More Performance, Less Carbon

Client: Spotify

Spotify is committed to reaching net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030. With over one quarter of their emissions coming from marketing, UM's perpetual brief is to find greener advertising solutions. With Spotify’s biggest marketing push of the year coming up, Wrapped, we saw an industry-first opportunity to test emerging GHG reduction technologies on a multi-market scale. 

We needed to find an innovative solution that would balance both business performance and climate impact. UM partnered with Greenbids, a custom algorithm company, and created a bespoke solution to tackle the GHG emissions output of Spotify’s online video advertising for Wrapped 2023. Despite this technology having never been used before in so many markets at the same time or on the same campaign, Spotify was willing to take the leap to find greener and more effective advertising solutions and it paid off massively.

The results exceeded all expectations. Across 16 EMEA markets (13 of which were industry firsts), we were able to avoid 229 tonnes of GHG emissions (the equivalent of 1,052,390 kms of driving!) (ImpactCO2) while also improving the key campaign performance metrics. For one format, the Cost-per-view was reduced by an incredible -40% compared to benchmark. By taking a never-been-done-before approach, we proved that you can optimise for performance and the planet at the same time and at scale.