Spotify Wrapped is a social media sensation. Its impact on artists and listeners is debatable

For some, it's Christmas. For astronomers, it's the Winter Solstice. But for literally millions of others, December means something different — for them, it's Spotify Wrapped month.

The juggernaut campaign, currently in its sixth officially branded year, packages Spotify users' listening statistics, and musicians' streaming numbers in easily shareable panes. For some music fans, it has come to partially define the holiday season.

It takes over social media for at least a few days after its Dec. 1 premiere, and has grown big enough that other streaming giants have aped it themselves, with both YouTube and Apple Music recently coming out with their own versions.

What began as a small side project has exploded into what is essentially a multi-million dollar ad campaign. The tangible impact of Wrapped on listener statistics is still debatable; as is how much the project boosts Spotify itself, versus the benefit it provides artists. 

It's also unclear why users are so enamoured with the idea of having their private data packaged and sold back to them. One digital rights advocacy group described Wrapped as a "business model ... based on surveillance" in a recent Wired magazine article. 

Jem Aswad, deputy music editor of Variety, said the campaign's real benefit to Spotify is difficult to measure. In a cluttered field of year-end critics' polls and retrospective reviews, it's almost impossible to tease out what had the most impact — despite the fact that app downloads typically increase in December. Spotify downloads jumped by 21 per cent that month in 2020, according to marketing company MoEngage.

That's no small feat for one of the biggest music streaming platforms on Earth. 

Of roughly 525 million subscribers to music streaming services globally, Spotify holds a market share of about 30 per cent, according to Midia Research, an entertainment consultancy. 

Increasing its brand recognition through the Spotify Wrapped campaign is "catnip" for the streaming service and its staff, Aswad said.

The real purpose of Wrapped is users sharing screenshots of the lists provided to them, which prominently includes the Spotify logo, he said. "Because it's both endorsing Spotify in a sort of sidelong way, and it really makes the thing more popular."

But the most powerful aspect is that Wrapped works as both a commercial and a service, he said, helping the promotion gain user interest. 

"The reason that Wrapped and things like it have become the phenomenon that they have …  is it's both about the music and the person," he said "It's a reflection. It is a brilliant use of social media — or the tactics of social media — to enable people to say something about themselves." 

The fact that this kind of project works at all is still something of a mystery to some observers. Concerns over online tracking are simmering. Apple allowed users to turn it off for certain apps earlier this year — threatening Facebook's entire business strategy — so it seems odd that a feature built on sharing personal data would take off. 

But Kimeko McCoy, an Atlanta-based freelance journalist and digital marketer, said this trend can help stoke desire.