Spotify has launched Spotify Hits, a new initiative that celebrates effective advertising campaigns that ran on the streaming platform in the past year.
Spotify said it will celebrate the brands that proved great creative can lead to even greater campaign results.
Brian Berner, head of global sales and partnerships at Spotify, said: “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.”
The five winners include:
Best Overall Campaign: Celebrity Cruises (PHD)
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.
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. This campaign also broke new ground in New Zealand, as the first-ever to include a Nielsen Brand Effects report.
Best Audience Strategy: Dan Murphy’s (Carat)
The liquor retailer partnered with Spotify for the ‘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.
Most Creative Test Hypothesis: Asahi / Great Northern Brewing Co. (1house and 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—the brand partnered with Spotify to produce 3D audio ads with both male and female voice overs.
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.