Kill the campaign Music marketing needs branding, not direct response

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

February 2023

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.

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

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