The focus around this year’s election, the UK’s third general election in less than five years, has been around encouraging people to register to vote and to make their voices heard. It’s been less about taking sides and more about see the process of democracy unfold.

It's an increasingly important message as the Electoral Commission estimates that some 9.4 million people eligible to vote are not currently on the register. This is a huge number especially when you take into consideration the disproportion in numbers between social and economic groups that actually register.

To reach young people where they were already operating online and encourage them to register to vote, Spotify partnered with Digitas UK to create ‘It’s Our Time’, a 'track-like' ad that becomes part of your playlist if you’re listening on the free version. The campaign was devised after the team realised registering to vote online takes around three minutes, or the same length as an average song.

The creative visual resembles that of an album cover so people would be less likely to skip and more likely to engage directly with it. The campaign comes as part of Digitas UK’s wider drive to increase awareness of the climate crisis and make 2019 a climate election. The agency were heavily involved in the industry’s Create and Strike movement, crafting unique OOO emails that could be downloaded and shared cross-industry.

CCO of Digitas UK Emma de la Fosse said, “To reach young people who hadn’t yet registered to vote, we knew we had to go to where they were and engage them in a relevant way”. As the ad ends, “whatever the next track is, make it count.”