Your Shot: W+K NY on Returning Falkor to the Skies for Spotify

Behind every song is a great story - that’s the theory that Wieden+Kennedy New York has tapped into for its first campaign for Spotify. The agency, together with director Tim Godsall of Anonymous Content, has linked three songs with wonderfully surprising back stories. ‘Never Ending’, the campaign’s tent-pole spot, taps into nostalgic love of the ‘80s fantasy movie The NeverEnding Story by enlisting original cast members from the movie. There are two other spots: one links Flo Rida’s popularity amongst house-movers with a sly nod to the US election and the other is devoted to the Pope’s surprisingly popular rock album. LBB’s Addison Capper chatted with Wieden+Kennedy copywriter Will Binder to find out more.

LBB> T​his is the first campaign that you’ve created for Spotify - what kind of brief did they initially approach you with?

WB> Spotify isn't just about music. It's also very much about the community of music fans using the service. So, we wanted to show the outside world all the fun, crazy things that were happening on the inside​ and create a voice to do so​​. Stuff like: the Pope has a rock album on Spotify and people are listening to it. Or that many, many people are making moving-related playlists and Flo Rida for some reason is on many, many of those. Or that even after 30 years people are still streaming the NeverEnding Story song every day. We wanted people to feel like they were missing out on all this fun, weird listening behaviour.

LBB> What kind of research and insight informed the ‘story’ idea of this campaign?

WB> There was no set process. (I wish there was; that would've made it easy.) We looked at a lot of weird, interesting data that Spotify has and then crafted them into interesting listening stories. What's great about all ​of ​this is that the truth is stranger than fiction.

LBB> Were there any pieces of information that particularly surprised you during research?

WB> A lot. But these might be made into stories in the future.

LBB> As well as the story tie-in, the campaign is very culturally relevant. Why was that an important part of the campaign?

WB> As a music company, it's a no-brainer that Spotify should have its place in culture. People listen to and use music in response to all the things happening around them. People were already making ‘moving’ playlists. There are already a bunch of ‘Trump’ playlists being made by users. 

LBB> There’s  a political angle to the Canada spot - why is right for Spotify to get involved in conversations like that?

WB> Again, as a culture, music is an important thing to respond to and try and make sense of what's happening in the world. 

LBB> How early on in the process did the Falkor link come into play? Was it always part of the plan or more of a light bulb moment?

WB> Early on, one of the creatives was at a party and someone put on the song ironically. He was then shocked when it had over 6 million streams on Spotify. A script was written, and here we are.  It's now the hood ornament of the campaign.