Spotify: Unbothered Network Launch
Case Study
Role: Creative Project Manager (Associate Producer) | Agency: FourTwo Creative (Agency of Record) | Client: Spotify | Year: 2022
Context & Brief
In November 2022, Spotify launched The Unbothered Network — a groundbreaking podcast and production company created by Emmy Award-winning journalist Jemele Hill, built to elevate the voices, stories, and nuanced experiences of Black women, by Black women. The network launched simultaneously with three shows: Jemele Hill is Unbothered, Black Girl Bravado, and the new Spotify Original Sanctified.
Spotify approached FourTwo Creative as Agency of Record to build the creative platform and lead a full content production for the launch campaign. The mandate was clear and specific: celebrate Black women without doing what every other brand had already done. The brief named the challenge directly — avoid the cookie cutter and often pandering marketing that brands like P&G, Teen Vogue, and Nike had produced. The bar was Issa Rae's RAEDIO. The message was non-negotiable: at The Unbothered Network, Black women are primary.
The Challenge
The campaign had several layers of complexity beyond the creative brief. Jemele Hill was the most recognizable face on the network, but the campaign needed to give equal weight to four additional hosts across three shows — each with distinct voices, audiences, and cultural significance. All five had to be shot in a single 6-hour content capture day at Spotify's LA office. One host was based in New Orleans and required travel coordination.
The full deliverable suite spanned hero film, cutdown assets, campaign photography, on-platform creative, paid social, and OOH placements at Penn Plaza, Times Square, and The Reef — all on a tight September to November timeline with multiple rounds of cross-functional review across Talk & Live Marketing, Studios Content, Partner Marketing, Legal, PR, Social, and Media teams.
My role: Creative Project Manager
As Associate Producer and Creative Project Manager, I served as the operational and relational connective tissue across a complex, multi-stakeholder production. FourTwo was the AOR responsible for the full creative platform and content capture — my role was to keep the creative vision aligned and the production moving across every workstream simultaneously.
Specifically:
Coordinated across Spotify's internal XFN stakeholder teams — Talk & Live Marketing, Studios Content, Partner Marketing, Studios Ops, Editorial, PR, Media, Social, and On-Platform Marketing — to maintain alignment on deliverables, feedback cycles, and approvals through multiple revision rounds
Supported talent management across all five hosts, including logistics coordination for travel, transportation, hair, makeup, wardrobe, and on-set scheduling within the 6-hour shoot window
Liaised between the director, photographer, graphic designer, and post-production team to ensure all outputs — hero film, cutdowns, campaign photography, digital assets, and OOH — were delivered cohesively and on brand across more than a dozen individual asset specifications
Supported the story and messaging development process to ensure Spotify's brief, the network's ethos, and each show's distinct voice were consistently reflected across every deliverable
Managed production timelines across a September–November calendar with 12+ key milestones from tissue share-out through final delivery
Campaign Deliverables
Story & messaging, art direction, film & video production (hero film + cutdowns), campaign photography, digital & OOH media design (Penn Plaza, 1TSQ, The Reef), on-platform CRM and banner creative, organic and paid social assets, talent management
Credits
Agency of Record: FourTwo Creative
Lead Producer: Hanan Osman | Creative Producer: Antoinette Isama | Associate Producer / Creative Project Manager: Oyinkan Olojede | Story: Damola Durosomo
Director: Briana Monet | Photographer: Grace Bukunmi | Graphic Designer: Laura Alston
Talent: Jemele Hill, Deborah Joy Winans, Lyvonne Briggs, Brittany Lackey, Germani Manning
