Soundtrack of Consumption : An exploratory study of Spotify playlist’s potential use for commercial purposes.

Abstract: There are not a lot things that can be enjoyed by so many people as music. It is one of the few activities that crosses cultures, generations, social classes and languages. Music is also a natural part of marketing and is used in a variety of ways such as commercials, in-store music, brand collaborations and more. This report investigates the potential of Spotify’s music streaming platform for use in the field of marketing. Spotify has since its’ launch in 2006 grown to be one of the largest consumer streaming services, and publically launched a business orientated service in 2014. With a user base of over 40 million people, it is an interesting option for customer-brand interaction. To gather information, existing studies and literature were studied to gain a broader picture of the subject, a consumer study consisting of in-depth interviews and a case study was conducted to investigate possible ways of catering to consumers, and experts within the fields of commercial use of music were interviewed to gain relevant information as well as their views on the future of the subject. The outcome of this report is that brands have an opportunity to improve customer-brand relations by helping consumers to find new music, primarily through in-store music in physical retail environments, but further studies are needed to examine results of such activities. The execution depends on existing brand associations, type of brand as well as size and type of target consumers. In short, a playlist needs to be aligned to the brand in order to avoid mixed signals in communications, and attention needs to be paid to what not to play equally to what to play.