Spotify Billboards Are Outing Its Users’ Strange Listening Habits

Is nothing private anymore?

spotify billboard

by Ellie Wiseman |
Published on

The panoply of music available on the streaming service Spotify allows us to indulge our inner-most private emotional states: when we're feeling melancholy on a lonely night in, or when we're dancing around our room to 90s classics like no one is watching. Well, now the music giant is in fact exposing our guilty pleasures in the public sphere, and in true hilarity.

In a new marketing campaign this week the music giant is poking fun at listeners’ strange music habits on Spotify billboards across the UK, USA, Germany and France.

On one billboard, Spotify asks: ‘Dear person who played “Sorry” 42 times on Valentine’s Day, what did you do?’

Another said: ‘Dear 3,749 people who streamed “It’s the End of the World As We Know It” the day of the Brexit vote, hang in there.’

On another, Spotify 'Thanks 2016. It's been weird.' We feel it speaks on behalf of all of us.

spotify billboard
spotify billboard
spotify billboard

'To the person who listened to "I Took a Pill in Ibiza" 52 times on the 9th February, Everyone celebrates Pancake Day differently.'

spotify billboard

Spotify CMO Seth Farbman told Creativity: 'There has been some debate about whether big data is muting creativity in marketing, but we have turned that on its head. For us, data inspires and gives an insight into the emotion that people are expressing.'

Spotify previously announced that it holds a mighty 1,369 musical genres, some of which are oddly specific like 'wrestling' (music featured in wrestling and listened to by wrestlers) and 'spytrack' (music typical in a spy film). So it's no surprise that the company has picked up on some bizarre listening behaviour in their extensive data. The humility of it all is so great. So, thanks Spotify, it's been weird.

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