Spotify
Hear Another City
Step into another city. Hear what it feels like.
A global listening experience powered by real people, real places and the songs connecting them.
Original speculative advertising concept by Rashika Jain
This is an independent speculative portfolio project created for educational and creative purposes. It is not affiliated with, commissioned by or endorsed by Spotify.
The Challenge
Discovery is still a solo, screen-based habit.
Streaming platforms give audiences access to music from around the world, but discovery can still feel highly individual and screen-based.
Spotify already knows what people listen to. This campaign explores how those listening habits could become a public, physical and emotional experience.
Music discovery often happens alone
Cities have distinct emotional and cultural identities
People are curious about how life feels elsewhere
The Human Insight
“Sometimes we do not want to visit a city. We want to feel it.”
People are naturally curious about the lives of strangers in other places. We wonder what people are wearing, eating, discussing and listening to.
Music offers one of the fastest ways to emotionally enter another person’s world. A song can communicate the mood of a place before a photograph or travel guide ever could.
The Big Idea
Spotify installs small listening booths in public spaces across major cities.
Inside each booth, visitors can select another participating city and hear a curated snapshot of what listeners there are currently playing.
A person in Melbourne could choose New York. Someone in London could listen to Mumbai. A visitor in Tokyo could discover the soundtrack of Paris.
Each visitor can also leave one personal song recommendation for the next person who enters the booth.
Hear a city through the people living in it.
How the Experience Works
Six steps, about four minutes inside.
- Step 01
Enter the Booth
The visitor enters a small, sound-controlled Spotify booth designed to feel calm, private and comfortable.
- Step 02
Select a City
A touchscreen displays participating global cities. The visitor chooses the city they want to experience.
- Step 03
Hear the City
A short, dynamic playlist of music currently gaining attention in that location: current popular tracks, locally trending music, emerging artists, songs rising quickly in that city and genre shifts unique to the place.
- Step 04
Meet the Previous Listener
The visitor hears one song left by the person who used the booth before them, with a short anonymous message such as “Leaving this because it sounds like driving home after midnight.”
- Step 05
Leave a Song Behind
Before exiting, the visitor recommends one track and may attach a short optional message. Their recommendation becomes part of the next visitor’s experience.
- Step 06
Continue on Spotify
The visitor can scan a QR code to save the city playlist, follow participating artists or share a personalised campaign card on social media.
Hear Another City · Booth touchscreen
Select a city
Now playing in New York
New York is awake again.
- 01Late transfer · Aro Vale
- 02Uptown Static · Nell Okoye
- 036 Train · Junipers
Left by the previous listener
“Leaving this because it sounds like driving home after midnight.”
Scan to save this city playlist and leave a song behind.
Tap a city to preview the experience. Illustrative concept, sample tracks
Booth Interior Design
Part listening lounge, part warm phone booth.
The atmosphere sits between a private music booth, a tiny listening lounge, a warm phone booth and a modern record store listening station, never clinical, metallic or overly futuristic.
- Soft warm lighting
- Curved acoustic walls
- A comfortable leaning seat or narrow bench
- High-quality headphones
- A central touchscreen
- A subtle city map graphic
- Soft sound-wave animation
- A QR code area
- A message screen showing the previous visitor’s recommendation
Target Audience
Young adults, roughly 18–35.
- Use Spotify regularly
- Enjoy music discovery
- Are interested in travel and global culture
- Share experiences on social media
- Attend festivals, cultural events and city activations
- Value personalisation and emotional brand experiences
Secondary audiences
- International students
- Travellers
- Music fans
- Emerging artists
- Urban commuters
- Festival attendees
- People with emotional connections to cities away from home
This campaign is especially meaningful for people who miss a city, dream of a city or want to understand a place beyond its tourist image.
Campaign Locations
Placed where cities already gather people.
- Melbourne’s Federation Square
- New York’s Times Square and nearby pedestrian zones
- London’s South Bank
- Mumbai’s Bandra district
- Paris, near a cultural venue
- Tokyo’s Shibuya area
- University campuses
- Airports
- Major train stations
- Music festivals
- Cultural festivals
- Shopping precincts
Social Media Campaign
Instagram Reels, TikTok and Spotify’s own channels.
Real, warm, earthy, cinematic and documentary-inspired. Emotionally intimate and human rather than overly polished.
City Switch Reels
A person enters the booth in Melbourne and selects New York. The reel transitions from the Melbourne booth into clips inspired by the mood of New York.
“Melbourne is listening to New York tonight.”
Song Left Behind
Anonymous song recommendations left by visitors become their own content series.
“A stranger in London left this song for someone in Melbourne.”
The City Mood
Short reels showing the emotional listening mood of different cities.
“Tonight, Mumbai sounds hopeful.” · “Paris is listening slowly.” · “New York is awake again.”
