Why is this work relevant for Media?

This work highlights how the value of creative ideas can be greatly enhanced with a strategic choice of platform. By understanding online social conversations by concert-goers and music fans, insights derived from it informed what else audiences wanted from a concert. It propelled Spotify’s idea of a refreshed end-to-end concert experience into one platform that gathers and mobilizes the target audience effectively through different ad formats. By contextualising creativity, this campaign engaged a media platform as the primary method of transforming a concert experience, rather than relying on creative assets to achieve that.

Background

Spotify On Stage is Spotify's premier live concert series; curated to celebrate the discovery of music and culture with artistes and their fans. Just like in 2018, the 2019 edition was held again in Bangkok and Jakarta. It was an opportunity for Spotify Indonesia and Spotify Thailand to give thousands of music fans across Southeast Asia a live music experience they would never forget Spotify wanted to look for ways to redefine the concert experience. They wanted to bring fans closer to the music, artistes, and moments they care about the most during the concerts, while boosting brand awareness, favorability, and share of voice online.

Describe the creative idea / insights (30% of vote)

Spotify and Twitter conducted social listening to understand how concert-goers had tweeted during the previous year’s concert. Data showed that while the audiences loved music and wanted to interact with artistes and other fans more, they only tweeted before and after the concerts, and didn't engage with the Spotify brand itself, especially during the event. Spotify saw this gap in interaction and engagement as an opportunity to revamp the usual concert experience digitally; from pre-concert activities to in-concert activations, and post-concert follow-ups. This is so that Spotify can bring fans everywhere closer to the artistes and each other at every stage of the concert journey, while being in the centre of the conversation.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Spotify targeted Indonesian and Thai music fans. Besides being passionate about music, they love to interact within their fandoms online, especially on Twitter. This social network is connected by official hashtags, fan accounts, and more; ready to be mobilized to hype up and push their favorite artistes into the spotlight. They love the recognition from others and they crave to be noticed by their favorite artistes. Armed with these insights, Spotify planned Twitter activities to enhance the experience at every stage of the social-driven concert journey, and tapped into conversations that fans wanted to engage with. Twitter digitally bridged the interaction and engagement gaps that exist. Spotify used it to give fans at the event a reason to engage; and those who were not there, an opportunity to join in on the conversation with an existing online social community.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

Spotify zeroed in on Twitter for the full spectrum of tactical executions. The first phase occurred pre-concert to generate hype around the upcoming event. This included using Conversational Cards to "guess the line-up", releasing the concert playlist, and shout-out videos by the line-ups. Spotify capitalized on this buzz by putting up a Q&A call with the artistes. With this, fans had an accessible platform to pose questions and connect with them. On the concert day, a livestream showcased the answered Q&As which took place throughout the day. To boost real-time engagement, fans tweeted using the event hashtag to get featured on a live concert DOOH, allowing them to share their special moments with thousands of people at the concerts and many other music fans online. To sustain post-concert activities, Spotify revealed a wrap-up reel, promoted the earlier artistes’ live Q&A session and featured the event highlights with curated user tweets.

List the results (30% of vote)

Not only did the campaign garner 74.2 million impressions and 700K hashtag mentions, share of voice and brand favorability exceeded expectations too. In Indonesia, there were 2.38x more tweets with the event hashtag throughout the campaign and 6.8x more tweets on the concert day itself, compared to 2018. It took 60% of the share of music conversations in Indonesia during concert day, an increase of 26% from last year. Favorability-wise, there was a 12.5% increase in positive sentiments for Spotify on Stage than in 2018. In Thailand, there were 38x more tweets with the event hashtag throughout the campaign and 120x more tweets on the concert day itself, compared to 2018. It took 31% of the share of music conversations in Thailand during concert day, an increase of 27% from last year. Favorability-wise, there was a 22% increase in positive sentiments for Spotify on Stage than in 2018.