After watching "The Merchant of Cool" documentary, I realized as laughable as the marketing strategies were in our eyes, it probably had a significant effect on teens of that generation. Today, companies are continuing to adapt to the ever changing culture and demographics by employing strategies to captivate teens just as they had done in the documentary. One of the most successful examples of this is Spotify, a music streaming service that has 124 million paid premium subscribers out of the 271 million active users. These stats show that Spotify has successfully appealed to the values of self-expression and identity of our generation. They do this through a number of ways.
One thing Spotify does is that it customizes the content you see based on your listening and search history. This allows them to constantly target each individual user with certain genres of music they might like, giving the user a more customized experience. On top of that, Spotify uses algorithms to generate playlists that are custom made for each individual user. This further illustrates how Spotify creates a sort of feedback loop where the more the user interacts with it, the more it is tailored to the user and the user's definition of what music is "cool".
The not so shocking reality is that the marketing strategies we saw in the documentary is effective even today. The only difference is that it has evolved and adapted to cultural shifts. Instead of MTV, ads are now being shown on social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube.
Sources: https://newsroom.spotify.com/company-info/
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This was an interesting read. I use spotify a lot, so I have definitely seen these aspects of marketing that you mentioned in the creation of playlists and the way they promote music to their users. I also want to point out the other forms of advertising that they share such as advertisements for non-premium users as well as concerts. A lot of times I'll get a notification or an email that promotes the concert of an artist that I listen to (sometimes it's even artists that I've listened to a only a few times). This resonated with me in terms of the idea of the feedback loop in which many different products/services are being advertised to a user at the same time.
ReplyDeleteThis post was really interesting to think about just how far Spotify goes to make the most enjoyable experience for the user. You showed how they use information to customize content, but they also use that information on you to sell to other companies for ads, and they also have an option for people to pay to not see ads. They use the data they collect on you to refine your experience and also make tons of money with the way that they handle ads on their platform. To be able to market ads and make a strong feedback loop shows just how dedicated Spotify is to their marketing.
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