Between The Lines
A curated collection of writing work exploring brand voice, storytelling, and clear communication across digital and editorial formats.
Client
Various
DELIVERABLES
COPYWRITING CONTENT WRITING BRAND MESSAGING BLOG ARTICLES SOCIAL MEDIA COPY CREATIVE WRITING SAMPLES
Year
2026 Ongoing
Role
Creative Writer
01
STAGE ONE
Brand Audit & Context
Before I solve a brief, I have to diagnose what's actually wrong. Not just functionally; emotionally and culturally.
Personalization mechanics - Wrapped, Daily Mix, Discover Weekly. Spotify is perceived as the platform
that knows what you like. But knowing ≠ feeling. Utility without emotional resonance creates dependence,
not loyalty.
Spotify used to own a feeling. "Music for Every Mood" (2017) was the last campaign that gave the brand
a genuine emotional identity. Since then: podcast pivots, UI updates, data storytelling (Wrapped). Every
campaign speaks through data, never through feeling.
Apple Music: audiophile premium, cold and hardware-first. YouTube Music: messy UX, no emotional
narrative. Tidal: niche artist-first. None of them own the private, internal experience of listening. That
territory is completely unclaimed and Spotify has the data to do it.
Spotify has become a utility with excellent UX. Utility brands get cancelled when something better
comes along. Emotional brands get defended. This campaign exists to begin the emotional reconversion
of Spotify — from the app you depend on, to the brand you believe in.
WHAT THE BRAND OWNS TODAY
THE BRAND EQUITY GAP
COMPETITIVE WHITE SPACE
THE CORE DIAGNOSIS
Global streaming market share
- clear market leader
Monthly active users,
2026 - scale is not the problem
31%
602M
0
Low
Meaningful emotional brand
campaigns since 2018
Brand affinity score
among 18–27,
despite high dependency
02
STAGE TWO
Research & Cultural Intelligence
Research isn't just data. It's the art of finding the cultural nerve to press.
The most honest playlist you have isn't the one you share.
It's the one you saved and never played. Spotify is the only platform that knows this.
Reflexive saving: 18–27 year olds save 40+ songs per month on
average but only replay ~30% of their saved library. Saving has
become a cognitive offload, not a listening intention.
AUDIENCE BEHAVIOR - WHAT THE DATA SAYS
CULTURAL INTELLIGNECE - WHAT 'S HAPPENING IN 2026
CULTURAL MOMENT
NOSTALGIA CYCLE
Discovery whiplash: TikTok has accelerated song discovery to the
point where emotional processing can't keep up. Songs trend, get
saved in a moment of feeling, and are then buried by tomorrow's
sound.
The emotional time stamp: Saved songs are reliably tied to specific
moments - breakups, late nights, airport terminals, pre-sleep 2am
spirals. The save is an emotion being preserved, not a song being
queued.
The "main character era" is closing. The "quiet life"
aesthetic is ascendant depth over performance, slow
content over viral, emotional honesty over curated cool.
People are retreating inward. This campaign lives in that
inward turn.
Early 2010s Tumblr aesthetics are having their cultural
moment: lo-fi imagery, journaling culture, emotional
playlists, the idea that solitude is interesting.
"The Unplayed" speaks exactly this language.
THE PROPRIETARY INSIGHT - WHY ONLY SPOTIFY CAN RUN THIS CAMPAIGN
40+
70%
Songs saved per month by
18–27 year olds on average
Last year Spotify ran
a campaign with genuine
emotional architecture
Every song saved and never played.
The date it was saved.The time of day.
The listening session it interrupted.
No other platform has this archive.
Spotify doesn't need to invent this
idea.It just needs to notice it and
name it. "The Unplayed" is an insight
that already exists inside the product.
This campaign surfaces it.
WHAT THE DATA MEANS
THE CAMPAIGN PERMISSION
Each unplayed saved song is a frozen
emotional moment. A feeling that passed
without being processed. A version of the
person who existed when they pressed save.