Listener Reactions
Authentic, unscripted reactions filmed as visitors discover songs from other cities. No influencer-style performance.
Documentary tone, natural sound, minimal editing.
Artist Discovery
Local emerging artists whose music is being discovered through another city’s booth are highlighted.
“Discovered in Paris. Made in Mumbai.”
Global Listening Chain
Track how one recommendation travels: a visitor in Melbourne recommends a song, it is heard in New York, who leaves another song for London.
One song. Three cities. One week.
Sample Social Copy
- “Somewhere in New York, someone is playing the song you need tonight.”
- “You cannot teleport to another city. But your headphones can.”
- “One booth. Two cities. Thousands of shared feelings.”
- “A stranger left you a song.”
- “Every city has a soundtrack. Step inside and listen.”
- “Not a travel guide. A feeling guide.”
User-Generated Content
Visitors are encouraged to post:
- The city they selected
- The song they discovered
- The recommendation they left behind
- Their reaction inside the booth
- A city they want added next
Hashtags
#HearAnotherCity
- #SpotifyCitySound
- #AWorldInSongs
- #LeftYouASong
Outdoor Advertising
Minimal copy. One city name. One feeling.
Melbourne, New York left you a song.
#HearAnotherCity
Your next favourite song is playing somewhere else.
#HearAnotherCity
Step into another city.
#HearAnotherCity
Formats
- Digital billboards
- Bus shelters
- Train stations
- Street posters
- Festival signage
- Airport screens
Further headlines
- “Listen beyond your location.”
- “Somewhere else sounds exactly how you feel.”
Visuals pair the booth, a single city name, Spotify branding, headphones and sound waves crossing maps with a short QR call to action.
Spotify App Integration
A listening passport that stamps every city you hear.
- “Hear Another City” campaign hub
- Live participating cities
- Saveable city playlists
- Recently heard booth songs
- Song recommendation history
- Emerging local artists
- Personal listening passport
- A map showing cities explored through music
The listening passport could unlock digital stamps for every city the user explores.
Campaign Partnerships
Partnerships could help Spotify connect music discovery with travel, culture and public space: placing booths where people are already moving between places.
- Airports
- Universities
- Music festivals
- Cultural festivals
- Tourism organisations
- Public transport hubs
- Emerging artist programs
- City councils
- International student organisations
Why the Campaign Fits Spotify
Personalisation
Spotify already understands individual listening behaviour. This idea expands personalisation into place-based discovery.
Discovery
The experience helps users find unfamiliar songs, genres and emerging artists.
Connection
The previous-listener feature creates a small emotional connection between strangers.
Global Culture
The campaign positions Spotify as a bridge between places and people.
Shareability
The physical booth generates visually distinctive, social-first content.
Data
Real-time local listening data can shape an experience that feels current and authentic.
Experiential Branding
It transforms Spotify from an app on a screen into a physical experience people can enter.
Campaign Objectives
- Increase engagement with Spotify’s music discovery features
- Strengthen Spotify’s association with global music culture
- Generate social sharing and user-generated content
- Introduce users to emerging artists from different locations
- Create an emotionally memorable physical brand experience
- Encourage playlist saves and repeat app engagement
- Build connections between Spotify listeners across cities
Proposed Campaign Measurement
Proposed metrics only. As a speculative concept, no performance results are claimed.
- Number of booth visitors
- Average interaction time
- QR code scans
- Playlist saves
- Songs recommended
- Participating cities selected
- Social media mentions
- User-generated content volume
- Campaign hashtag reach
- Emerging artist streams
- Repeat engagement within the Spotify app
- Sentiment from visitor feedback
My Role
Independently developed as a portfolio project.
This speculative campaign was independently developed by Rashika Jain as a portfolio project. My role included:
- Identifying the human insight
- Developing the campaign concept
- Defining the target audience
- Creating the experiential user journey
- Planning the social media rollout
- Developing outdoor advertising ideas
- Designing the campaign’s creative direction
- Connecting the idea to Spotify’s brand strategy
- Planning proposed campaign measurement
“This project reflects the type of advertising I want to create: ideas that are simple to understand, visually memorable and emotionally grounded in real human behaviour.”
Creative Process
How the idea developed.
- 01
Observation
People often use music to imagine another life, revisit a memory or feel connected to a distant place.
Notes and moodboard fragments
- 02
Insight
A city is not only defined by buildings or landmarks. It is also defined by what its people are listening to.
Insight statement exploration
- 03
Question
“What if Spotify allowed people to hear another city in real time?”
Rough sketches
- 04
Concept
A physical listening booth connecting audiences through city-based music discovery and personal song recommendations.
Early booth concepts and user journey diagrams
- 05
Expansion
The concept grows into social content, outdoor advertising, app integration, artist discovery and global city partnerships.
Headline exploration and social storyboard frames