Tell you what’s mad: Spotify. The Swedish audio streaming platform launched in 2006, but it feels as though they’ve been around for much longer. Such is the power of their brand and the value of the product they provide.
As we like to say, music makes the world go round, but there’s more to Spotify than that. Students and parents are catered for with custom content too. Tell you who else is well-catered for – marketers who admire the work of others. For you see, Spotify has their marketing nailed down.
We recently had the pleasure to assist in one such internal marketing campaign. #loveAds, as it is called, started as an internal campaign idea out of the Spotify advertising team’s pride for their ads. Word quickly travelled across Spotify’s creative and corporate world, to the point where it became a movement within the company – something unique to them.
Anyway, they wanted this movement to become a physical thing. Something the team could see and be proud of on a daily basis, rather than just something referred to in an email.
Enter custom signage and the glorious world of 3D printing.
The GoPrint3D solution
Naturally, we were delighted to have the opportunity to work with Spotify. Half of our office has the app on their phone, so it was a real privilege to get to know the brand from the inside out, as a balance to how we all know them from the outside in.
Spotify wanted a way to promote their #loveAds campaign, and what better way to spread the love by giving away custom loveAds signs.
After looking into a few manufacturing opportunities, Spotify rightly settled on 3D printing, due to the short production run required. The low set up cost of 3D printing is highly suited to short production runs, and it enables design prototypes to be created quickly.
We were contacted by Spotify to assist. We were tasked with a few things:
– Sizing up the designs
– Deciding on the colours
– Deciding on the detail
– Creating the CAD drawings
– 3D printing the parts
– Assembling the signs up
Design
The design process was taken care of by our in-house team of graphic designers. What they lack in good looks (sorry, team) they more than make up for in design competency. We mocked up a few sign iterations and these were then sent to Spotify for a final decision.
Slicing and dicing
Once the CAD drawings were approved, we sliced them ready for printing and made final adjustments to the file, to ensure correct infill and tolerances.
3D printing
We used a combination of 3D printers to 3D print the signs. Because they were needed in a few different sizes, we used the Ultimaker 3 for smaller signs and the Builder 3D 1500 PRO for the largest sign. These are both fused filament fabrication 3D printers at the top end of the market in terms of quality, output and consistency.
We created 50 small prints at a size of 162 x 44 x 13 mm using an Ultimaker S5. For the largest print, which would be used internally, we printed with dimensions of 973 x 266 x 60 mm on the Builder Extreme 1500. This print took 8 days.
The results
We were able to manufacture 50 signs in a short period of time. Spotify had looked into injection moulding to make the signs, but this manufacturing process proved too expensive for a short run and not flexible enough for prototyping.
Here’re some photos of the signs we printed, as submitted on Twitter by recipients:
Credit @jdaykin.
Credit @matt1_adams
As we’re sure you’ll agree, the signs look brilliant.
The signs were 3D printed on time and on budget, and they look brilliant. Spotify are delighted with the signs. Here’s their feedback: “Extremely quick drawing up the proofs. Amazing customer service and delivery. Smashing service will definitely use them again!” – has better feedback ever been written?
Thanks for that, Spotify. Something tells us we’ll meet again (on our phone, whenever good music calls).