them. Its graphics, images, colors and square format perfectly match the platform like Twitterinstagram, Facebook one of the two snapchat,
“With a very simple and affordable resource, Spotify gets a lot of visibility and outperforms its competitors by a week,” he explains. pablo porkerFounder of Music Magazine binaural and co-director of the communications agency for the band Blanco Impala. “Furthermore, the creation of these personalized lists generates a very important new listening cycle.”
attract new users
The interaction between Spotify and its users allows the platform to achieve economic objectives. “‘Wrapped’ also creates this FOMO effect that attracts new users to consider using Spotify, so it’s a domino effect,” he confessed in 2017. June SauvagetteGlobal head of product marketing for the company.
fomo (fear of being abandoned, in English) is what is known as social anxiety about not living the same life as others. Thus, the bombardment of these lists on the network serves to create envy and entice potential users to use other platforms. In recent years, memes have circulated that ridicule people who do not have access to their annual lists.
The strategy is refined every year to foster our curiosity to know ourselves and others. The most heard astrological symbols added in 2018; In 2019 the lists were expanded to the most listened to list of the decade (in response to plagiarism). apple music Of those lists) and statistics were added in 2020 podcastSmall tests about our tastes, highlighting whether you are among an artist’s best fans and rewards such as being labeled a “pioneer” if you have heard the song “before” Cold“, i.e. before reaching 50,000 views.
This not only awakens our curiosity about others CompetitionSpotify too to increase that FOMO has openly published a global list of the most popular artistsAll of these factors make these lists year after year viral trend,
And our privacy?
While the image of technology giants has been tarnished by their involvement in scams confidentialitySuch campaigns reinvigorate Spotify’s popularity, improving the interaction of its users. brand And their sense of belonging. Unlike our search history or our private conversations, revealing the music we listen to is seen as a harmless curiosity.
However, Spotify knows much more about us than that. Its more than 626 million monthly users stay connected an average of 25 hours per month, a time it collects personal data that they refer to as their data. algorithm Know your tastes as well as your mood. As science journalist Haley Weiss wrote in ‘The Atlantic’ in 2018, the success and popularity of ‘Wrapped’ “may say more about our love of music than the security of our data.”

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