DAVID BOWIE IS was the critically acclaimed exhibition that ended its five-year run around the world at the Brooklyn Museum in 2018. As one of the exhibition’s sponsors, Spotify decided to create its own tribute to the late, great musician and his relationship with New York, where he was a resident for 20 years up until his death.

“The idea was to celebrate the way New York helped to shape him, and the artistic legacy of his relationship with the city,” says Spotify. To do this, the company took over Bowie’s local subway station, Broadway-Lafayette, and transformed it into a temporary museum exhibit with large-scale photographic installations and interactive displays.

The centrepiece of the takeover stretched across 30 metal ‘L beams’ that could be seen from either end of the station, and showed black-and-white photos of Bowie as the Thin White Duke – a persona he adopted in the mid-70s.

In true viral campaign fashion, people queued for more than two hours to buy the accompanying limited edition MetroCards of Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane incarnations, and they were soon selling on eBay for more than $200.

Credit:
Agency: Spotify In-House. Chief Marketing Officer: Seth Farbman. VP, Brand & Creative: Jackie Jantos. Senior Global Brand Director: Alexandra Tanguay. Global Executive Creative Director: Alex Bodman. Global Brand Design Director: Rasmus Wangelin. Global Director of Integrated Production: Belinda Lopez. Director of Brand Strategy: Zach Pentel. Associate Creative Director: Noel Yeo, Bruno Luglio. Senior Art Director: Erik Herrstrom. Art Director: Rainy Fu, Angeline Toh. Designer: Will Oswin. Senior Producer: Cynthia Angel. Producers: Jeong Park, Kenzie Tankersley. Global Brand Director: Christian Navarro. Senior Global Brand Manager: Candice Greenberg. Associate Brand Manager: Christine Motch. Head of Global Content Marketing: Marian Dicus. Associate Director, Artist & Content Marketing: Sam Duke. Head of Global Media: Scott Marsden. Global Media Manager: Teal Kratky. Global Head of Communications: Dustee Jenkins. PR Manager: Tamika Young. Global Social Campaign Manager: Zainab Hasnain. Social Media Marketing: Jordan Toczynski. Business Affairs Lead: Lauren King. Media Company: UM Worldwide. Production Partner: Leisure, Inc. Anamorphic Design Partner: Truly Design. Special thanks: The David Bowie Estate, The David Bowie Archive, The Brooklyn Museum, V&A Museum, Masayoshi Sukita, George Underwood.