Spotify, the music streaming giant, has unveiled a powerful new tool called “Showcase” designed to empower artists and catapult their music into the limelight. This innovative feature allows artists to seamlessly promote their work within the revamped Home feed, a high-traffic area within the Spotify app that has garnered billions of streams daily since its introduction earlier this year.
Showcase offers artists the opportunity to create personalized mobile cards, serving as a virtual stage to introduce their music to listeners. These mobile cards, showcasing both new releases and catalog favorites, are strategically placed as sponsored recommendations on users’ mobile Home Screens, ensuring prime visibility to the vast Spotify audience.
The Home Screen, often referred to as the crown jewel of Spotify’s interface, holds the distinction of being the platform’s most-visited location. Consequently, it represents a coveted space for promotion and discovery. According to Spotify, users who encounter a Showcase promotion are six times more likely to stream the highlighted release, underscoring the tool’s efficacy in connecting artists with their fanbase.
Showcase provides artists with a canvas for creativity, allowing them to customize their mobile cards with compelling headlines. Whether it’s announcing “new music,” celebrating a “recently released” track, marking a “release anniversary,” or generating excitement around a song “getting buzz,” artists can tailor their messages to resonate with their audience. These customizable banners will prominently feature at the top of Spotify’s Home, ensuring maximum visibility.
The launch of Showcase follows its announcement earlier this year at Spotify’s Stream On event in Los Angeles, where the company unveiled a suite of growth and discovery tools aimed at empowering artists. Among these tools are the full-screen recommendations called “Marquee” and the game-changing “Discovery Mode,” which enables artists and their teams to prioritize specific songs within the streaming service.
Spotify’s rollout of Showcase is targeted at artists and their teams with a U.S.-based billing address who have garnered 1,000 or more monthly streams in the last 28 days within one of the specified markets. Over the next few weeks, the feature will become more widely accessible to U.S. artists through the Spotify for Artists dashboard.
By default, Spotify ensures that Showcase campaigns are displayed to a broad audience that is likely to engage with the release. However, artists can fine-tune their campaigns to reach distinct listener segments, ranging from their most dedicated and active fans (termed “super listeners”) to more casual listeners. The minimum budget for campaigns is set at $100, with campaigns running for 10 days or until the allocated budget is exhausted, whichever comes first. Pricing for campaigns may fluctuate based on factors such as the target audience and market.
Phoebe Deards, the product marketing manager for Spotify for Artists, emphasized the platform’s commitment to supporting artists in their quest to expand their fanbase effectively. “Showcase gives them the ability to do just that: now artists can amplify a new release, give their catalog an encore, turn viral buzz into long-term fandom, and more – right at the moments that matter most and on the most visited place on Spotify: Home,” she stated.
With Showcase, Spotify reaffirms its dedication to championing artists and enabling them to reach new heights of success by connecting directly with their audience on the global stage of music streaming. This innovative tool marks a significant step in the evolution of music promotion, promising to create more moments that truly matter for both artists and music enthusiasts alike.