900M+
2017
Of saved songs never
replayed after initial save
TikTok views on
"morning routine"
quiet, personal content
dominates
03
STAGE THREE
Strategic Positioning
Where should this brand sit in culture - not just in market?
The most honest playlist you have isn't the one you share.
It's the one you saved and never played. Spotify is the only platform that knows this.
Forward-facing
Feature-led
Emotional archive
Identity mirror
Private music self
Inward - facing
Discovery engine
Data storytelling
Spotify speaks about what's coming - new releases,
recommendations, the playlist you'll love. It faces
forward.
Spotify becomes the keeper of your emotional
autobiography. The only platform that holds who
you were when you pressed save.
WHERE SPOTIFY CURRENTLY SITS
THE EMOTIONAL TERRITORY CLAIMED
WHERE SPOTIFY SHOULD MOVE
The private music self — the relationship between who you were when you saved a song and
who you are when you (finally, or never) play it. This territory is:
Universally relatable — everyone has unplayed saves. Spotify-exclusive — only Spotify has
the data to substantiate it. Emotionally textured — not sad, not joyful, but that specific feeling
of finding an old note to yourself.
Spotify should stop being the platform that helps you find music and
start being the platform that understands what music holds for you.
04
STAGE FOUR
The Big Idea
One sentence. Not a tagline - a creative territory.
Everything that follows is just proof of this one idea.
The most honest playlist you have isn't the one you share.
It's the one you saved and never played. Spotify is the only platform that knows this.
Universal yet deeply personal. Every single
Spotify user over the age of 16 has an
unplayed saved song. The idea requires
zero explanation; just recognition.
This campaign requires data only Spotify holds:
your save history, your play history, the gap
between them. No other platform can even
attempt this idea. It is proprietary by definition.
People will open the app and find
their oldest unplayed saved song.
That is a measurable in-app
engagement spike Spotify can
attribute directly to the campaign
not through surveys, but through its
own data.
WHY THIS IDEA WORKS
WHY ONLY SPOTIFY CAN OWN IT
THE BEHAVIOR IT DRIVES
CAMPAIGN NAME . RATIONALE
The Unplayed
ORIGINAL TITLE CONSIDERED: "0:00"
THIS CAMPAIGN IS ABOUT -
A noun, not an adjective. It describes a state. "Unplayed" implies
potential - not failure. It's neutral. It doesn't judge. It just observes.
"The songs you saved but never played are the version of yourself
you never became."
The visual of a track never started. Rejected - too abstract,
difficult to search, and misses the emotional warmth of the
saved-but-unplayed concept. "The Unplayed" is warmer,
more searchable, and emotionally legible..
05
STAGE FIVE
Creative Platform & Direction
The visual system, tone, mood board, and color logic.
COLOUR SYSTEM
Near Black
#080608
Aged Ivory
#f0ebe1
Warm Amber
#c8973e
Soft Moss
#6e9b6e
MOODBOARD - VISUAL REFERENCES DESCRIBED
TYPOGRAPHY LOGIC
DISPLAY
DATA / LABELS
BODY / UI
Spotify green appears in one form only - desaturated, the moss tone.
Never the brand's native bright green. This is a side of Spotify you
haven't seen before, and the visual system reflects that.
HERO IMAGE TYPE
A bedside table at 3am. Phone face-up. Screen dim.Headphones coiled but not on anyone. A song
queued at 0:00 visible on screen.The room implied, not shown.
OOH TYPE
Blurred album art, only a year mentioned.
Nothing else.
PEOPLE DIRECTION
Never looking at camera. Profile or three-
quarter. Contemplative, not sad.Headphones
around the neck; never on the ears.
FILM TEXTURE
Heavy grain. Amber push. 1600 ISO. Things
slightly underexposed. Not cinematic; intimate.
Like someone's camera roll, not a campaign.
ENVIRONMENT
Empty airports, pre-dawn kitchens, train
windows, unmade beds. The in-between
spaces. Not locations but emotional
atmospheres.
Cormorant Garamond - thin and editorial.
Old enough to feel archival.
DM Mono - when a year or a song title
appears, it looks like metadata. Clinical
contrast to the warmth of the serif.
