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Category
Craft / Use of Music
Annual ID
OS25_RA042M
Background
When you think of Spotify ads, what comes to mind? Ads in between songs? During podcasts? It’s safe to say that video ads aren’t your first thought. And that has consequences for our ad revenue. Media planners bucket us as an audio-only platform, an incremental element in the larger media plan.
Creative Idea
To win over media planners, we brought Spotify’s video ad capabilities and its ROI superiority to the place where they spend the most time considering ad buys: their media plan spreadsheets. We created Spreadbeats. An eye- and ear-opening way to prove the power of combining video and audio in a medium perfectly tailored to its audience. We partnered with Coachella-headlining artist John Summit and coded a four-minute music video into the actual Excel spreadsheets Spotify’s salesforce sends to its clients. Millions of data points transformed into a stunning music video, turning rows and columns into a canvas that sprang to life when the file was opened. That’s right. Every music video contained a functioning RFP mediaplan.
For the first time ever, we used Excel as an audio player. We stored the whole track, all as simple numbers and characters, in a spreadsheet. And we built a custom algorithm to sync it to the visuals.
For the first time ever, we used Excel as an audio player. We stored the whole track, all as simple numbers and characters, in a spreadsheet. And we built a custom algorithm to sync it to the visuals.
Insights & Strategy
Imagine you’re a media planner. Your job depends on your ability to show ROI. So it’s no wonder that when it comes to RFPing, you prioritize efficient go-tos like Meta and Google, old reliables like YouTube, and shiny objects like TikTok. Spotify just seems like a digital audio platform, and an expensive one at that. Not exactly a must-buy.
But the thing is, Spotify is so much more than an audio platform. It has video and multiformat ads… it’s interactive, collaborative and highly engaging and its ROI goes way beyond numbers on a spreadsheet.
To break through, we had to find a way to hack the RFP process and change the conversation… showing media planners and the entire marketing industry why Spotify Advertising goes beyond just plain digital audio.
Objectives:
Increase familiarity of our multi-format ad offering
Drive relevance, consideration, and brand love
But the thing is, Spotify is so much more than an audio platform. It has video and multiformat ads… it’s interactive, collaborative and highly engaging and its ROI goes way beyond numbers on a spreadsheet.
To break through, we had to find a way to hack the RFP process and change the conversation… showing media planners and the entire marketing industry why Spotify Advertising goes beyond just plain digital audio.
Objectives:
Increase familiarity of our multi-format ad offering
Drive relevance, consideration, and brand love
Execution
For the first time ever, we used Excel as an audio player. We stored the whole track, all as simple numbers and characters, in a spreadsheet. And we built a custom algorithm to sync it to visuals.
We coded the whole music video in one single Excel file of 10MB. Ironically, to do something this advanced, we had to take a trip back to the origins of data and algorithms. We used old compression methods and visualization techniques that hadn’t been used for many, many years, all in the spirit of economy. This was digital archeology.
We didn’t just upload an existing music video into Excel, essentially using Excel as a media player. We built the whole music video from scratch in Excel, using built-in Excel functions like ASCII, Graphs, Unicode, and conditional formatting. We turned the very same functions media planners use every day into cutting-edge visualization methods. No AI was used, just human ingenuity and a lot of love.
But all technology means nothing without an emotional connection and a story: We told the story of E7 — born in a rational world of numbers and data, where everything makes sense, but where something is missing. So one day she wakes up, and explores different visual worlds, on a journey to find herself and belong, taking on increasingly complex and beautiful forms along the way.
To integrate the music video in their RFP media plans, Spotify salespeople could use a Spreadbeats generator. With the generator, they could customize music videos for each recipient by inputting their name, the brand they represent, and other relevant details.They could seamlessly deliver their real spreadsheet RFP responses alongside the music video by uploading them. People would receive a straightforward Excel file containing their RFP response along with the customized music video.
We coded the whole music video in one single Excel file of 10MB. Ironically, to do something this advanced, we had to take a trip back to the origins of data and algorithms. We used old compression methods and visualization techniques that hadn’t been used for many, many years, all in the spirit of economy. This was digital archeology.
We didn’t just upload an existing music video into Excel, essentially using Excel as a media player. We built the whole music video from scratch in Excel, using built-in Excel functions like ASCII, Graphs, Unicode, and conditional formatting. We turned the very same functions media planners use every day into cutting-edge visualization methods. No AI was used, just human ingenuity and a lot of love.
But all technology means nothing without an emotional connection and a story: We told the story of E7 — born in a rational world of numbers and data, where everything makes sense, but where something is missing. So one day she wakes up, and explores different visual worlds, on a journey to find herself and belong, taking on increasingly complex and beautiful forms along the way.
To integrate the music video in their RFP media plans, Spotify salespeople could use a Spreadbeats generator. With the generator, they could customize music videos for each recipient by inputting their name, the brand they represent, and other relevant details.They could seamlessly deliver their real spreadsheet RFP responses alongside the music video by uploading them. People would receive a straightforward Excel file containing their RFP response along with the customized music video.
