Dear Spotify,
Thank you for Spotify Wrapped. You created a moment of connection and fun with our kids that reinforced you as an indispensable household utility.
Somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind I was considering cancelling my subscription... £20pcm isn't unsubstantial after all.
I no longer am.
I feel I'm very late to the party on this. And I like to be 10 minutes early to pretty much everything. "5 minutes early is late", and all that.
Yes and, better to join late than never with the general whoop-ing and woo-ing over the AI powered and brilliant execution of Spotify Wrapped that I sense has been going on for a few years now, right?
In previous years I've pretty much ignored Spotify Wrapped. Just wasn't on my radar.
This year, our 2 teenagers bounded into the kitchen talking about their "Listening Age". "What's this?", I enquired.
And we were off. Gathered around our phones. Not just passively consuming the content. But deeply engaging in each other's Spotify Wrappeds.
Laughing, marvelling, gently teasing, learning, sharing. Not really a surprise that it's all about TayTay for our 10-year-old. And I was proud to be revealed and then teased for having a Listening Age of 70. #WisenotFlighty.
So I'm grateful for that whole family experience.
But I'm also grateful that Spotify Wrapped shows how innovation is such a multi-faceted lever for keeping brands salient. Maybe I was going to leave Spotify. Now I know that my kids would be horrified if I did.
And the joy, the gift, the magic of music is something I absolutely want them to have in their lives…and they see Spotify as the solution.
The most obvious purpose of innovation (perhaps in the minds of the more ROI / commercially orientated) is to directly create incremental commercial value:
More/new people (penetration).
Buying more often (frequency).
Spending more (premiumisation / average weight of purchase).
But with the innovations in this year's Spotify Wrapped you have beautifully demonstrated (to me at least) the vital, but less overtly commercially tangible, roles that innovation plays. Lots of (positive) big brand and marketing buzz-words here, including:
Retention, Choice-Supportive Bias, Loyalty, News-Worthiness, Word-of-Mouth, Emotional-Connection, Participation, Engagement, Distinctiveness and Differentiation.
There's probably other big and important brand salience words and concepts too.
And they're also good I reckon.
So thanks Spotify and Spotify Wrapped 2025.
And you can count on my £240 in 2026.
Ned