David Bowie Is Here: How Spotify Turned a Subway Station Into a Living Tribute.
How Spotify transformed Broadway-Lafayette into an immersive Bowie museum, blending culture, place, and streaming seamlessly.
When Music Meets Place
In 2018, Spotify faced a rare branding challenge: how do you honor an icon without reducing him to a campaign? The answer was “David Bowie Is Here”, a takeover of New York’s Broadway-Lafayette subway station that blurred the lines between advertising, museum, and memorial. The activation wasn’t about pushing subscriptions. It was about rooting Spotify in Bowie’s city, and Bowie in the city’s daily life.
The Idea: New York as Bowie’s Canvas
The team started with a simple truth: New Yorkers didn’t just listen to Bowie, they lived with him. From Soho to Greenwich Village, the city shaped his creative output, and his fans shaped his mythology. Spotify’s response was to turn a subway station into a cultural portal. Instead of billboards, commuters stepped into a curated gallery of Bowie’s legacy, stitched together with artifacts, photography, and sound.
Execution: A Subway Becomes a Museum
Spotify and its partners secured every inch of media real estate inside Broadway-Lafayette for four weeks, not just posters, but beams, stairways, turnstiles, and even metro cards. Collaborating with the Brooklyn Museum and the Bowie estate, they pulled rare photography from Mick Rock and Masayoshi Sukita, and commissioned George Underwood to illustrate Ziggy Stardust in a surreal Greenwich Village scene.
To keep the installation immersive, each piece was accompanied by a museum-style placard with Bowie quotes. Unique Spotify codes linked the artwork to his music, creating a hybrid experience that was both physical and digital. In a bold move, the MTA allowed limited-edition Bowie metro cards, five designs for five personas, turning everyday tickets into collectible artifacts.
Impact: Culture, Commerce, and Collectibles
The campaign generated more than $31 million in earned media and reached 57 million people organically in its first week. Metro cards sold out instantly and resold on eBay for over $200, proving that when culture feels authentic, demand follows. Streams of Bowie’s music in New York rose 28%, while the Brooklyn Museum exhibition drew over 2 million visitors.
Recognition followed: five D&AD Pencils, including two Yellows, cementing the project as one of the most lauded campaigns of the year. More importantly, it repositioned Spotify not just as a platform that distributes music, but as a brand capable of curating cultural moments.
Why It Worked
Authenticity: Rather than co-opting Bowie’s legacy, Spotify worked with his estate and collaborators to honor it.
Immersion: By treating an everyday commute as a museum visit, the brand redefined the canvas for out-of-home advertising.
Participation: From scanning Spotify codes to collecting metro cards, the public wasn’t just an audience, they were part of the experience.
Bottom Line
“David Bowie Is Here” is a reminder that brand storytelling isn’t about scale, it’s about resonance. Spotify didn’t just promote an exhibition. It built an encounter that fused place, culture, and music into something unforgettable.
For marketers, the lesson is simple: when you respect the subject and elevate the audience, your brand earns its place in the story.
