Charlie Austin-Bride AUS23084607 – Marketing & Branding Portfolio (SHR5E020P~001)

In this essay I will be critically analysing the music brand Spotify. I will be doing this by using marketing and branding theories, and by analysing both audiovisual and written elements that the brand uses. I will also be analysing how they meet the needs of their audiences and how they fit within the wider brand market. Spotify was created in April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It has over 713 million active users and as of September 2025, it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services. [source one].

Since Spotify launched in 2006, it has had many different logos, all but the first with the same familiar shade of green that we know it to have today. It has been said that the green represents growth and vitality and that it brings a sense of freshness to the music streaming industry [source two]. The logo has also created some controversy when it was first changed from the original neon green colouring to the more toned-down shade, and with the three distinct lines in the circle being made slightly more curved. [source three]. It was reported that the new logo being tilted caused some debate on Twitter as people had been unhappy with the change, but nonetheless, Spotify kept the same logo with only a few minor tweaks over the years. However, this upset wasn’t based on the logo being ruined or massively changed and mostly was based on the fact that it had been changed when people couldn’t see any reason for it to be. The logo having the same colour since its original creation is an example of a visual element of Spotify that it uses to create brand recognition and familiarity. Users and consumers always appreciate a brand that has a consistent and familiar theme, logo, or layout. Spotify does a good job of staying relatively similar to how it has always been by using green as a consistent colour for users and consumers (and potential consumers) to recognise it by. Spotify tends to use familiarity to draw people in. When you first open the app, you will notice recommended playlists that you’ve recently listened to, and playlists made specifically for you with songs that you listen to, or that are in the same genre or have some similarity to songs you usually listen to. This really plays into the written elements that Spotify uses to keep its active consumers. People love familiarity, and Spotify plays on this successfully.

Spotify’s target audience is 18-34 year olds. The way that they target this age range is through the personalised playlists that were mentioned in the previous paragraph. Spotify uses analytics and user data in order to build personalised playlists for every one of its users. They recently brought in a personalised AI powered “DJ” that plays different songs from users listening history and even includes new songs that the AI thinks the listener might enjoy based off what they normally listen to. The “DJ” even speaks to the listener every so often, which helps the listener feel even more valued and entices them to keep listening, which is what Spotify wants. Daniel Ek first had the idea of Spotify in 2002 after noticing a gap in the music streaming market, as the only thing similar to what Spotify does was just pirating. He said he “realized that you can never legislate away from piracy. Laws can definitely help, but it doesn’t take away the problem. The only way to solve the problem was to create a service that was better than piracy and at the same time compensates the music industry – that gave us Spotify.” [source four]. Creating a music streaming platform to try and stop piracy seems like a very good idea however, it has come to light in recent years that Spotify underpays its artists, “On The Node” states that “in 2024, Spotify reported a record payout of $10 billion in royalties, which accounts for two thirds of its total revenue. Despite this substantial figure, only 4% of artists on the platform earned a sustainable income for their music.” [source five]. The streaming service also overcharges its users. This is inspiring more and more users to pirate music which was exactly why Spotify was created in the first place. Those that don’t pirate have turned to physical media that they can own instead of having to pay constantly increasing subscriptions every month in order to listen to music on a platform that doesn’t even pay the artists the proper amount of royalties. On the Spotify community page, users have been complaining of the overcharging by the company, with one user reporting, “I’ve been a loyal customer with Spotify for about a year now and I always renew my Premium subscription each month. Originally I was under the impression that a month’s subscription would cost me $9.99. […] But just today I renewed my subscription and my credit card statement reflects that Spotify charged me $16.03. I’m not okay with this. I was never informed that my account would be charged this much, and I don’t know why Spotify feels as if they can just sneak this overcharging right under their customer’s noses.” [source six]. Spotify is pushing away some of its younger audiences due to its increasing use of AI, which means that it is losing its grip on its younger target audiences that had kept it afloat for so many years. On top of this, artists are taking their music off of the platform and leaving it completely due to Daniel Ek’s investments in AI weapons. The Los Angeles Times states that musicians and consumers leaving Spotify due to this recent development in investments are “unlikely to sway Ek, or dislodge Spotify from dominating the record economy. But it may further sour young music fans on Spotify, as many are outraged about wars in Gaza and elsewhere.” [source seven].

