My final project for my Stoytizing class, taught by Bob Pearson! I walk through different digital models (including ABCDE, 1:9:90, and 5 R) to help Spotify solve the problem of an emerging duopoly (them vs. Apple Music).

1. The Future of
Spotify
The Future of
Spotify
Expanding the market share of a company
being forced into a duopoly using storytizing
1Mira McKee (mkm3475) - MKT178 - Pearson

2. COMPANY
BACKGROUND:
REVOLUTIONIZING
DIGITAL MUSIC
Launched in 2008 and headquartered in
Stockholm, Sweden, Spotify is the biggest and
most well-known digital streaming service.
With over 50 million songs and 250 million
users (over 100 million which are paying
subscribers), Spotify is a serious player and
the current category leader in the
music/streaming services sector.
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By realizing and anticipating the desires of
consumers at the time of their launch—to
play music without committing to buying full
albums or individual songs—Spotify took off.
They became one of the first businesses to
perfect what is now known as the "freemium"
model, which allows some users to use the
service for free, while others pay a monthly
subscription price for the premium version.

3. MARKET
SITUATION:
THE RISE OF
APPLE MUSIC
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While Spotify was on the incline (from 2008 to
now), iTunes, the previous media library and
digital music leader, was on the decline.
However, Apple doesn't typically take defeats
lying down. Thus, in 2015, Apple Music was
launched, and it quickly became essentially a
direct competitor to Spotify.
In addition, other streaming services such as
Amazon Music, Google Music, and Pandora
are rising competitors and real players in the
streaming space.
However, the behemoth influence that Apple
possesses uniquely positions them to, if they
play their cards right, gain control of this
market. Thus, many people consider this
market to be an emerging (if not already
existent) duopoly.

4. So, what should
Spotify do to capture
as much market share
as they can?
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5. A STORYTIZING PLAN:
WHICH MODELS WILL
GUIDE US TO SUCCESS?
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In today's world, we know that
no more than 50 people drive
the majority of the conversation
about a brand. By correctly
identifying the 1% of our
audience that are influencers,
the 9% that are advocates, and
the 90% that are enthusiasts, we
can guide that conversation.
ABCDE: 1:9:90: 5 R'S:
The ABCDE model is an
alternative to the generic
"creative brief." By doing
groundwork before a campaign
that focuses our attention on our
intended Audience, Behavioral
objectives, Content, Delivery,
and Evaluation, we can execute a
more effective campaign.
After the initial research of the
previous two models, we can
optimize the efficiency of our
media with the Five R model. By
focusing on the Right
Influencers, Right Audience,
Right Content, Right Language,
and Right Channels, we can
optimize our media strategy.

6. When considering our audience, we should think about Spotify's strategic target (all of the people who could be
interested in our service) as well as our prime prospects (those most likely to buy in the short term). In this case,
our strategic target would be anyone interested in music, but we'll need to refine our prime prospects.
ABCDE MODEL
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Our behavioral objectives should be directly tied to Spotify's business goals—in this case, increased market
share would imply KPIs of downloads or premium subscription purchases. From the campaign that Spotify runs,
the goal should be to get customers to purchase our service (over a competitor's).
As for our content, the campaign that Spotify runs needs to address our service's benefit, a consumer's "reason
to believe," and utilize a strong and consistent tone/character. Here, we should use Spotify's light, cheery, and
uplifting brand voice to highlight our competitive advantages: more personalized playlists than any other service,
exclusive artist content, strong network effects for those who use the service.
Our campaign reaches no one if we don't execute our delivery well. Here, we need to research what channels our
target audience are on so that we can effectively target and reach them, and in addition, we need to make smart
and strategic choices about what additional media/events could grab their attention.
While we'll touch on evaluation more later, Spotify needs to have analytical tools at their disposal to to measure
the effectiveness and success of their campaign (i.e., if their ABCD assumptions were correct), and if their
behavioral objectives were achieved.

7. 1:9:90 MODEL
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The 1:9:90 model explains that in most brand audiences, 1% of people are influencers (actively creating
content or driving conversation relevant to the brand), 9% of people are advocates (sharing and
repackaging ideas related to the brand), and 90% are enthusiasts (listening to and learning from the
conversations being had by the 10%).
Given this classification, we know that the 9% is the most important part of our audience to us as
marketers, as content elasticity is driven by this group. Since there are only about 50 people who drive the
conversation in any given category, we can begin to understand how important it is that we identify who
the 9% are and push them in the way that we want the conversation to go.
By analyzing how often users interact with a brand, the number of social shares they partake in, how
many link clicks and interactions come from individual users, etc., we can gather who is driving the
conversation about Spotify and about digital streaming services. Once we find those people, we can give
them content, perks, or pieces of conversation that we'd like them to their networks (reaching the 90%) to
drive the worldwide conversation about our brand.

8. FIVE R MODEL
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Through research, we can find the Right Influencers for Spotify: those top 50 people who have influence
over our strategic target across various channels.
The ABCDE model already highlighted the need to find the Right Audience, but this model goes further to
encourage us to also understand the audience architecture and how our audience learns.
The Right Content relates back to our entire campaign, but it's not just about the pictures we post or the
captions they come with. It's about what which type of content relates best to the audience of each of our
intended influencers, what channels they are on, the way they convey the information, etc.
The way we speak throughout our campaign must utilize the Right Language as well. Since a storytizing
campaign is not just an advertising campaign (i.e., we are telling our story to our audience at the right time
via people they want to listen to, rather than just pushing a message from a brand), we can utilize different
pieces of language that most effectively resonate with different pieces of our audience.
Finally, it's important that we reach our audience on the Right Channels, so we have to analyze where our
audience interacts the most, and more importantly, where they like to hear about and talk about Spotify.

9. As the ABCDE model pointed out (and our instincts as
marketers should tell us), we have to evaluate any marketing
plan to ensure that our efforts are productive.
For these campaigns, we'd want to use measures such as
tracking brand mentions and online conversation relevant to
us across multiple platforms, conducting search network
and search topic analysis, and ultimately, tracking how
much we achieve our behavioral objectives: downloads.
A STORYTIZING PLAN:
HOW WE'LL TRACK &
ANALYZE OUR SUCCESS
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10. NEVER STOP
QUESTIONING
Are the benefits we're promoting the benefits that consumers
most want to hear (is our content aligned with their needs)?
What are the best benefits that we can offer to our
conversation drivers (discounted accounts, PR packages,
exclusive Spotify events, etc.)?
Are there other behavioral objectives that Spotify should be
focusing on beyond just downloads and subscriptions?
Some questions that I am left with throughout this analysis are:
10Thank you!