It’s been an eventful week for Spotify. As reported by our sister e-newsletter The Hustle, the corporate introduced a spherical of layoffs simply days after the launch of its annual marketing campaign Spotify Wrapped.
Whereas The Hustle talked in regards to the enterprise and worker implications of Spotify’s current layoffs instantly following Wrapped, I’d like to check out this sequence of occasions from a advertising and marketing perspective.
The Advertising Energy of Spotify Wrapped
Wrapped is to Spotify what “All I Need for Christmas Is You” is to Mariah Carey — a positive guess for engagement on the finish of every yr.
Because it started in 2016, Spotify Wrapped has given customers an in depth evaluation of their listening habits annually. Whereas Wrapped was initially distributed in e-mail format, its recognition exploded when social media sharing was added to the combination.
The concept to show Wrapped outcomes into sharable social media tales was pitched by former Spotify intern Jewel Ham in 2019. Since then, Spotify customers can see their year-end information throughout the platform’s app and simply share listening stats on to their Instagram tales.
In line with Time, 156 million customers engaged with Wrapped in 2022, and it’s estimated that half of Spotify Wrapped customers share their outcomes to their Instagram tales. That’s numerous optimistic engagement Spotify can rely on annually.
Not solely has the marketing campaign offered content material alternatives for Spotify customers, however a number of manufacturers have hopped on board creating their variations of Wrapped and meme posts parodying Spotify’s branding.
Spotify launched the 2023 Wrapped outcomes on Wednesday, November 29. Per standard, social media feeds had been flooded with Wrapped graphics and parody memes. Nonetheless, just some days later, the corporate made main bulletins that solid a shadow over the optimistic buzz generated by Wrapped.
Then Got here the Layoffs
On December 4, Spotify introduced it was shedding 17% of its workforce, round 1.5k folks.
This was the platform’s third spherical of layoffs in 2023, following reductions in January and June. After the layoffs had been introduced, mentions of Spotify on social media had a usually destructive sentiment.
Whereas the tech business has seen a wave of job cuts this yr, the timing of this spherical of layoffs didn’t solid Spotify in a optimistic gentle for the next causes:
- In Q3, the corporate reported revenue for the primary time in a yr, with €32M in working revenue (about $34.6M)
- Staff had been let go instantly after they accomplished work on a serious marketing campaign that had a optimistic influence on the corporate
- Staff had been laid off through the vacation season when folks are inclined to have extra monetary obligations
Whereas we all know that Spotify, like every enterprise, is trying to minimize prices and increase profitability, this sequence of occasions wasn’t an excellent look within the court docket of public opinion the place most individuals empathize extra with the wants of workers than corporations.
If Spotify had been to supply its personal Wrapped chronicling firm occasions in 2023, it might yield fascinating outcomes.
