Spotify has announced the launch of Spotify Hits, a new initiative that spotlights and celebrates the innovative and effective advertising campaigns that ran on Spotify in the past year. This new initiative aims to celebrate the brands who proved that great creative can lead to even greater campaign results.
“From Celebrity Cruises to Dan Murphy’s, advertisers are increasingly using digital content to create unique and engaging experiences for their audiences. With Spotify Hits, we want to showcase the brands that are defining what best-in-class looks like on our platform and give them a moment of well-deserved recognition for being creative leaders in this space,” said Brian Berner, head of global sales and partnerships at Spotify.
Among the winners are:
- Spotify Mic Drop – Best Overall Campaign: Celebrity Cruises (PHD)
To spark wanderlust among its target audience this campaign utilised tailored creative to target five specific Celebrity Cruises audiences. A dedicated microsite helped visitors discover their ideal holiday destination and itinerary, complete with a bespoke Spotify travel playlist. The digital experience also included a competition, allowing users to score their very own Celebrity Cruises trip. The campaign connected with its audience through emotionally driven creative that tapped into the mood of escapism and leveraged always-on audio and display formats to further drive lower-funnel metrics.
- Context Excellence – Best Use of Format: Samsung NZ (Spark)
Samsung NZ wanted to capitalise on the cultural moment of Spotify’s yearly recaps leading into the Holiday Gifting Season. As part of their Global Joint Business Partnership, Samsung was offered an exclusive sponsorship of Spotify’s top end-of-year playlists including ‘Your Top Songs’ and ‘NZ Top Tracks 2023’. The brand’s sponsorship lasted throughout December as part of a broader Q4 campaign that combined audio, video, display and sponsorship formats to great effect. This Spotify Advertising campaign also broke new ground in New Zealand, as the first-ever to include a Nielsen Brand Effects report.
- For The Fans – Best Audience Strategy: Dan Murphy’s (Carat)
Knowing customer expectations and market competition are equally high during the Christmas period, Dan Murphy’s needed to strengthen their position as one of the top destinations for buying a range of beverages. The liquor retailer partnered with Spotify for their ‘Christmas Moments’ campaign, which utilised Spotify’s first- and third-party audience segments to create highly targeted ‘moments’ including Christmas Parties, Festive Dinners, Road Trips, and Summer Fun, to engage with customers across smaller festive occasions. The campaign was tied together by a sponsorship of Spotify’s popular summer playlist ‘Happy Pop’, and delivered above average benchmarks for completion rates, engagement, and CTR scores.
- Stat-isfaction – Most Creative Test Hypothesis: Asahi | Great Northern Brewing Co. (1house & PHD)
To launch Great Northern’s new Ginger Beer, Asahi developed a creative campaign to reach ‘Today’s and Tomorrow’s Adventurers’ with the goal of acquiring new customers. The brand had already discovered that females presented the largest growth opportunity in the food and beverage category, so—to put this insight to the test—they partnered with Spotify to produce 3D audio ads with both male and female voiceovers. The campaign was highly targeted, combining relevant first- and third-party segments to reach users in the right moment, mood and mindset across key locations. A Nielsen Brand Effect Study revealed that the campaign delivered high confidence increases across all brand KPIs and, most importantly, grew net new category buyers for Great Northern Brewing Co.
