On Spotify

The release of Spotify's 2022 Wrapped summoned my inner strategist. I developed certain curiosities about the platform and its marketing strategy. A quick online search revealed articles praising the genius of Spotify's marketing, all with good reason. However, as an avid music listener interested in marketing and business strategy who just started using the platform a mere 9 months ago, I was curious as to why I started using the platform as well as why I hadn't used it previously.

Obviously, Spotify did not create the need it fulfils. For a while, I listened to music on the radio, on TV and through CD players. Subsequently, I used platforms such as YouTube, Google Play Music, YouTube Music, and Deezer - which I came across on the Google Play Store some 4 years ago.

At the time (2018), I had already heard of Spotify mostly via word of mouth. I was aware of the brand and knew that it provided a music streaming platform. However, I did not know about its freemium pricing model, instead believing it to be a premium platform.

It wasn't until March 2022, approximately 7 years after I first heard about the app, that I finally registered as a user. It took a friend suggesting that we create and share playlists (and informing me that I could make a free account) for me to sign up for the platform.

Word of mouth and social media popularity via campaigns such as Wrapped seem to do the trick for Spotify. The ability to share and interact with friends' playlists as well as the creation of personalised campaigns portraying users as members of niche communities seem to generate some sort of network effect. Spotify, through these features, leverages its popularity similarly to media streaming platforms (through exclusive content) and social media platforms. The result is the conversion of people like me into Spotify users. Seven years or not, I too hopped on the bandwagon and that's what counts.