Artist Fandom The Artist Marketing Playbook Needs Rewriting

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The 20,000 Foot View:  The whole essence of fandom is being turned upside down. An emerging crop of streaming native artists is finding its audience in a much more targeted and efficient way than via traditional music marketing. Instead of blowing a huge budget on carpet bombing TV, radio, and print, online artists and their teams are finding their exact audiences by focusing on relevance and engagement rather than reach and scale. In doing so, the traditional metrics for measuring success are becoming progressively less relevant. Being a household name might have been a mark of success in years gone by, but now can just as easily represent wasted, poorly targeted marketing spend.

Key Findings

• Between        2016 and        2019 radio listening fell from        to        streaming rose from        to        and YouTube music viewing was up from        to       
• Artist success needs measuring across a diverse range of metrics including awareness, fandom, overall listening and streaming 
• Traditional, album-focused artists who had their brands built using the traditional music marketing playbook have the highest awareness
• Queen is the most listened-to artist        illustrating how Bohemian Rhapsody reinvigorated interest in an already enduring band
• Lady Gaga has the highest artist awareness        narrowly pushing the Beatles into second       
• Post Malone has the biggest streaming audience rate        followed by DJ Snake       
• Overall listening rankings are slower moving than streaming, more closely reflecting overall levels of fandom and awareness 
• Awareness peaks later than consumption – Lady Gaga tops awareness but is        in streaming rankings
• The top        streaming audience artists are not in the top        most well-known rankings, indicating early stage and ‘under the radar’ artists
• Lady Gaga and Queen both have fanbases with close to half  of them aged       
• Post Malone has a much younger fanbase with just        aged        and        aged under       

Companies and brands mentioned in this report: A Star is Born,  Beyonce, Billie Eilish, Bohemian Rhapsody, Bruno Mars, Camila Cabello, Celine Dion, the Chainsmokers, Coldplay, Daddy Yankee, Daft Punk, David Guetta, DJ Snake, Ed Sheeran, Elton John, H.E.R., Justin Bieber, Justin Timberlake, the Killers, Kobalt, Lady Gaga, Lauv, Luis Fonsi,        Martin Garrix, Miley Cyrus, P!nk, Post Malone, Queen, Rex Orange Country, Spotify, Taylor Swift, The Beatles, The Chainsmokers, The Rolling Stones, TikTok, YouTube

This report previews top-level trends from MIDiA Research’s        2019 Artist Brand Tracker.