We're here again. “One more year,” Mecano would say, and one more year we also say —with different intonations of joy or exhaustion— all of us who will spend this day watching Bad Bunny, Luis Miguel, and perhaps—because an uncle is too much of an uncle— even Maná on our Spotify Wrapped images, again and again. 

Let's be honest, little by little this has become a tradition, that day we all look forward to to see how much of music lovers we are, to remember how our hearts were broken and a song got us through, or to realize how many hours we spent listening to people talk about different topics. Because if we think about it, it's not just about songs. 

The sense of hearing is one that can play very good tricks on us, or, quite simply, cause us terrible headaches. We can't turn it off. For example, if you're one of those who gets dizzy at the sight of blood, you can order your eyelids to cover your vision. If you hate the taste of arugula, you can simply omit it from the menu. If you hate the feeling of a certain fabric against your skin, you don't touch it. These are senses we can “control,” let's say. Hearing is always present. It's there when you try to concentrate on reading, it's there when they turn up the volume on a song you hate, it's there, even, when you're sleeping. It's obvious that in the digital age, hearing was going to take on great relevance. 

Spotify has a not-to-be-snubbed 550 million users. Apple Music still lags far behind with 101 million. But what really matters to us is highlighting that people love listening to something—whatever it may be. Between the first quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021, Spotify’s total monthly active users grew by 24%, and its revenue increased by 22%. This audio boom was driven primarily by podcasts. 

According to a report by Insider Intelligence, In 2024, one-fifth of the time spent daily on digital media in the United States will be dedicated to digital audio. To put it more simply, we can say that in 2020, people consumed 1 hour and 30 minutes of audio per day, while in 2024, it will be 1 hour and 45 minutes. It may not seem like much, but the reality is that in this society where we all cry out for more hours in the day to be productive, an extra fifteen minutes invested in audio entertainment is a significant increase. 

Podcasts are king of the hill. The versatility they offer, not requiring visual or manual attention, makes them the perfect co-pilots on car journeys, that coworker who talks and talks non-stop (and doesn't get mad if you ignore them) during work hours, or the necessary companion when cooking. Whether you're looking for a specialized topic, or something that can start talking about henequen and end up discussing how Stephen King manages to write so much, podcasts are a medium with tremendous engagement. And if you have a lot of people listening to you regularly, you have a space you can turn into money by advertising different things.

But are podcasts and songs the only main characters? The truth is, no. Perhaps due to modernist views that devalue spontaneous and viral appearances in favor of more seasoned content, the phenomenon of audios that appear on TikTok or Instagram day by day is underestimated. Or, rather, it's overlooked. But at Gerundio, we love observing and listening to people, knowing what's happening around them and how their behaviors and hobbies change over time. Therefore, we find it interesting to emphasize that, in fact, these viral audios have become a great tool for different purposes. 

Someone who leverages that Warholian fame and uses it to build a career where their charisma takes them to new levels will surely have many years of good prospects in their portfolio. But we also have those rare and sporadic efforts that yield surprising results in terms of viral songs. No one has really deciphered that mysterious Eastern algorithm that governs TikTok, which is why traditional strategies for positioning a song seem to have no effect on the platform.

A 2022 study by the agency ContraBand analyzed the songs on TikTok’s Top 200 list that surpassed one million streams on Spotify and found that 63.8% of them went viral thanks to “organic posts by the artist and other TikTok users” rather than influencer campaigns or paid ads. It’s interesting that, on such a massive platform, auditory democracy dictates success. 

Returning to the Spotify Wrapped phenomenon, there are people who, in order to “prove” something, play and play and play a certain song or artist to be the best. It is the competition that, without even being aware of it, is delivering much better numbers —especially for the platform— but also for its artists. 

Can we say that Wrapped is a strategy of gamification What reward comes with showing us a top? If you don't know the term, we invite you to read this nice article. here.

The audio and its development in digital media is a very broad and interesting phenomenon to continue analyzing. Rest assured that from here, we will be attentive to the changes and trends—in this and other fields—that can boost your business or initiative. 

Are you interested in getting to know and understand your users better? Are you interested in people-centered research for your business? Send us a message and let's see what we can do together.