Spotify’s Equal campaign highlights women creators

The campaign will work through global activations, partnerships, on- and off-platform support and new content experiences. It will extend beyond March.

On-platform initiatives include the launch of Equal Hub, and takeovers of flagship Spotify playlists and partner playlists. Equal Hub is a dedicated space to highlight women creators and enable fans to stream their music and podcasts. The initiative is programmed globally.

The company said more than 200 of its playlists ­– such as Today’s Top Hits, Viva Latino and Modus Mio – will feature women on their covers to celebrate and amplify awareness on the platform.

Some of Spotify’s non-profit partners ­– including Girls Make Beats, She’s The Music, Sound Girls, Glaad, Color of Change, Women in Music and Women’s Audio Mission – will also create unique Spotify playlists to showcase artists who are leading the future of music. 

Off-platform support initiatives include Spotify’s new invite-only Equal Board, which is made up of 15 organisations from around the world. It will provide each organisation with a one-time grant to help make the audio industry more equitable for women creators.

In April, Spotify will launch the Equal music programme, which will foster equity for women in 50 countries. It aims to continue to build on the success of programmes like Sound Up and EQL, which provide new opportunities for women creators.

Additionally, the streaming platform also celebrated the top-streamed women artists and podcast creators globally based on streaming data from 1 January to 22 February this year. Taylor Swift topped the list with more than 2.3 billion streams, followed by Ariana Grande and Dua Lipa. Other women artists on the list include Halsey, Karol G and Blackpink.

In terms of podcasts, Crime Junkie hosts Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat are the most popular women podcast creators globally, followed by Call Her Daddy’s Alex Cooper. Other popular women podcast creators include Elise Hu, host of Ted Talks Daily, and Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, hosts of My Favorite Murder.

Spotify also reiterated its commitment to amplifying women voices by curating global playlists like Women of Electronic, Women of K-Pop and Women of Rock, among others.

Meanwhile, Deezer also introduced initiatives in support of female artists last week, such as new exclusive women’s content including additional information around issues of female representation in the music industry, facts about female artists and playlists under the Women’s Voices collection, and the Women Behind the Music playlist series, which will promote the songwriters, producers and musicians who have contributed to international hits.