Spotify Targets ‘Top Fans’ With Messages

Last week, Spotify sent some unspecified portion of its hundreds of millions of users a message. The message told those users something important, reports The NYTimes.

“You are one of Taylor Swift’s top fans worldwide,” one iteration of this message said. “You’re one of their top 1% fans. Hit Play on their radio and we’ll provide an endless stream of their music.”

People received similar messages about a wide array of artists in the app: Kendrick Lamar, the Barenaked Ladies, Tove Lo, the Doors and many, many more. The Spotify users weren’t always in the top one percent of fans; some messages claimed listeners ranked in the top two or three percent of the artists’ fans.

Many reacted to these messages as Spotify might have hoped they would, sharing them with friends and with followers on social media. Regina Anderson, 22, was one of many people told they were among Ms. Swift’s top fans and who, upon receiving the message, broadcast it widely.

But something struck Anderson, a communications assistant in Washington, D.C., about the message.

“The way that they phrase it is a little weird,” she said. “It just seems odd. I guess one percent of Taylor Swift’s monthly listeners is 300,000 or something like that.” She wondered how many other people had received the same message.

Peter Collins, a spokesperson for Spotify, declined to provide any information on how many fans received them, how the percentages were calculated or what it meant to be in a top percentile of an artist’s fan base.  He classifed the messages as a “test.”

“At Spotify, we routinely conduct a number of tests in an effort to improve our user experience,” he said in a statement. “Some of those tests end up paving the path for our broader user experience and others serve only as an important learning. We aren’t going to comment on specific tests at this time.”

Like many other media platforms, Spotify has made no secret of its practice of collecting user data. It often incorporates that data into its marketing, feeding it back to users in order to promote itself. This practice is most prominent during its annual year-end Spotify Wrapped marketing campaign, in which the streaming platform provides users with a short presentation about their most-played artists and songs. In late 2019, Spotify Wrapped allowed users a window into their listening habits since 2010.