“Have you heard this song by Lily Allen? Give it a try. Fuck you.” No, not a marketing exec blowing their top over John Lewis’ Christmas ad. That’s an email sent out by Spotify recommending an older, swearily-titled track by Allen to users, alongside nine other song recommendations. Now the company has had its knuckles rapped by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority after a complaint from a recipient that the wording of the email was offensive. “Recipients of emails from a general online music service would not expect them to include swearing,” claimed the ASA’s ruling. “We considered the use of ‘fuck’ was likely to cause serious offence to some recipients of such emails and therefore concluded that the ad breached the [UK advertising] code.” An interesting stat from Spotify’s defence: the streaming service is now sending 36m recommendations to users around the world every month.
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…