DM Sans light - neutral, gets out of the way.
Never calls attention to itself.
Warm Shadow
#3d3530
"You saved this in 2021. You've never played it."
"Some songs are for the person you were going to become."
"Your unplayed songs are your most honest playlist."
"It's still at 0:00. You still haven't pressed play."
TONE OF VOICE - WITH EXAMPLES
Never melancholic - curious. Speaks like a very old friend who knows too much. No exclamation marks. Ever.
Captions feel like from a journal entry, not advertising copy. This is a side of Spotify you
06
STAGE SIX
Campaign Architecture
How does the idea live across touchpoints? Platform logic, not just posts.
A great idea dies without structural thinking.
CAMPAIGN PHASES TIMELINE
SEED
Week 1–2
REVEAL
Week 3
RESONANCE
Week 4-5
LONGTAIL
Ongoing
3 Abstract reels
OOH Teaser
No brand mention
INSTAGRAM REELS
TIKTOK
SPOTIFY IN - APP
OOH - 5 CITIES
No brand. Just the question.
Brand film drops. In-app feature goes live.
UGC loop. The internet takes over.
Primary discovery. 15–30s
emotional micro-films. Slow
pacing - counter-intuitive for the
algorithm, but engineered for
saves and shares over views.
UGC activation surface.
#TheUnplayed - lowest barrier
to entry: just name your oldest
unplayed saved song. No
filming required.
"Your Unplayed" - a
personalized in-app moment.
Your oldest saved but never
played song, surfaced with the
year it was saved. This is the
campaign's product moment.
Subway, metro, transit.
Blurred album art, the year in
180pt type. No context.
No call to action. Relies on
recognition to drive curiosity.
Three abstract Instagram reels. No Spotify branding. Only the question: "What's the song you saved but never
played?" Teaser OOH appears in key cities — just a year and a blurred square. The internet will do the detective work.
The 90-second hero film releases across all platforms simultaneously. "Your Unplayed" feature activates inside the
Spotify app. The brand is now the author of an idea people have been feeling for years.
#TheUnplayed fills TikTok and Stories with real people's unplayed songs and the stories behind them. The brand
curates - it doesn't push. Creator partnerships seeded to three tier-2 creators with authentic music emotional literacy
90s Brand film
In-app launch
Microsite live
Press release
#TheUnplayed UGC
Permanent in-app feature
Creator partnerships
Stories polls
Playlist sharing
"Your Unplayed" becomes a permanent product feature.
The campaign converts to a permanent feature. Annual touchpoint - similar to Wrapped - but more intimate. Less data,
more feeling. The campaign doesn't end, it becomes part of the product.
Annual iteration
Product integration
07
STAGE SEVEN
Execution & Direction
Understanding the craft from set to screen.
HERO FILM - 90 SECONDS - SHOT LIST & DIRECTION
Black. A single piano note.
Extreme close - phone screen. Song at 0:00.
A bedroom window. 5am. Blue-grey light.
Airport terminal. Completely empty gate.
Subway. Someone scrolling saved songs. Stops.
Title card - Cormorant Garamond, ivory on black.
A hand. Finally pressing play.
Silence first. Then one note - not a song, not a melody. Just a single, clear, sustained note.
Let it decay completely before anything appears. Duration: 6 seconds.
The Spotify saved songs library, blurred at the edges. One song in focus. Progress bar at
the far left. Zero. A thumb hovers over play. Does not press.
Headphones on a pillow. No person visible. The window frame cuts half the shot. Shot wide -
the emptiness is the subject. Held for 5 seconds. No movement.
One figure, seated, back three-quarters to camera. Eyes closed. Headphones around their neck;
never on. The departure board blurred behind them. What time? Unknown.
Handheld, close behind. We see the library scrolling - hundreds of songs. Their thumb stops.
Holds on one. We can't see the title. Then keeps scrolling. The indecision is everything.
Slow fade in: "You saved this in 2019." Hold for 3 seconds. Cut to: the same song, still at 0:00.
