Spotify releases songs aimed at teaching advertisers how to advertise

Spotify has launched six songs aimed at training marketers how to use its advertising tools, and we swear this isn’t a prank or a parody — although it certainly reads and sounds a lot like one. Stick with us, we’ll explain everything.

Now, I swear the following lines come verbatim from Spotify’s media release, hilariously titled “Spotify’s Tunetorials Brings Advertising Strategies to Life With Beats You Won’t Forget.”

And I quote: “It’s the easiest (and most fun) way to learn how Spotify helps advertisers of all sizes reach the right audience, at the right moment, with the right message.

“With original songs and music videos, Tunetorials gives advertisers a rundown of Spotify’s full range of ad tools and proof points, plus tips on how to make the most of them. From building a multi‑format strategy to tapping into Spotify’s unique audience insights, Tunetorials turns ad education into bops you’ll want to play on repeat.”

Now, I’ve listened to all six of these “bops” — both so that you don’t need to, and also hoping that you will immediately go and listen to them all — and I will give each a thorough, fair-minded review below. However, I can promise these are not, unfortunately, “bops you’ll want to play on repeat”.

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“We created Tunetorials based on a simple idea: What if learning about Spotify Advertising could be as fun as using Spotify?” said Bridget Evans, who might still be the global head of business marketing at Spotify, once the dust settles on Tunetorials.

“Tunetorials are our way of blending education with entertainment so it doesn’t feel like a chore.”

Unless there’s a subset of bored 9-year-old marketing managers out there that I’m not aware of, this seems mildly patronising from Bridget.

“We know our audience loves creativity and music, so we met them there, transforming how-to lessons into original songs and music videos. It’s a surprise-and-delight campaign that showcases the full power of our platform, while also inspiring brands and agencies to see Spotify’s suite of ad solutions in a whole new way.”

Evans is correct. Mumbrella was both surprised and delighted to hear about Tunetorials. We were also horrified, amused, and incredulous.

Tunetorials is further described by the company as being “where catchy beats meet proven strategies”.

Now, clearly the major aim of this is to change the current narrative around Spotify, with Evans and Co hoping this will result in a shift from either:

a) That powerful song machine that is great to use but also played a major role in decimating the once-existing livelihoods of millions of musicians, or:

b) ‘Doesn’t their co-founder and CEO directly fund German military technology?’  — to instead being:

c) ‘Spotify. What a hip, cool fun factory, totally down with Gen Y and Z. Did you hear those dope marketing songs Spotify dropped? Makes me wanna jump on a campaign ASAP’.

Now, let’s review the songs

In what the corporation described as being “in true Spotify fashion”, it has “teamed up with six emerging artists across genres to create the Tunetorials album.”

The end results are clearly not a reflection on the creative desires, or even the abilities of these artists. Then again, Carter Ace, a 27-year-old hip hop artist from LA, claims that “linking up with Spotify Advertising on Tunetorials was a much-needed creative challenge” so maybe it was fun as a writing exercise? Maybe.

Let’s start with Carter’s song, called ‘How to run a multi-format campaign’. It’s mid-tempo R&B that sounds like a Craig David turn-of-the-century two-step song run through an auto-tune blender. The lyrics are the usual fare you hear in songs these days, with Ace casually dropping lines like “You can drive more sales in the cart/ When audio, video, and display all play their part” and the inspirational “from sound to screen, your story finds its way.” Score: 4/10

“ROI isn’t luck, it’s in the setup” declares a dismembered voice at the start of the modern classic, ‘How to Drive ROI With Your Campaign Setup’ by Liverpool-born electronic duo Big Sis, before an island-inspired beat kicks in and the vocalist tells it exactly how it is: “Choose your path, Ad Exchange for omnichannel/ or Ads Manager with grip on the handle.”

Spotify explains that Big Sis “brings bold, high‑energy beats to the art of smart spending”, a sentiment that seems notably absent from the rest of their musical catalogue, which is mainly about partying whilst on various chemicals. Score: 4/10

Up next we have the psychedelic funk explorations of Parbleu, a dance duo from Naples, Italy, who travel into the cosmos in search of the perfect first-party dataset.

“It’s not just an age, it’s a place and time”, sounds like the type of poetic one-liner that could appear in any number of love songs, before the next line crashes in to really remind you why exactly we are on the dancefloor instead of in the boardroom. “It’s not just an age, it’s a place and time/ That’s how Spotify gets your message to shine.”

How To Reach Your Target Audience is actually quite a good song, in a Daft Punk meets ‘Groove Is In The Heart’ way. If you wanna hear more from Parbleu, I recommend you check out their music on Bandcamp – a music streaming service that pays good royalty rates to artists (it can be done.) Score: 7/10

Call me a romantic, but something tells me the sentiments expressed in ‘How to Measure Campaign Performance’ by Alex Lilly will still be hitting home for young, starry-eyed marketers 50 years from now.

On a Charli XCX-esque indie pop bed built on a glitchy beat, Lilly declares: “Data with purpose/ Numbers with style/ First-party data/ Third-party proof/ One clean dashboard to show you the move.” Sing it, sister!

She asks “You runnin’ ads or just hopin’ and prayin’?” before offering the hapless marketer a solution: “Your funnel’s got levels, lets chart out the maths”, she sings, before charting out said maths. This one’s destined for the pop charts. Score: 6/10

Breezy horns and a laconic beat anchor the lovely Motown soul of How to Track Your Ad’s Success, by UK artist House of EL. This song tackles the age-old subject of the Spotify Pixel. “Sign ups, views, add-to-cart, watch the data tear doubt apart.”

Here comes the chorus – sing along if you know it: “Spotify Pixel, sharp and slick, installs like the others and just as quick.” Then he sings about “ROAS clarity” before sliding into a auto-tune-warbled falsetto that renders all language pointless. (Or maybe I just couldn’t make out the words.) Score: 9/10

The Shivers were formed in New York City in 2001, the year the first album by The Strokes was released. Judging by the sound of How To Create Ads For Spotify, The Shivers still live in NYC and still live in 2001. The only tell that this song isn’t 24 years old is the subtle insertion of the line “no need to stress, Spotify makes it easy”, which is rendered far more hilarious by the impassioned way the singer’s voice strains and breaks over these lyrics.

This is the best song on the ‘album’ by far. Score 11/10

What does this all mean?

A few things to note. Firstly, Spotify referring to a collection of six songs that runs for just over 15 minutes as an ‘album’ shows a fundamental lack of education around the musical formats it sells.

Secondly, when Spotify CEO Daniel Ek famously declared to artists in 2020: “You can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough” as a defence against the company’s paltry royalty rates ($0.003 to $0.005 per stream) he taught the world exactly how much value the world’s biggest music company places in the creative act of making music. In case you’ve forgotten this lesson, Tunetorials acts as a timely reminder.

Finally, this “surprise-and-delight campaign” is as tone deaf as the music presented here.

It’s a cynical, half-arsed way to get the media writing about Spotify’s new marketing tools; to elicit online conversation and to attempt to manufacture a ‘viral’ moment. They might be hoping for a Rebecca Black ‘so bad you gotta hear it’ reaction, or maybe someone (Bridget?) actually thinks this is a cool idea. Likely, they haven’t considered the careers of the musicians who took a one-off advertising payment in exchange for sullying their catalogue with this dross.

It’s a transparent bid for attention, and Mumbrella certainly won’t be taking the bait and dedicating close to 1,500 words to it on a busy Wednesday morning. You have our word on that.

Now, a song.

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