Scientist says Spotify Wrapped is a master class in behavioral science
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There are a lot of traditions associated with this time of year — gift giving, baking, resolutions, long lists of events that’ve happened over the previous 12 months, to name just a few.
But not many of them generate the same buzz as a musical tradition enjoyed by users of a specific streaming platform: Spotify Wrapped.
It tells us things like what genre we listened to the most, how many times we played our top song and how many minutes we spent listening during the year about to end. And Karl Purcell says it provides our musical story of the year.
Purcell is senior behavioral scientist with Irrational Labs, which is a global behavioral design firm. He’s written about why this Spotify feature is so popular.
'I think people think that music tells us a lot about who we are, right?'
I'd like to start with something you wrote in your piece on this, which is that: "Spotify Wrapped isn't just a clever marketing tool. It's a master class in behavioral science." What do you mean by that?
KARL PURCELL: Well, behavioral science is really the study of how humans behave or why we do the things we do or sometimes why we don't do the things that we should do. And I think what is really interesting looking at Spotify app is they use a lot of clever insights from psychology to demonstrate the value of Spotify to us, right? So they help us compare ourselves to others. So they use social comparison.
So, you know, I listened to 10,000 minutes of the 1975 this year, while you only listen to 8,000, that gives us an opportunity to kind of compare. And they do a lot of things to try and hook our curiosity by asking us questions about who do we think our top artist was on Spotify in order to get us to click into it in the first place and they really take advantage of as well, right? Because these are all of our favorite songs we've been listening to for the last year. So it, it really is a master class in behavioral science here.
It's interesting when you talk about the, the comparison, like I wonder if in addition to comparing the number of minutes, like if there's a, hey, I'm a bigger, you know, Taylor Swift fan than you or I like more obscure artists than you do. You know, my taste is more eclectic than yours. Like, does that play a role here as well?
PURCELL: I think so completely. They do a really nice job of kind of breaking up the stats in a couple of different ways to make it an interesting way. To compare people. So sometimes they'll tell you something exactly like that. So your top artist was Lizzy McAlpine or the 1975 right?
And other times they'll give you kind of more personalized things. So, one of the statistics I got was you've created a lot of playlists in comparison to most users and then they give me this identity. They say I'm the alchemist because I can create playlists from nothing, which is super interesting.
How did it make you feel when you saw that?
PURCELL: Yeah, it makes you gives you a little bit of an ego boost, right? It makes you feel like, hey, I'm I'm special. I use Spotify in a little bit different way and and maybe like I create and tailor my music tastes for myself, right? Using, using playlists.
Is there something specific about music that makes this kind of thing easier, maybe more successful? Because, as you write, other companies trying to do this, there are other, you know, entities that try to have sort of a year in review here, here's what you did, you know, in, you know, name the field over the course of the last 12 months. But it seems like Spotify Wrapped is, is maybe, maybe a little more successful.
PURCELL: Yeah, I think that's right. I think, I think it's a little bit of yes and no. So I think on the yes side, you know, I think people think that music tells us a lot about who we are, right? The type of personality that we have and you know, the way that we form social connections with other, if we have a band that we like in common, maybe we're more likely to kind of hang out and chat. But I think other businesses can do this well, as long as they keep like a couple of things in mind.
So one, I guess the point of Spotify app from Spotify's perspective is to kind of demonstrate value, right? You listened a lot for such a low price of $16.99 a month and sparking that curiosity in comparison.
So to give you an example of someone who I think could do a little better in this space is, I don't know if you've ever used Resy the dining app to make a reservation. And so they let you kind of book a restaurant, right? So you can go online and find a restaurant reservation for like the hot new restaurant in your area. But one of the insight, yeah, and so one of the insights that they gave this year to me was, you know, dinner was your favorite time to dine out, which probably isn't a massive insight for the typical person, right?
Yeah, so I think there's ways to do it well and then there's opportunities for other companies to, to do this and to demonstrate their value. But you just got to make it interesting, right? You got, you got to give real insight and spark that curiosity and that comparison.
Well, it's interesting when you talk about like, where you're making your reservations because I can imagine other, you know, food service type platforms, maybe not having as much success. Like, I don't know that somebody, an Instacart user for example, wants to know, you know, what kind of granola bars they order the most or, you know, if, if you use Doordash or Uber Eats or one of those, like where you tend to order from the most? Like, do those seem like the kind of things that platforms might try to do to get in on this but maybe wouldn't have the same kind of impact?
PURCELL: Yeah, I think, I think you're 100% spot on there, right? I don't think anyone wants to get the message that, hey, you order take out 300 times this year, right? So I think it's like important for a company who might be thinking about kind of emulating Spotify Wrapped to think about, is this product or this statistic or whatever, I'm going to tell the user about themselves, something that might trigger a sense of joy or trigger a regret? And if it's the latter, maybe it's not something we want to do, right.
Well, and it also, as you've been talking about, seems like if you can trigger a sense of, this service is valuable to me, all the better.
PURCELL: Oh, absolutely. I mean, that's exactly why I think these platforms like Spotify, like Netflix, they have an opportunity to do it so well because in reality, they are such a great deal. Right. For us, at least like Spotify $16.99 a month and getting to listen to, I think my statistic was over 42,000 minutes in the year, to all of my favorite artists like that. That does work out as a great deal in the end, for, at least for the listener.
I guess Netflix could tell you like, how many episodes of "Seinfeld" you watched over the course of the year or something like that?
PURCELL: Yeah, absolutely. Or could tell me how many episodes of "The Golden Bachelor" I did. Maybe I don't want to know.
Well, so, I mean, that's interesting because like, it could be, that's a good example, maybe of ones that could be good or could be bad, right? Like having the recap on that kind of could go either way, right?
PURCELL: I think so. And I think this is why companies can benefit from, you know, thinking through these things, from a behavioral science perspective, trying to understand, you know, what are the things that are likely to trigger curiosity, joy, nostalgia in the way that Spotify does, and what are the things that might trigger regret or other kind of guilty emotions, let's say.
I'm wondering about the impact of something like Spotify Wrapped sort of reminding us maybe of music that we had listened to earlier in the year. You talked about nostalgia, you know, maybe there was a band that was hot in January. We're really into, you know, in the first part of the year that, you know, maybe we forgot about or, you know, we can say exactly. Oh, I listened to this number of bands, like it feels like I learned a lot of new music. I found a lot of music this year, but this tells me exactly how much new music I found.
PURCELL: Yeah, it's great. It's kind of adding another sense of value to the product, right? It's not just a listening platform, it's a music discovery platform. And so you can kind of demonstrate the multiple sides of value that your business has. If you can kind of unearth those insights, I think nostalgia is exactly the right word to use here. Like one of the statistics I got was I think I listened to a specific the 1975 song like 300 times or something incredible like that. But it was funny to see that because it also triggered a sense of nostalgia because my wife and I had been to their concert earlier this year and I got to think back on that fond memory, right? That all kind of becomes a positive association then in my mind.
Well, so do you think that this kind of year in review kind of thing that we get from Spotify and others, like, is this gonna continue to be a thing that that companies and platforms do? Like, is this gonna continue to be as popular as it seems to be right now?
PURCELL: I think so, I think you're going to see more and more companies try this and I think some will get it right and some might struggle a little bit. And so I think thinking through those factors that we've been talking about are really the important ones to get right to make sure it doesn't either fizzle out or completely backfire.
