Episode 122 - Spotify #ListenToYourFans Ad Reviewed
Spotify have a lot of your data, but can they use it to influence artists? The brand’s latest ad, #ListenToYourFans, in Colombia, shows a different way for the streaming platform to drive your musical experiences.
The ad chosen by Contagious uses a familiar insight: attending a concert where the artist doesn’t play your favourite song. Watch this episode of Advertisers Watching Ads to see how Spotify made fans happy and hear from our marketing experts Pablo J. López (former VP of Marketing for Mexico at Netflix) and Henry Brown (former Head of Marketing for JUBEL Beer).
They gave this ad a score of 4 out of 5. How did it land with you?
Episode 122 - Spotify #ListenToYourFans Ad Reviewed
Transcript is automatically generated, so not perfect, but you get the idea!
Tom Ollerton 0:00
Hello, and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. This is a weekly show where brands watch other brands' ads.
My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative, and thanks as ever to our partners, Contagious, who've helped source the ad this week. But before we get to this ad, let's meet this week's guests.
Pablo J. López 0:35
It's good to be here. Thanks, Tom, for the invitation. I have a couple of years of experience in big companies like Coke, Unilever, and Netflix in the marketing side. Formerly, the Vice President in Marketing for Mexico.
Henry Brown 0:47
Hi, my name is Henry Brown. I have done eight, nearly nine years in beer. Formerly of AB InBev. And more recently, until a few weeks ago, I headed up marketing for JUBEL Beer here in the UK. And I'm very happy to be here. Thank you.
Tom Ollerton 1:02
Fantastic, guys. What a panel! So let's see this week's ad.
Can you give your votes for this ad on a mark out of five? One, two, three... A four and a four! Spotify! That's a result. But what actually went on here? What was going on outside this video?
Pablo J. López 3:14
This is a very interesting way of double clicking on what Spotify is about, both for the fans and not the fans. When I saw their first video, for the first time, I was a little bit biased by their format of the presentation. Sounds a little bit fakey, but then a little bit later I started saying, "There's an interesting insight behind this." And I think that's the core essence of the campaign, the powerful insight.
Tom Ollerton 3:37
And what do you think that insight is?
Pablo J. López 3:38
Well, I think that it all relates to the core value or the message of Spotify. They're starting to talk about listening a lot. And this is a great example of listening, listening to the fans. And listening to the, to the art itself.
Henry Brown 3:49
To Pablo's point, the insights really strong. I mean, if you just look at the insight, it rang true with me, you know. I have gone to many live gigs in the past and been frustrated that I've bought tickets a year and a half in advance, and then when I get there that artist that I've been super excited to go and see has released a new album and played nothing that I've actually gone to see them for and been. You know, it's sad and slightly disappointed. And I think that rings true. And I think you know, if you go from a very strong insight, through to execution that makes sense, and stays true to what your platform does, then you've got a pretty good recipe for success. And I think that's what this ad's doing here.
Tom Ollerton 4:21
I don't know what the marketing insight is here. What is the insight that the product solves?
Pablo J. López 4:27
I will listen to what you want to hear, and I will do my best and use my power of a big company to influence the artist you want. And I think that's interesting. If I may, I would say that it builds empathy with people. It's why listen what you say. And it also beats authority because it says, "I am strong character in the music. I have the power to talk to your favorite artists and they will listen." And I think that's beautiful.
Henry Brown 4:54
Execution doesn't necessarily for me, anyway, have to tie 100% to the solution that that product is giving you, but it can indirectly push what the product does. So Spotify here is essentially saying, you know, "We know you, and we can demonstrate this credibly to the point where we can have effect." So people will trust the platform, they will understand, essentially, you know, through the insight and the execution here that Spotify really gets them, you know. It, almost in like a friendly capacity, they're able to turn on their head, something that's quite scary, which is that they have huge amounts of data on people and use it to their advantage by saying, "Hey, guys, we're not some big scary beast here. We know a lot about you, but we're using it to your advantage here. We know what you listen to, we know what you like, and we can make impact from that." So yeah, Spotify is the place to be.
Pablo J. López 5:44
I get the idea. I think, "Wow! They are working for me, they are helping me to do that." And I think nowadays, marketing is not so much about branding, but actually adding value to our people.
Tom Ollerton 5:56
The positioning of Spotify here as the helpful data lord that can move mountains for you, it's great. But did it work?
Pablo J. López 6:02
Yes, in terms of a very simple and powerful campaign that can travel and expand. But I wonder if it actually moved the needle to bring new users to the platform, or even upgrading to premium for somebody. That's the question mark for the campaign currently for me.
Tom Ollerton 6:19
So outside of that, Henry, what would you have changed about this?
Henry Brown 6:22
Spotify's brand world in terms of, kind of visual execution seems incredibly broad. There were like 10 to 12 different executions within the video that they showed on these billboards. And you know, other than basically font and pastel colors and shapes of some description, the billboards look drastically different. And I don't know how mature Spotify is within the Colombia market. But for me, I never want to overlook the basics. The first thing that sort of came to my mind was, you know, if I'm driving along the highway, and I see a billboard with a lot of writing on it, that's a very low dwell time execution. And therefore, you know, am I even going to know that that's from Spotify, or what it is or what it's doing? But in terms of kind of creativity, and the, the insight and the thought behind the idea, I thought it was pretty good. If you're trying to build memory structures with consumers, you know, in a scaling market, you want to make sure that when they do see an ad from you, they at least know it is from you.
Pablo J. López 7:14
The power of this campaign is not on putting pillows on the hotel that it will arrive, the power of this campaign is actually contacting the handle of, of Fatboy Slim, and making him answer, "Yes, I will put this song on the playlist." That's the powerful and viral element of the campaign, because that will expand everywhere. The other elements, for me, are a little bit fakey. And if it were my team, I would say, "Don't put money there, please. Don't put it. Don't buy pillows."
Tom Ollerton 7:45
What can the industry be learning from this?
Henry Brown 7:47
As a brand and as a company with a strong insight, you don't need to be spending a lot of money on sponsorship right, for pure credibility. If you truly have a strong insight and credibility and it ties to your brand, you can create something very special, that hopefully, you know, with the correct execution can have virality. And you can have a big sort of, you know, earned media led campaign that can go wild. Ultimately, you know, I think this shows great potential for the fact that you would be able to do that. And I think you know, much more kind of broadly going earned first and trying to do something where you are leveraging what you have, that's core to your platform, and leading with an earned first campaign. You know, let's try and create something shareable where consumers really gonna amplify this for us and not a lot of money against it. It's a very good litmus test for how strong your insight is, and therefore how strong your core creative idea that overlays on that is, and ultimately, therefore, you know, whether this has taken off or not, will be the true test.
Pablo J. López 8:41
That's another angle that it's very interesting that we need to give credit to the team. They created a format that is replicable and scalable globally. That's creating value for Spotify also, so they can do these in every single concert in every country in the world. And it would work. As any new idea, maybe we look and like, or not like this first version, but once it's replicated in Europe and Australia and the US, I would bet that the fourth version of this idea will be incredible. So we as leaders, we need to allow the teams to experiment a little bit and evolve these ideas. And I put a plus one whenever I see an idea that is scalable, and, and replicable very easily.
Tom Ollerton 9:18
So to finish off the show, would you have signed off this campaign in its current execution? Thumbs up or thumbs down?
Pablo, Henry, thank you so much for your time.
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