Results
Spotify sought to grow ad revenue by challenging advertisers’ perception of the platform as audio- only.
With video consumption on Spotify rising, we spotlighted our video ad offerings in a bold, unorthodox way. Leveraging our playful brand nature, we disrupted planners’ routines by running an ad on THEIR favorite platform—Excel spreadsheets.
But we didn’t stop there: we created a music video that viscerally entertained, engaged, and delivered our message.
The results? A 17:1 ROI, +5650% more email forwards than B2B average, and +870% ad engagement compared to our previous paid campaign, proving Spotify’s video ads are as compelling as the platform itself.
With video consumption on Spotify rising, we spotlighted our video ad offerings in a bold, unorthodox way. Leveraging our playful brand nature, we disrupted planners’ routines by running an ad on THEIR favorite platform—Excel spreadsheets.
But we didn’t stop there: we created a music video that viscerally entertained, engaged, and delivered our message.
The results? A 17:1 ROI, +5650% more email forwards than B2B average, and +870% ad engagement compared to our previous paid campaign, proving Spotify’s video ads are as compelling as the platform itself.
2025 Awards
Total Points: 3
Merit
Credits
Agency
FCB / New York
Client / Brand
Spotify / New York
Music / Sound Production Company
DaHouse Audio / Los Angeles
Associate Creative Director
Michael Demos
Pieter Claeys
Roxane Schneider
Tufan Guzeloglu
Chief Creative Officer
Michael Aimette
Chief Strategy Officer
Todd Sussman
Design Director
Eric Benitez
Designer
Ella Hyunjoo Ahn
Editor
Rafael Monti
Executive Creative Director
Eduardo Lubiazi
João Machado
EVP, Executive Creative Director
Eduardo Tavares
Gary Resch
Executive Producer
Carol Masseti
Ed Hudson
Iris Fuzaro
Liana Rosenberg
Global Creative Director
Richard Frankel
Global Creative Partner
Danilo Boer
Global Executive Creative Producer
John Bleeden
Head of Design
Sy-Jenq Cheng
Senior Art Director
Victoria Rocha
Senior Designer
Simon Fernandes
Senior Producer
Alina Carrel
Rhea Phipps
Senior Strategist
Michael Schonfeld
SVP, Group Strategy Director
Kelsey Steele
VP, Executive Producer
Sachin Arora
2D Animation
André Ruivo
Gui Kirinus
3D Animation
Tiago Bahia
Account
Camila Pires e Lu Krasa
Carol Cherobim
Animation
Colossal / Curitiba
Assistant Mixer
Michael Artuso
CEO
Emma Armstrong
Chief Production Officer
Benny Martin
Code Animation
Tameem Sankari
Concept Artist
Diogo Saraiva
Fernando Molina
Gustavo Perg
Henri Kluge
Leandro Dexter
Thallison Diniz
Creative
Simon Dolsten
Creative Coders
Uncharted Limbo Collective / London
Creative Coding & Software Development
Eleana Polychronaki
Designers, Motion Graphics
Gessica Secchi
Director of Business Affairs
Janice Katz
Edit Assistants
Eduardo Oliveira
Igor Angelo
Ricardo Varela
Finance Dept
Iza Lubiazi
Front End Developer
Bobby Kegel
Global Business Brand Marketing Lead
Jessica Levinsohn
Global Director, Business Brand Marketing
Bridget Evans
Head of Creative Innovation
Eli Ferrara
Head of Global Business Marketing
Grace Kao
Head of Post Production
Daniel Maia
Lead Creative Coding & Software Development
Georgios Adamopoulos
Management Supervisor
Jessie Gwilt
Sydney Stein
Managing Director
Stewart Warner
Suzanne Santiago
Mix and Sound Design
Victor Nogueira
Mixer
Dave Wolfe
Virginia Wright
Motion Graphics
Adelir Cherry
Diego Loz
Gabriel Rocha
Lucas Santiago
Renan Santa Terra
Music Producer
Silvio Erné
Music Producer, Mix and Sound Design
Lucas Mayer
Pixel art
Didi Gameboy
Lucas Matheus
Marcelo Colmenero
Pixel art & 2D Animation
Gabriela Zanatta
Post Production Coordinator
Pamela Almeida
Yasmim Uehara
Post Production Coordinator Assistant
Nicole Lia Rêgo da Silva
Post-Production Coordinator
Jessica Marques
Post-Production Direction, Designers + Motion Graphic
Denise Azzi
Post-Production Direction, Editor
Caja Guedes
Project Manager
Sam Mark
QA Producer
Kevin Badaguas
Quality Assurance
Holland Flinn
Senior Integrated Producer
Margot Meyerhoff
Senior Project Manager
Stefany Garcia
SVP, Head of Production & Content
Nick Williams
Technical Artist & Creative Coding
Philip Pappas
Technical Lead
Matt Zur
VFX Supervisor
Diogo Gameiro
Visual Artist & Project Manager
Chris Waters
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