The year counter turns: 2020. 2021. 2022. 2023. 2024. 2025. Each year a single frame flash.
Still at 0:00.
The progress bar moves. We hear music - but we don't know what song. The viewer projects
their own unplayed track. This is a deliberate structural choice: the song cannot be named,
because the song is yours.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
0:00 – 0:06Black frame
0:07 – 0:14Macro lens · 100mm
0:15 – 0:20Wide · natural light only
0:21 – 0:3035mm f/1.4 · airport
0:31 – 0:41Handheld · tight over-shoulder
0:42 – 0:57Title card · motion
0:58 – 1:08Macro · music begins
"The 3am save"
SOUND DIRECTION BRIEF
REEL SERIES - 5 FILMS, 15–30s EACH
A face. Not happy. Not sad. Recognizing something.
End card.
Close on eyes. The specific expression of encountering a piece of yourself you forgot
existed. No tears. No smile. Just presence. Hold 6 seconds. Fade to black slowly.
Close on eyes. The specific expression of encountering a piece of yourself you forgot
existed. No tears. No smile. Just presence. Hold 6 seconds. Fade to black slowly.
Ambient room sound only. No score.
The specific silence of a room at night;
distant traffic, a clock, breath. The
absence of music is the subject.
Music begins mid-phrase - not at the
beginning of the song. As if it's been
playing all along and we're only now
allowed to hear it.
The song is never revealed in any
cut or asset. In the hero film, we
hear 20 seconds of an original
composition designed to feel like
"a song you know you've heard
somewhere."
8
9
1:09 – 1:22Close · 85mm · no direction given to talent
1:23 – 1:30Title card · hold
Reel 01
BEFORE PLAY (0:00–0:57)
THE PRESS (0:58)
SONG CHOICE
Saved at 3:17am. Never played again. The timestamp is the whole story.
Shot: a phone screen, the saved time visible, the room in darkness
behind it.
Hook: "You saved this song at 3:17am. What was happening?"
"The airport save"
Reel 02
Saved before a flight that changed everything. The trip happened.
The song never played on the other side. Departure board + phone,
no people.
Hook: "The trip happened. The song didn't go with you."
"The almost artist"
Reel 03
An artist saved once, never followed, never listened to again. The
album that didn't get a chance. What did you almost love?
Hook: "You almost discovered them. Then you didn't."
"The year you saved it"
Reel 04
No explanation. Just a year, a blurred album cover, the number 0.
Title text only. The year does all the emotional work.
Hook: the year itself. No caption needed.
"What's yours?"
Reel 05 - The UGC prompt
Simple text reel: "Open your Spotify saved songs. Find the oldest one you've never played. What year did you save it?" This is the trigger. This is
what drives the hashtag. The simplest execution is always the one with the biggest UGC ceiling.
Hook: "Go find it. We'll wait." - then the #TheUnplayed tag. No music under it. The silence is intentional.
08
STAGE EIGHT
Hypothetical Performance
Explaining why a number is credible, not just plausible.
WHY THIS CAMPAIGN WOULD PERFORM?
PLATFORM MECHANIC ADVANTAGE
This campaign drives a specific in-app behavior: opening
the saved songs library. Spotify can measure this directly;
no surveys, no brand uplift studies. The campaign's
success is visible in their own product analytics.
This is what makes it fundable.
UGC DESIGN QUALITY
The #TheUnplayed prompt has the lowest possible barrier:
text only, one line, no filming. Compare to Wrapped - which
requires an app screenshot. This is easier, faster, and more
emotionally specific. UGC ceiling is very high.
CULTURAL TIMING
May - August is peak music-emotional-engagement window.
Post-festival season, long summer nights, end-of-year
energy. Slow, quiet content is algorithmically rewarded in
2026 after years of high-stimulation content fatigue.
ALGORITHM ALIGNMENT
Emotional text-forward reels with minimal motion perform
well on 2026 Instagram. Saves and shares are weighted
more than views. This campaign's slow, intimate aesthetic
drives saves - the metric that actually matters.
wins on brand sentiment
PROJECTED PERFORMANCE- REASONED BENCHMARKS
Testing logic: Run Variant A in key emotional-engagement markets (London, New York, Mumbai).
