Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due: Spotify Wrapped
Spotify Wrapped recently became available for Spotify users to visualize who and what they have been listening to over the course of a year through a visualized experience. In 2021, Spotify Wrapped was shared 60 million times by users. This campaign has created an insane ad value since its start in 2019.
Spotify Wrapped is a creative campaign that allows individuals to recap their years with fun graphics and visuals that excite them. Music brings people together. Spotify Wrapped allows individuals to share a love for something which creates meaningful connections among their audience.
Who is behind all of this, you ask? Jewel Ham, a former Spotify intern, who created a concept to make Spotify Wrapped an interactive experience that encourages others to share with one another. Spotify never credited this young, black, independent artist, and she took her frustration to Twitter in a viral post.
It is important for organizations with such large platforms as Spotify to highlight young black creators rather than overlook and sample their work. There was some dispute online since Ham was just an intern in 2019. Thus, individuals argued that Spotify Wrapped began years ago; how could she be taking credit? While, yes, Spotify Wrapped has been around for several years, it was initially just an email and a playlist of compiled songs played the most throughout a listener’s year. What Jewel Ham created was the interaction of content for it to be displayed as an experience for the user.
With millions of shares and a trending topic of conversation across the globe, the concept Ham created should be credited or compensated for. The amount of ad value brought through this interactive content is existential and exceeds their largest competitor, Apple Music, by far. People want to be apart of the conversation. So much so, they are even willing to go through great lengths to do so, such as photoshop their top songs from Apple Music, as seen below.
Many individuals prefer Spotify because of its exclusivity. Spotify has recently acquired several high-budget exclusive podcasts with some of the largest content creators in the entertainment business. Many factors cause users to be Spotify members over other music streaming platforms, yet I argue that Spotify Wrapped is a large factor in the success of Spotify. It is a feature that brings individuals together to engage with content. This is all thanks to Jewel Ham. It is important for Spotify to give credit where credit is due, especially to a young black female creator.