SUA23083451 – SHR5E020P~001
Bad Bunny “Debí tirar mas fotos” Album Jan 2025
Bad Bunny’s latest album release, “Debí tirar mas fotos,” has been his most significant and most successful project yet, managing to become the most-streamed artist for the fourth time on Spotify worldwide in 2025. A success that also led him to be the halftime act at the massive event that will be the Super Bowl (2026). This album, as he has stated before, is a love letter to Puerto Rico.
His impeccable use of marketing and branding strategies led him to be able to reach a large number of people and capture their attention, from not knowing who he was to having them become fans and engage with his content, stream his music, and invest in his products, as well as talk about him.
His rebel spirit, his love for his country, his protest against injustice, his loud and authentic passion for his culture and preservation of it led him to capture the world’s attention in a way he never had before.
An artist’s identity and the way the audience perceives their authenticity are key elements of their brand.
If we analyse this marketing strategy using the branding theory focused on identity and authenticity, we will find that Bad Bunny’s branding has always stood out for seeming authentic;
Authentic and true to the ideals he preaches, to his cultural identity, to his political views, to the lifestyle he leads. All these elements are cohesive with each other and with the way he has always acted. This album is a political and societal protest against colonialism, the displacement of natives, immigration, gentrification, and other issues that Puerto Rico, his native country, is currently experiencing.
He has always publicly spoken out about these issues, and he is known for using his platform to shine a light on Puerto Rico.
Listeners have perceived him as honest and have been touched by his lyrics, storytelling, and his love for his country. This also helped people in similar situations relate to and follow his career and music closely.
He built his image around being bold, resilient, rebellious, passionate, and sensitive. Calling for the people to resist, to never give up, to love where they come from and fight for the place they call home.
Another factor that helped this album succeed is its heavy emotional branding and appeal. Bad Bunny used his own emotions about Puerto Rico, expressing them openly and vulnerably and tapping into feelings of nostalgia, love, belonging, and ancestry.
The album’s themes, visuals, and rollouts come together to create a story the audience can live and celebrate, almost as if they were experiencing it with him, thanks to its immersive nature and how relatable it is for some people.
His lyrics are very much self-explanatory in how deeply he feels about the topics he sings about; he loves his country, he is frustrated with the political and societal state of it, and he feels for his people. The name of the album itself is very nostalgic, “Debí tirar mas fotos,” which means “I should’ve taken more pictures,” referring to the remembrance of the island he used to know and has changed, and the things and the people he no longer has.
The visuals are meant to evoke nostalgic emotions among a targeted group of people, mostly Puerto Ricans. He portrays Puerto Rico in a beautiful, real way.
He put a lot of his memories of growing up in Puerto Rico into this album. He took elements from things you would find in any latin American backyard like the particular white plastic chairs that are a constant element in the visuals of the album and audiovisual elements of it (music videos and album cover), by doing this he managed to get the attention of not only Puerto Ricans but also Latin American countries that are struggling through similar issues and curiously most share the same memory of watching the time pass with their loved ones while sitting in white plastic chairs in their backyard.
(Album cover)
(Music Videos that feature the chairs1)
Most of the songs on this album went viral very quickly, and fans created TikTok and Instagram trends with them. Fans were encouraged to co-create and become part of promoting the songs every time a video was made using the sound. The amount of fan engagement these songs got made them stand out and reach a significant number of people.
One trend was that Spanish-speaking people started translating songs on TikTok and posting their English meanings, which led to the album’s exposure to an even wider community worldwide. From then on, English-speaking people began relating to the songs and giving meaning to the themes and lyrics in ways that spoke to them. All of these are based primarily on nostalgia, like another trend that featured the title track “DtMF” (Debí tirar mas fotos/ I should’ve taken more pictures), where people would make montages of memories of something, somewhere, or someone they no longer had.
Then, famous people started jumping on the trends, which led to their wider viralization.
(Steve Aoki´s TikTok about his dad using the “DtMF” sound with the caption “wish I had more photos, miss you dad”)
The other most popular trend was with the song titled “Lo que le pasó a Hawaii,” which means “What happened to Hawaii”. The song talks about Puerto Rico and its colonization, as well as the gentrification and erasure of the language and culture, and the displacement of the native people, which is exactly what happened to Hawaii. The main lyric in the chorus says, “I don’t want what happened to Hawaii to happen to you,” which immediately caught the attention of countries facing the same problems. People from all over the world, from Latin America to Palestine, started using this sound to post videos of their culture and express their fear of its erasure.
This song calls out for resistance and resilience.
(Tiktok using “lo que le paso a Hawaii” in a protest calling for a ceasefire in Palestine)
All of this, and the topics touched on in this album, sparked a lot of discourse on social media about topics that are not usually as widely discussed as they should be.
Another thing he did to have fans engage before he even released the album was to post coordinates instead of song names on the poster when the album was announced. This, then had people engaged and looking for the locations on Google Maps.
All of the coordinates led to spots in Puerto Rico with the names of the songs written on them.
People on social media made many videos looking for the locations.
(album poster with coordinates posted by Spotify’s official Instagram account)
(screenshots of Google Maps with the location of the coordinates with the song titles)
His approach here was to evoke confusion and mystery.
