The Young Ones competition is one of the most acclaimed advertising, interactive and design student competitions. It has a tradition of excellence dating back to 1986.
We were inspired to create this campaign after learning that book bans are a prevalent form of censorship in the United States. Book bans and challenges affect members of Generation Z directly, limiting their access to literature in schools, libraries, and bookstores. Many people are under the misconception that censorship of books only occurs with obscene content. However, many banned books contain content that includes queer narratives, black representation, and political issues. As an audio streaming platform, Spotify has the unique opportunity to provide equal access to all literature. Thus, we created “Battle the Bans,” a campaign to fight book censorship. For this campaign, Spotify users will have access to a banned book playlist. For each listen to a banned book, Spotify will donate 10% of the proceeds to the American Library Association to fight censorship. As Gen Z is inclined to activism on social media, this campaign encourages Spotify users to post online about their favorite banned books that they listened to on Spotify.