Case Study: Why Spotify India created 250 playlists for IPL finals...

Spotify India IPL Campaign Case Study shows how the brand rode the cricket wave using their product promise – 3 billion playlists

Brand: Spotify India

Agency: 22Feet Tribal Worldwide

Category Introduction

Music listenership in India is at an all-time high today, with many users streaming music across devices. In fact, a 2018 report by IMI and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates that the average Indian internet user spends 21.5 hours per week listening to music, higher than the global average of approximately 18 hours. This average is even higher (at nearly 24 hours per week) for the 18-24 year olds in India, and presents a huge opportunity for music streaming apps to capture users through relevance and relatability.

Brand Introduction

Spotify is an audio streaming app, with more than 217 million users, including 100 million paid subscribers. The app’s mission is to inspire human creativity by enabling a million artists to be able to live off of their art and a billion people to be able to enjoy and be inspired by it. Spotify launched in India a little over two months ago, and is committed to transforming the audio streaming journey in the country, through personalization, discoverability, and localisation; the company recently announced that it has more than two million monthly active users here.

Summary of the campaign

A T20 match is a cauldron of emotions. The idea was to combine every event that happens on a cricket field during an IPL match and Spotify’s repository of 3 billion playlists. Using the brand's Twitter handle, the brand leveraged moment-marketing by covering the match ball by ball and giving #HarBallPePlaylist

Problem Statement/Objective

How does Spotify become a part of IPL and talk about the product?

Brief

Spotify’s a global music streaming platform and is a new entrant into the market. The goal was to go from being an international brand to being one that’s relevant to Indians.

Challenges

1. Competing with established brands already in the space, those with exclusive partnerships and those without.

2. Be a part of every IPL conversation without naming or partnering with any major IPL franchises or players.

Creative Idea

Spotify India rode the cricket wave using their product promise with a twist. How do we have an IPL conversation, without an exclusive partnership all the while talking about the brand?

Spotify leveraged the depth of the catalogue. 240 deliveries. 240 emotions. Expressed in 240 unique playlists delivered at every ball, capturing every moment, real-time on Twitter.

Execution

Spotify's Twitter handle, leveraged real-time marketing by covering the match ball by ball and giving #HarBallPePlaylist - not limiting themselves to gameplay, rather going beyond to capture the changing moods of the game, every moment that would be relevant to the audience engaging in the second-screen experience in our unique tone and voice.

Also Read:Case Study: #LoveAtFirstCLiQ – An integrated approach to e-commerce marketing

The Indian Twitterati also joined in-

Results

Over 250 tweets were sent out during the four-hour activity which helped the brand page not only gain followers but also garner a reach of 4.45 million - owing to the hundreds of unique consumers who engaged with the brand during the match, including sports influencers such as Sir Jadeja, Team MS Dhoni fan clubs, amongst others.