Spotify, Brené Brown and the ways we tell stories
How Spotify understands their strength as a means of expression and storytelling and their investments in video and partnerships with storytellers like Brené Brown tell us where they may be headed.
The year is 2028. I put on my VR headset and navigate to Spotify. I tune into Joe Rogan’s recent interview with Elon Musk to talk about SpaceX’s second successful crewed mission to Mars on the Starship. I’m transported to Rogan’s studio in Austin, Texas. The air seems a little smoky. I settle in for what I’m sure is going to be a 3 hour long extravaganza. Ok ok — I kid…but I’m bullish about Spotify want to share three reflections on Brené Brown, Spotify’s move into video and the evolving ways we tell stories.
1. Story telling is central to the human experience. While we think of platforms like Spotify, YouTube or TikTok in binary terms like audio or video, they are mechanisms that allow people to tell stories, directly or indirectly.
Soundtracks are stories. Books are stories. Podcasts are stories. Memes are stories. Movies are stories. Videos on TikTok, live streaming on Twitch, snaps on Snapchat and well, stories on Instagram are all different ways to tell stories. Podcast interviews allow the interviewer to tease out the interviewee’s story. Curating playlists and sharing them allow me to tell my story indirectly through my choice of songs and the life experiences that influenced these choices.
TikTok has become the phenomenal success that it is today because it allowed creators to tell strange, funny and musical stories easily. Their machine learning expertise then brings these stories to us, guessing our preferences a little better every time. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent streaming session on Twitch drew an audience of over 400,000 people. She played a game called Among Us while talking about her healthcare platform and encouraging people to get out and vote. More storytelling in unique ways.
Spotify understands the strength of their platform as a means of expression and storytelling and the addition of Brené Brown to their repertoire of podcast hosts is telling. Her quote below hits on how she sees music being a part of her expression on Spotify.
“In addition to the podcasts, you’ll find full playlists from me and mini mixtapes from my guests. Music has the power to connect us and remind us of the one thing that truly matters when we are searching for comfort, celebration, inspiration, or healing: We are not alone. There’s going to be so much music!”
Spotify’s recently also announced that they are testing the ability for podcast hosts to use complete songs in their shows — any song that exists on Spotify. Hosts can play entire songs without having to worry about licensing or copyright concerns and listeners can even save songs for later. Think about how this will continue to disrupt the world of radio. Beyond that think about how this can make the storytelling experience, with or without video, even richer.
2. Spotify could become a very serious contender in the video space. Spotify has aggressively moved into podcasting over the last couple years. Podcasting brought with it the natural opportunity to expand into video which they did in July of this year. The deal estimated to be over a $100 million to bring Joe Rogan into the Spotify-verse made this even more apparent. Rogan’s YouTube channel has over 10 million subscribers with almost all his podcast videos racking up over a million views each. His podcast with Elon Musk has over 18 million views and the episode with former Presidential candidate Kanye West has brought in over 10 millions views so far. With Rogan’s show moving exclusively to Spotify at the end of this year, the case for Spotify continuing to invest in video becomes very strong. While there are concerns that they are infringing on an open podcast ecosystem and moving away from the RSS standard it can’t be argued that they have made themselves a force quickly and strategically.
Spotify has also announced a multi-year partnership with DC to bring the “vast universe of iconic DC super heroes and super villains to Spotify” as part of a podcast series in 2021. The current plan is narrative only but it does make me wonder.
In addition to video podcasting they have already invested in the mechanics to allow for video advertising including what Spotify calls Streaming Ad Insertion, which allows ads to be inserted into shows in real time, based on what they know about the user. While the proposition of ads isn’t very compelling to you or me, it’s more compelling to brands and creators looking to earn from the platform.
Note that Spotify did attempt to get into video in 2016 and failed. The difference, in my opinion, was that they focused at the time on distributing content created by large networks like ESPN and Comedy Central as compared to their approach today, connecting creators and consumers and cutting out the middleman (i.e., networks) almost entirely.
3. There is a misconception that the content creation environment is saturated and that we don’t have the room or attention for more. Yes, there are a host of creators and influencers but in reality many of these markets are just getting started. While the examples I’ve referenced here are very successful entrepreneurs like Joe Rogan and Brené Brown what I haven’t hit on is the room for unending niches of content creation by less well known or unknown content creators. The rise of paid newsletters on Substack begin to prove this out.
The content creation and distribution universe is only expanding as technology, platforms and means of expression continue to evolve. The pressure is on us as consumers as to where we choose to direct our attention.
If you look just at podcasting — the industry as a whole generated $708 million in advertising revenue last year growing almost 50% YoY. That seems like phenomenal growth and it is but it barely compares to the $15 billion that YouTube generated in the same period, growing at over 30% YoY. The begins to show the massive room for growth across different areas of content creation.
If you look just as Brené Brown you’ll see that she is telling stories on a number of different platforms in slightly different ways. The screenshots below give you a glimpse of this but don’t even include Spotify directly. The two on the left are from her Instagram page and direct our attention to her collaboration with Spotify through her Instagram stories. The images on the right include a popular podcast she’s been a guest on (with videos hosted on YouTube) and one of her popular TED talks from 2013.
Storytellers are going to find ways to tell stories. The diversity of platforms and abundance of content doesn’t mean they will pause or stop. The platforms that allow them to maximize their ease in doing so while also maximizing their audience will continue to be dominant forces.
Daniel Ek launched Spotify about 12 years ago in 2008 and is playing the long game. There isn’t much question that Spotify is the dominant force in streaming audio already so it isn’t surprising that they are charting the course to do a lot more over the next 12 years.
