‘It’s bragging rights without selfies’ – Spotify Wrapped and the rise of its imitators

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

That’s because since 2016, at the end of every year, Spotify releases Wrapped. The campaign aggregates what users listened to most and usually includes their top songs, artists and genres.

It has now “taken over every possible social media platform known to man,” says Dr Gillian Brooks, a lecturer in strategic marketing at King’s College London.

She says its wrapped feature works so well because music is personal and people enjoy the nostalgia of seeing the 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 — like Apple Music and Amazon Music. With other music streaming apps.

Professor Jonathan Wilson, professor of brand strategy and culture at Regent University London, believes there is an ulterior motive for people sharing these year-end reviews – particularly on apps people use for fitness and health. To keep an eye on your noble activities like education. ,

“It’s like bragging rights but without the selfies,” he explains. “A lot of people don’t want to take selfies for various reasons, but one of them is that people feel a little nervous, that it comes across as a little narcissistic. Is.”

He says, people share information on social media if it “enhances the image that we want to portray publicly about who we are and who we want to associate ourselves with”.

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

Goodreads provides you with images you can share on social media showcasing the books you’ve read this year, including average page length and details of your top genres.

“Data is actually a good way to have humble bragging, rather than actually having a selfie of yourself in all your best clothes surrounded by all your best people and stuff,” says Professor Wilson.

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

“It’s a thing in the calendar now,” says Professor Wiertz. “We wait for the John Lewis Christmas advert, we also wait to get our Spotify wrapped.”

Other brands jumping on the bandwagon include Tesco and Sainsbury’s for your favorite groceries, Trainline and Uber for your most frequent journeys, 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 seems too good to pass up.

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

These experts say that features have become more talked about during reviews in a few years, leading brands to hope they can make them more relatable and shareable to their customers.

People generally do not post information about their financial situation on social media. But Monzo has found a way to make its year in review shareable, by letting people know if they’re among the biggest spenders at Greggs.

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

And although Professor Wilson says people don’t generally want to post mundane things on social media, like “what kind of bread roll they bought”, Sainsbury’s shows shoppers if they’re looking for the top picks for certain products in their local area. Were buyers.

it has moved people forward rant online About being a top consumer of paprika, toilet cleaner or pickled cucumber.

Features that are reviewed year after year may raise questions about how much data companies collect. It is widely understood that most of the apps and websites that one may use are collecting large amounts of data, which they use for marketing purposes.

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

“Data privacy is no longer as big an issue as it used to be,” she says. “If we get more targeted advertising as a result, most people I’ve talked to agree with that.”

And although people like to keep some information about themselves private, they have some hesitation about sharing their hobbies and leisure activities online.

“Paradoxically, when you share a selfie you are sharing much less information about yourself than the data shows,” says Professor Wilson. “People seem more comfortable doing this than sharing their own photo.”