Día de los Muertos—or Day of the Dead—is upon us. The Mexican holiday kicks off on Halloween, serve as a day of celebration and remembrance for family and friends that have passed. This year, Spotify decided to join in on the celebration with some out-of-home ads and a colorful festival at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Cemetery.
For the campaign, which was designed to celebrate iconic Mexican musicians who have passed, the brand created a Latin music hub on its platform and a Día de los Muertos playlist featuring Mexican and Mexican-American artists. It also held an activation at the 19th annual Día de los Muertos Festival for fans could come celebrate and remember singer, songwriter and actress Jenni Rivera. Spotify worked with Mexican artist Ricardo Soltero to create an ornate bridge, covered in 100,000 aztec marigolds, that led to an altar (or ofrenda) decorated with sugar skulls, candles, butterflies, images of Rivera and the names of some of her most-streamed tracks on Spotify.
Outside of the colorful event, Spotify also created glow-in-the-dark billboards that are currently running in Los Angeles and Houston. During the day, the billboards are just your standard out of home ads that reads, “Let the music play on.” As the sun goes down and the darkness starts to set in, blacklight technology kicks in as the billboards become glow-in-the-dark and the copy changes to read, “Let the music play on forever.”
Spotify also paid close attention to how it would celebrate Día de los Muertos on the Spotify platform. It worked with three different artists to cover some iconic songs: Mexican-American singer-songwriter Becky G performed her take on the song “Por Un Amor Cucurrucucu Paloma,” Joss Favela covered “Eso y Más,” and indie musician Silvana Estrada sang “Amor Eterno.”
