Spotify voting initiative
The company wide 2020 campaign might not have happened if it wasn’t for a few designers inserting themselves in 2018.
Some of the messages we sent in the 2020 voting campaign
START SOMEWHERE •
START SOMEWHERE •
Where it all started
It was mid 2018 when I entered full despair. There had been many moments when the state of the country was giving me anxiety, but there was a particular political moment in 2018 that pushed me over the edge. I was questioning my job, my purpose, and my impact. I felt helpless.
What if we got Spotify to do something?
I told a colleague how I was feeling: “I just want to do something. I want Spotify to do something!” We were commiserating about how we felt helpless. But then we started brainstorming. What if we did do something? What if we got Spotify to do something? The midterm elections were only a few months away. It sounded insane to try to convince one of the biggest brands in the world to get involved in the U.S. elections (especially when it isn’t even an American company), but what did we really have to lose by trying?
The mock we shopped around to see if we could convince the company to try something voting related
We took our mock to the social impact team. They were shocked Spotify had the capability to message users in the app.
Big companies have a lot of siloes. Never assume people know what each team is capable of.
We sent state specific messages the week before the midterms
Each state got its own playlist of songs that indexed higher in that state
We wanted to keep the focus on the states, since midterms are state specific elections
The 2018 campaign was an essential step towards the massive 2020 initiative
In 2018, we were in uncharted territory. Spotify had never run such a targeted election campaign, and we’d never used our in-app messaging system for non Spotify related content. We weren’t sure how the press would respond, and more importantly, how our users would respond. So we tread with purpose but we tread relatively lightly. We didn’t send a message about voter registration in case we got pushback, which could’ve prevented us from running the full campaign.
2018 was our MVP. It let us test the waters, learn from the process, anticipate cross-company collaboration challenges, and ultimately prepared us for the presidential election.
2020 Election •
2020 Election •
The 2020 campaign
The biggest social impact campaign Spotify has ever run.
We created a hub of resources to make sure everyone was prepared to vote
We got Gen-Z artists to use the platform to send target messages to first time voters, which we determined based on age
We sent song inspired prompts to fans of specific songs
In 2020, Spotify went way beyond a playlist and a reminder to vote. With a massive push from the Brand + Creative team, along with the Social Impact team, we had a full campaign including multiple in-app messages inspired by songs; voting messages from artists; voting encouragement for artists; first-time voter prompts; election PSAs on podcasts; a dedicated site for voter registration; a dedicated site for voting; early voting info; absentee info; a toolkit for podcasters; a toolkit for artists, and making a plan to vote reminders. We also had a hub of election topics and info, and an internal ambassador program focused on educating employees and helping them get registered. If 2018 was the MVP, 2020 was the splashy public launch.
VOTING CAN BE FUN •
VOTING CAN BE FUN •
Inspired by the “I Voted” stickers you get at the polls, we created a bunch of voting inspired stickers that we used as assets pretty much everywhere—especially on playlist covers.
Playlist cover takeover with vote stickers
Podcast cover takeover with vote stickers
Takeaways from the experience
Stepping out of my day-to-day role and helping with the various campaigns was eye-opening in more ways than I can count. I’m really proud of the work we achieved on these various campaigns, which I wrote about in this article for Spotify Design. 2018 was scrappy as hell, and we still reached hundreds of thousands of people and helped them find their polling location. 2020 showed what a true company-wide initiative could look like. I’m proud that the spark of an idea on a rooftop turned into a fire that’s still burning at the company 5 year later.
Press coverage 2018 midterm election:
“It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.”
— Squarespace