One of the branding theories that Spotify utilises is the Social Exchange Theory. This theory states that “music brands can engage fans by offering exclusive content, merchandise, or experiences in return for loyalty and advocacy.” Spotify can be seen using this theory in their specialised playlists which include songs that the user has listened to in the past categorised into genres or feelings. These playlists allow the users to listen to songs that they like with them being put with similar songs, sometimes songs they haven’t listened to before. This benefits the user as they will want to listen to specific music in specific ways when they open up Spotify, so having all of the music they like in a labelled playlist allows them to find what they’re feeling or what genre they’re wanting to listen to and then put that on as soon as they open the app. This could be considered as exclusive content since these playlists are made for each person using artificial intelligence, and this feature is something that users are a big fan of which increases their loyalty to Spotify and attracts users to using it over any of the alternatives. Another unique experience that Spotify offers is that their app has many social features, like messaging, collaborating on playlists, and the ability to send music to other users. This makes a lot of things easier, such as if a playlist was needed for an event or if a small band wanted to share their musical inspirations with the other members, then all that is needed is for a playlist to be created and for the other people to be added to it. This ease of use also increases loyalty because people wouldn’t want to move to another music streaming service that doesn’t have these features and therefore miss out on the opportunities that they bring.

In the last few years, Spotify has increased its news and information features, such as telling people if their favourite bands are performing near them, new releases from featured artists, and albums which are due to be released soon. These methods of marketing are either shown to the user through notifications on their phones or as banners in the Spotify app. This sort of constant engagement helps to build a dedicated audience, which is part of the Relationship Marketing Theory. This theory suggests that through constant engagement, updates and interactions, a brand can develop an audience who will be dedicated to their product. Since Spotify reminds users of what is to come on their platform through notifications and in big banners when they open the app, the users will always be thinking about Spotify, especially when they think about their favourite artists, and especially if Spotify has told them that this artist has a new album coming out soon, for example. Another way Spotify utilises the Relationship Marketing Theory, is through ‘Spotify Wrapped’. This is a compilation of a user’s statistics from throughout their year of using the app, and is usually brough out within the first week of December every year. It compiles things about the user’s listening history such as their most played album, artist, and song. It even goes so far as to group the listeners into different categories based on their preferred music genres and artists. People always want to know about themselves, and Spotify uses this to its advantage, they know that users want to feel special, and they know that this is a genius way of doing it and keeping users engaged. There are even things like knowing if you are in the top 5% or 1%, or even 0.01% of an artist’s listeners, and Spotify knows that fans always want bragging rights.

Overall, it is clear that Spotify is a very successful brand due to the different ways that it draws people in and keeps them intrigued. From personalised playlists to “DJ”s that talk to the customer specifically, to the yearly ‘Spotify Wrapped’ that can be shared with friends and family. Despite the positives of Spotify such as the instant access to a huge library of music and being able to create playlists and share them with friends and family, there are clearly some negatives. The platform does not pay their artists enough to live off and has overcharged customers for their premium subscriptions which allows them to listen to music without ads, and without a limit on how many songs they can skip per hour. Also, one of the creators of the streaming service actively investing in AI weapons brings a huge negative to the app as not only is AI in music is looked down upon by the majority of musicians, but it is also incredibly concerning for people who pay for Spotify because that is where their money is going. Not to mention the moral implications of this. Spotify has even gone so far in its use of AI that the 2025 ‘Spotify Wrapped’ was made entirely by AI, even getting some listeners stats wrong or not entirely correct or accurate. It begs the question, what is the future of Spotify? Ek and Lorentzon are clearly clever businessmen behind the creation of the platform who know what their customers want, and who play on their customers love for music and familiarity, but their seemingly unethical financial and AI uses are making Spotify more and more unpopular especially with younger generations, because they also give platforms to new AI “artists”. Due to the high and constant demand for streaming services, however, it becomes increasingly clear to see that Spotify may remain as one of the dominating music streaming platforms due to the sheer number of consumers still active and paying for their services. Their main competitors include Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music, all of which try to emulate a similar thing to ‘Spotify Wrapped’, yet they don’t quite gain the same traction as Spotify does, and so I believe that Spotify will remain successful for many years to come.

References:

[Source one] –

Wikipedia, January 2026

Spotify – Wikipedia

[Source two] –

Edvido, october 2024

https://www.edvido.com/blog/understanding-spotify-logo-meaning-history-and-evolution

[Source three] –

Mirror Review

The Green Shade ✕ Spotify Logo: A Digital Symbiotic Relationship

[Source four] –

Wikipedia, January 2026