Run Variant B in markets with historically higher CTR behavior (Brazil, Philippines). Report back at 4 weeks.
The data will tell you which emotional register Spotify users prefer — and that intelligence is worth more
than the campaign itself.
A/B THINKING - TWO VARIANTS TESTED IN PARALLEL
Backward-looking, elegiac. The primary campaign
as designed. Slow, quiet, emotionally open-ended.
VARIANT A - "THE UNPLAYED" (RECOMMENDED)
Same concept, forward momentum. A CTA-driven version
with the same visual system but a nudge toward playing
the song now.
saves & shares
VARIANT B — "FINALLY PLAY IT"
wins on app opens
streams initiated
Hero film views (2 weeks)
#TheUnplayed UGC (1 month)
"Your Unplayed" in-app open rate
Brand sentiment lift (18–27)
Saved songs library opens (spike
week)
25–40M
500K+posts
60–70%
+12–15%
+180% vs avg
The Songs Between Us
New Music You'll Actually
Listen To
Your Listening Shame
09
STAGE NINE
Process Journal
Failure documented is judgment proven.
The right idea is usually the one left standing after I've killed
everything that almost worked. So I Document the killing.
ROUTES EXPLORED - THREE TERRITORIES CONSIDERED, REJECTED, AND WHY
Dark comedy route. Spotify-style
data humor: "You told your friends
you loved Radiohead. You've
streamed Olivia Rodrigo 847
times this year." Sharp, funny,
relatable.
REJECTED
Why killed: Too close to
wrapped's existing DNA. Doesn't
break new emotional ground.
We'd be doing a worse version of
something Spotify already does.
And humor ages faster than
feeling.
REJECTED
Functional improvement
campaign. Addressing the "too
many saves, nothing to listen to"
problem with a feature-led
message. Clean, direct, useful.
Why killed: Solves a problem,
but doesn't tell a story. Functional
campaigns are invisible as brand
advertising. When the feature
improves, the campaign is
forgotten. Emotional campaigns
outlast the feature cycle.
Social connection route. The
songs you share with someone,
the playlists you make for people,
music as the medium of human
connection. Genuinely warm and
beautiful territory.
Why it almost won and why it
ultimately lost: Beautiful, but
Spotify's own "Blend" feature
already occupies this space.
"The Unplayed" is more
proprietary. No other platform
can run it. That's always the
tiebreaker.
ALMOST WON
PIVOTS INSIDE "THE UNPLAYED" - DECISIONS MADE DURING DEVELOPMENT
TITLE PIVOT
Originally titled "0:00" - the visual of a track never started. Clean, conceptual, haunting. But it tested as too
abstract in early reads Non-music-industry people didn't immediately understand it. "The Unplayed" is
warmer, more searchable, emotionally legible without explanation, and works as a noun-phrase in
conversation. "Have you seen The Unplayed campaign?" works. "Have you seen the 0:00 campaign?"
doesn't.
EMOTIONAL
REGISTER SHIFT
Early moodboards were too dark - the initial visual direction leaned heavily into loss, regret, what was missed.
The mood was melancholic in a way that felt punishing rather than honest. The shift: from melancholy to curiosity.
"The Unplayed" shouldn't make you feel bad for not playing a song - it should make you want to find the song.
That's the emotional difference between a campaign that moves you and one that makes you feel guilty.
VOICEOVER
REMOVED
The first cut of the hero film had a voiceover - a quiet, specific line at the end: "Some songs wait for the right
version of you." It was cut entirely. The silence is more honest than the line. The line told you what to feel.
The silence lets you arrive there yourself.
THE SONG WAS
NEVER NAMED
Every early execution draft specified an actual song playing in the final scene of the hero film. When the actual
song was chosen, it immediately dated the campaign and collapsed the universality. The film was recut to use
an original composition designed to feel like "a song you know you've heard somewhere." Blank projection is
more powerful than specificity in this case - because the specific song you're thinking of is always yours.