Reddit is capturing users’ “year-in-review” in a new iteration of its annual Recap campaign.
The integrated campaign, launched Thursday, celebrates Reddit users’ fun, unhinged and extensive use of the platform, featuring personalized usage stats on individuals’ accounts, new out of home components and cheeky, humorous creative that addresses the campaign’s similarities to Spotify Wrapped head on.
Created by Reddit’s in-house team in partnership with R/GA, the year-in-review debuted on Tuesday with a three-minute video montage of memorable discussion topics on Reddit this year, such as Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars and Russia’s war in Ukraine, among other viral moments. The video is set to an original song that recaps the events of 2022.
Other campaign assets include a humorous, self-deprecating parody video that addresses Reddit Recap’s similarities to Spotify’s Wrapped campaign, titled “Totally Not Spotify Wrapped,” and a promotional video called “Alternate Universe,” narrated by banana puppets.
The videos reflect how Reddit users spend time and engage with communities on the platform by drawing attention to the moments that made connecting with others memorable, said Rachel Weber Callaway, senior manager of consumer product marketing at Reddit.
“Sometimes when you're on the platform every day, you maybe forget all the places you've been and all the posts you've seen that made you smile or that prompted you to comment,” she said. “Having that personalized product really gives our users a chance to understand and reflect on everything they contributed to and gained from the platform over the past year.”
The spots will run in a Reddit forum created by the company called r/Recap, as well as other stats on general Reddit usage over the last year. Users who sign into their accounts to view a personalized recap will access notable and cheeky features including the ability to measure the distance scrolled on Reddit with bananas, or time-spent online with trips to the moon. Reddit will also grant users personality badges, called “Reddit Special Abilities,” based on how they engaged with others on the platform.
One possible badge, for instance, is “Educated Guess,” which suggests a user can learn from others based on their responses, Callaway said.
This year’s personalized recaps will also capture users’ engagement with Reddit’s exclusive projects, such as r/place, a social experiment conducted on April Fool’s Day in which users collaborated on a joint work of art. The project, first launched in 2017, made a comeback this year based on popular demand.
To build awareness for the campaign, Reddit has also purchased a digital billboard ad in Times Square, created by its in-house creative studio OrangeRed and animation studio Toast. It will also promote the Recap across social channels.
“This year, we wanted to focus on the community being at the heart of everything we do,” Callaway said. “The way [people] come to Reddit can be very different [than other platforms]. You can be your authentic self and find the communities that matter to you.”
While the Recap campaign is primarily geared towards Reddit users, Callaway is confident that demonstrating its “depth and breadth” and all the reasons people use is “inherently valuable to advertisers,” she said.
“We’re continuing to evolve our consumer product experience and offering to make Reddit the best, most relevant and most engaging place for individuals to find community, and in doing so, are creating a platform full of highly engaged and passionate people,” she said.
This story first appeared on campaignlive.com.