Before posting the coordinates, he vanished all Instagram posts and grids, posted symbols that fans spent weeks decoding, he did “random” live pop-up appearances that shut down entire blocks, and then explained nothing, which led to Spanish media to post constantly about this and decoding the messages, which caused lots of engagement from way before the album was even announced. At this point, it wasn’t even about the music, it was about getting the audience engaged and making them an active part of it.
The approach he has taken to promote and market his brand is very successful at appealing to fans’ self-concept and identification with his work. As stated before, Bad Bunny often explores the concepts of national identity, nostalgia, grief, and love. He released this album at a time in the world when many countries are going through a similar political situation. A lot of people from all over the world can relate to his lyrics and his genuine pain and grief when he talks about the fear that the history of everything he’s ever known could be rewritten. Fans can see him fighting for this cause and joining him because he is consistent with his actions and the words he preaches.
His cultural branding is evident in the messages he delivers to the audience.
He supports and is part of a social movement in Puerto Rico called “No Me dejo,” which means “I won’t let them,” and it’s a movement that ousted former governor Ricky Rosselló. This movement sparked a shift in ideology about the political state of Puerto Rico.
(Bad Bunny speaking for the “No me dejo” movement)
To add more cultural weight to his album, he hired Professor Jorell Melendez Badillo, who specializes in Latin American history, decolonization, anticolonialism, anarchism, and the working classes. Jorell was hired to create visualizers for the YouTube videos of this album, featuring information that educates about the issues in Puerto Rico and its culture. They look at the history of colonialism and movements that have happened on the island, as well as musical influences. His goal was to present general history and spread anti-colonial ideology. That, combined with the short film2 he released about nostalgia in Puerto Rico as part of his project material, and the eight music videos he released for the album that talk about life in Puerto Rico and struggles, really brings everything together and makes every element connect.
“This is not only a musical record, this is a cultural and historic project” – Jorell Meléndez Badillo, 2025, The Take, Youtube.3
(Youtube visualizers for the songs on the album)
All these efforts to be authentic to his ideals and morals have really paid off, giving him a loyal fanbase who want to see someone speak out about real-life problems, as well as making the actual product (the album) something enjoyable that evokes strong emotions in them. Bad Bunny has always been very grateful for the people who support him, and he gives back. This album speaks for itself when it comes to sound quality, emotional content, and impact. That is what Bad Bunny’s fans have learnt to expect from him and what leads to his fanbase to co-create with what he delivers.
“If you actually deliver the best service in town, you’ve given this audience the tools they need to spread your service story.” (Godin, 2011)4
Bad Bunny and his work fit well with the growing appeal of Latin music. He managed to find his place in the broader global market and became a world music phenomenon who continues to top charts, including Spotify’s most-streamed artist in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2025. Rivaling artists like Taylor Swift in sales and tours. Also, boosting acceptance of Latin music, breaking language barriers, and serving as a fashion influence and a worldwide tourism draw. He now sets standards for music marketing.
“Bad Bunny’s music hasn’t just made an impact for the artist: It’s also contributed to the growth of reggaeton and trap Latino worldwide. Reggaeton listening grew 147% from 2018-2020, and trap Latino listening grew 187% in the same timeframe. Meanwhile, newcomers are still finding and falling in love with Bad Bunny’s music. Over the past 90 days, 95 million listeners played one of his tracks for the first time, with 51% of those plays occurring outside of Spanish-speaking markets.” (Spotify, 2022)5
To conclude, it is safe to say that Bad Bunny reached a vast audience with his message through clever branding and marketing strategies. Leading him to become the most-streamed artist globally more than a few times now and surpassing big pop stars in numbers and engagement. His success is testimony to the fact that a great product backed by great marketing can break language, cultural, and ideological barriers.
Bibliography
Links and references
1 Music Videos that feature the chairs.
-Bad Bunny (2025) BAD BUNNY ft. Chuwi – WELTiTA (Video Oficial) | DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmbyVU9w47Y&list=PLRW7iEDD9RDT_19SQk3uKFkJ-UCA_uGr7Y&index=8
-Bad Bunny (2025) BAD BUNNY – PIToRRO DE COCO (Video Oficial) | DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVgd4gvY0hU&list=PLRW7iEDD9RDT_19SQk3uKFkJUCA_uGr7Y&index=21
2 DtMF Short film
-Bad Bunny (2025) BAD BUNNY – DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (Short Film). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLSzEYVDads&list=PLRW7iEDD9RDT_19SQk3uKFkJUCA_uGr7Y&index=1
3 Al Jazeera English (2025), Why is Bad Bunny’s ‘DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS’ striking a global chord? | The Take. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C314XSx9zlo&t=85s
4 Godin, S. (2011), All Marketers are Liars, USA, Penguin
5 Spotify | For the record (2022) Spotify Celebrates 3 Years of Record-Breaking Bad Bunny Streaming With a Mexico City Fiesta. Available at: https://newsroom.spotify.com/2022-12-13/spotify-celebrates-3-years-of-record-breaking-bad-bunny-streaming-with-a-mexico-city-fiesta/#:~:text=Bad%20Bunny’s%20music%20hasn’t,TOUR%20DEL%20MUNDO%20(%2321)
-LabelGrid (2025), The Music Marketing Masterclass Behind Bad Bunny’s ‘Debí Tirar Más Fotos’ Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afEbBimBA80
