‘Bragging Without Selfies’ – The Rise of Spotify Rapid and Copycats

Throughout December, Instagram feeds are flooded with pictures of Christmas trees, pictures of festive work parties – and screenshots of people’s most listened to songs of the year.

That’s because at the end of every year, since 2016, Spotify has released Wrapped. Campaigns collect what consumers listen to the most and usually include their top songs, artists and genres.

Dr Gillian Brooks, a lecturer in strategic marketing at King’s College London, says it is now “plastered on every possible social media platform imaginable”. known.”

She says her wrap-around feature works so well because music is personal and people enjoy reminiscing about songs that marked their lives last year.

As Wrapped goes viral every year, other businesses have joined in, from language learning app Duolingo to bank Monzo, all creating their own personalized “year in review” summaries — other music streaming apps like That with Apple Music and Amazon Music.

Professor Jonathan Wilson, professor of brand strategy and culture at Regent University London, thinks there’s a prime motive for people to share these year-end reviews – especially on apps that people use for fitness. And use it to track their noble activities like education. .

“It’s like bragging but without the selfie,” he explains. “A lot of people don’t want to take selfies for a variety of reasons but one of them is that people feel a bit creepy, that it’s a bit addictive.”

He says people share information on social media if it “improves the image we want to project publicly about who we are and who we want to align ourselves with”.

Apps like Strava will tell you how much you’ve run or cycled this year, while Duolingo will tell you how many hours you’ve spent learning a second language.

Goodreads gives you photos you can share on social media showing the books you’ve read this year, with details about average page length and your top genres.

“Data is a great way to be humble, as opposed to taking selfies in all your best clothes surrounded by all your best people and stuff,” Professor Wilson adds.

“It’s less bragging and more evidence-based,” agrees Caroline Wertz, professor of marketing at City, University of London.

“It’s now an item in the calendar,” says Professor Wertz. “We wait for the John Lewis Christmas ad, we also wait for our Spotify wrap.”

Other brands jumping on the bandwagon include Tesco and Sainsbury’s for your favorite groceries, Trainline and Uber for your frequent commutes, Monzo and Lloyds for your spending habits, Xbox and Nintendo for your gaming. .

Professor Wilson tells the BBC that this copycat behavior was inevitable – the prospect of people promoting a company or product seemed too good to pass up.

As Dr. Brooks says: “It’s free advertising for them.”

Some of the year’s review features are more tongue-in-cheek, which brands hope can make them more enviable, and shareable, to their customers, these experts say.

People generally don’t post information about their financial situation on social media. But Monzo has found a way to make their year worth analyzing by letting people know if they’re among the top spenders at Greggs.

Reddit tells users the distance they’ve scrolled, measured in bananas.

And although Professor Wilson says people generally don’t want to post trivial things on social media, such as “what kind of bread roll they bought,” Sainsbury’s shows shoppers whether they can buy certain products in their local area. were the biggest buyers.

It has moved people forward. Boasting online About being a top consumer of paprika, toilet cleaner or pickled cucumbers.

Annual reviews may raise questions about how much data companies collect. It is widely understood that the majority of apps and websites that one can use are collecting huge reams of data, which they use for marketing purposes.

Dr. Brooks suggests that “people tend to blindly accept online privacy preferences” because they want to continue doing whatever they visit a website to do.

She says data privacy is “not as big an issue as it used to be”. “If it results in us getting more targeted advertising, most people I’ve talked to are fine with that.”

And although people like to keep some information about themselves private, they seem to be somewhat wary of sharing their hobbies and pastimes online.

“Paradoxically, when you share a selfie, you’re sharing much less information about yourself than you would with data,” says Professor Wilson. “People feel more comfortable doing that than sharing their photo.”