Kill the campaign Music marketing needs branding, not direct response
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20,000 foot view: The debate over a new streaming royalties regime is capturing attention, but economics will not fix the underlying paradigm shifts that are the true cause for streaming’s problems: there is not enough money to go around for the ballooning amount of music on streaming services, and passive consumption is the new norm. To win in this competitive environment, marketing teams must reframe music consumption itself. The way to do so is marketing artist brands, not songs, which may mean sacrificing immediate song success for long-term artist success.
Key insights
- There is interest in new royalty frameworks address some of these issues, economics are the symptom, not cause – consumption needs to reframed
- TikTok is top of the funnel, but process is more like panning gold, with streaming being the dripping out, and fandom and being the nuggets of gold behind. Artists and labels are the gold, but monetising the
- In today’s entertainment environment, a song alone rarely enough for building fandom it requires knowing the artist their story
- Music marketers two principal opportunities: play the economy; nurture scenes
- Scenes are often built on identity, and is what underpins fandom – is the symptom, identity is cause
- It is for music marketing to pivot, off the direct-response song economy with labels becoming artist branding
- Songs remain but for marketers, songs should the outcome of the artist campaign, not the campaign itself
- Go beyond makes fans tick – understanding drivers is the secret sauce fandom building and products
Companies and brands mentioned in this report: Audiomack, BTS, Cactus Jack, Fred Again, Fortnite, Instagram, Hofstede, HYBE, Raye, SoundCloud, Spotify, Tidal, TikTok, Travis Scott, Twitch, Wikipedia