Spotify x Samsung Music
Time: December 2017 - August 2018
Scope: UX
Role: Product Design Lead
Samsung Music is the company’s first-party music player for local files (MP3s). It’s popular in countries where streaming services aren’t yet widely adopted.
There are many places in the world where Spotify isn’t a known brand, but local songs and artists are. As Spotify expands to new markets it can appeal to users by showing them content they’ll love.
We focus on user needs — we meet fans where they are to deliver meaningful music experiences at the right moment, in the right format. Integrations can take many forms, but our approach follows the same principles.
Appeal
Our integrations introduce Spotify at a moment where we can naturally provide value to the user. For Samsung Music, we use empty states as opportunities to show users music they’ll love. A “Top 200” content strip shows trending songs on the “Favorites” tab.
The Spotify tab shows popular content the user can stream on Spotify – Top Charts, New Releases, and Popular Playlists – even if the user’s library is empty.
Educate
If a user has local music files on their phone, Spotify can recommend albums and playlists with similar content.
For Samsung Music, we built anonymous recommendations to show the power of Spotify’s personalization tools. Through this integration, even non-Spotify users can receive album and playlist recommendations that match their music taste.
Interacting with the content prompts the user to install Spotify.
Create Habits
We reduce friction to drive continued usage of Spotify within partner apps.
We show search results from Spotify when a user has no results in their personal library. Tapping a result opens the content in Spotify.
Upsell
Spotify supports both Free and Premium users, and integrations must benefit both. Free users can listen to albums and playlists on Spotify in shuffle mode, and Premium users can choose individual songs for playback.
