Spotify To ‘Turn Up AUS’ In Massive Campaign For Australian Music

Spotify have announced a multi-million dollar investment in Australian music today, unveiling Turn Up AUS, a multi-faceted marketing and engagement campaign to connect audiences to Australian music. 

The plan includes a new editorial hub at its centre, creating a home on the Spotify platform to spotlight Australian music. There will also be three exclusive fan events, opening with Spacey Jane, as well as industry education initiatives for industry professionals to better understand data and initiatives to support the next generation of artists and industry leaders entering the industry. 

Speaking exclusively to The Music, Spotify AUNZ Managing Director Mikaela Lancaster said the initiative was over a year in the planning process, driven by what industry stakeholders and artists thought could really make a difference to the domestic market. 

“We've been supporting Australian artists for 13 years, and we've been a significant and consistent driver,” Lancaster said. 

“We have a team on the ground for by far the largest of any of the global platforms. It's why the Spotify Australian team wake up every day, come to work, live and breathe locally. But we always want to have full impact, grow the business [and] drive revenue from the Australian market, and this program is a result.

“[Turn Up AUS] has multiple touch points across the entire business, and it's going to live across our consumer channels. It's going to be heavily featured on our platform. And the third area under the program is around better empowering artists and teams. 

“We're going to be using this brand platform across everything, across our research, our industry engagement, but it's our high impact channels, with out of home and social and there's material investment behind it.”

The initiative will be driven by a highly visible outdoor and social media campaign, enticing Australians to try new Australian artists on the platform, creating new opportunities for labels, distributors and independent artists. 

“We want to continue to grow this market. There's growth left,” said Lancaster. “I know people question that, but Australia, according to the latest MIDiA research, grew faster than any of the other English-speaking markets, and a lot of that was driven by streaming. Having a healthy local, domestic market helps Spotify drive a healthy, thriving business and more revenues for artists.”

Acknowledging recent discussion around quotas and algorithmic plays, Lancaster said the initiative would be focusing on encouraging fans to consume rather than forcing tracks into feeds, revealing that less than half the streams on the platform were algorithmically curated. 

“I think it's really important that the industry understands the vast majority of our streams are user-led. That's users who are searching, saving, curating, [and] listening to their own playlists. We call them active streams. 

“We designed Turn Up AUS to drive those real fans who drive active streams, which follows through to repeat listening through that user's own library, but then they're added to the user's Release Radar, their daily mixes, they have concerts recommended to them. Artists are going to ultimately be generating ongoing income by building those real fans.”

Lancaster said that while tinkering with the algorithm might initially sound appealing, that ultimately going down that path could create unintended consequences for the discovery of Australian music abroad and that discovery is best left “to the machine language experts”. 

“I know there's a lot of curiosity about our technology, and it is tempting to oversimplify it, but I think that we should be very cautious about any interventions to ensure that they don't harm our current global export opportunities. Setting the precedent that markets [should] favour their domestic artists could have some really unintended but seriously negative consequences for Australian artists. 

“[Australian] artists were discovered 2.7 billion times by new fans last year. We cannot interrupt that. We have approximately 12 to 13 million Australian users [on Spotify]. We have 600 million outside of our borders, and we're on a fast track to 1 billion. I don't want us to take our eye off the opportunity there. We should take some lessons from this tariff situation unfolding. Markets will protect their own.”

Lancaster says that Turn Up AUS is just one piece of the puzzle for the music industry’s recovery after a dire few years in domestic consumption, which has prompted industry discussion and, ultimately, cross-industry action. 

“[Things like] Michael’s Rule prompting Teen Jesus [And The Jean Teasers] supporting Pearl Jam and Kita Alexander supporting Dua Lipa are coming out of all of these debates. I think ARIA Collab recently was a superb idea with WondaGurl and Tommy Brown. I can't wait to hear what comes out of that.”

To punctuate her point, Lancaster reveals that Kita Alexander has seen an increase in Spotify streams of over 60% since the Dua Lipa tour. The singer also achieved a substantial bump in radio play across that period, highlighting the importance of cross-industry support for artists to create real results. She also highlighted the role of government support working in tandem with the private sector. 

“Music Australia is just getting started, and I can see Millie [Millgate] and her team creating some really exciting initiatives. So we’re having the conversations, I’m seeing a lot of activity, and I think there’s momentum happening.”

Education will also be part of the Turn Up AUS agenda, with Lancaster committing to more transparency and accessibility to bring the artists and their managers on the Spotify journey. 

“We know that artists have a varying understanding of how [Spotify For Artists’ tools] can be used. We also provide them with a lot of data, and it can be overwhelming and complicated, so we're going to be running more master classes, including regionally, where we can share some real case studies inside artists and their teams. They can meet the team, meet the humans, and come and ask us questions.

“We're going to complement that with some open-door sessions and community meetups, with a particular focus on managers. We want to be more accessible, but we also want to help foster collaboration and upskilling and shared learning amongst managers. We do this work already with our AAM co-pilot sponsorship, but we are hearing the ask for more.”

Lancaster is very optimistic about what’s ahead for Australian music. While Turn Up AUS is built for Australia, she points to territories like Mexico, where a sense of domestic pride in local music has been on the rise. The company’s global presence gives an international perspective to what is a challenging local problem. 

“When we're thinking about what success looks like for this, we're a brand that lives and breathes music. We are die-hard fans ourselves. The ultimate goal we've set is, ‘Did we have an impact on driving more real fans for local artists?’ I'm confident we will. There's a lot of momentum. There's some great music on the horizon. And I think 2025 is going to be an excellent year for Australian music.”