Product Strategy | MIDiA Research

What Drake got wrong — and right — with 100 Gigs

15 Aug 2024

On August 6th , with no prior announcement, Drake unloaded 100 gigabytes’ worth of content, including songs and video clips, to a personal website and directed fans there via his Instagram burner account.

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Marketers, don't miss out on GTA 6

Rhys Elliott

31 Jul 2024

GTA

grand theft auto

brands

Grand Theft Auto VI ( GTA 6 ) is due to launch in autumn 2026. It will be one of the century's biggest entertainment launches, and its impact will ripple through culture for years to come. Remember how every brand jumped on the Barbie movie hype train with an everything-pink activation? GTA 6 is abo...

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Social platform user behaviour
Q1 2024

Cover image for Social platform user behaviour

Hanna Kahlert

July 2024

Marketing Strategy

The social platform marketplace is mature, with user growth stabilising, and the established platforms now fiercely competing for shares of a finite amount of available time. This report analyses the behaviours of the audiences engaging with social platforms; including daily active use market shares, monetisation aptitude, social video time spent, ...

How DistroKid can leverage its podcast partnership to help artists tell their stories

Rutger Rosenborg

27 Jun 2024

Podcasts

DistroKid

music distribution

On the heels of MIDiA’s report “ Defining podcast taste: The universal appeal of music, news, and comedy ”, podcast network Evergreen Podcasts and independent music distributor DistroKid announced a sponsorship deal.

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Did Charli XCX go mainstream, or did the mainstream just go niche?

Tatiana Cirisano

13 Jun 2024

fragmented fandom

Consumer behaviour

Charli XCX

“ I’m famous, but not quite ,” Charli XCX sings on ‘I might say something stupid’, a moment of honest insecurity amidst the brash club anthems that make up her new album Brat . It is a familiar refrain for the artist, who has spent her decade-plus career wavering between the mainstream and...

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Branded podcasts level up: Ubisoft’s gaming podcasts bring games to life for new audiences

Rutger Rosenborg

7 Jun 2024

Podcasts

Gaming

Marketing

As the podcast listener base grows , companies across several industries — from automotive to fast food — see podcast production as a way to market to new audiences (sort of like an audio blog). Branded podcasts are nothing new for big games publishers like PlayStation and Xbox.

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Billie Eilish delivered a superfan masterclass

Kriss Thakrar

4 Jun 2024

Music

Superfans

SoundCloud

While the industry standard for new releases has long been about scale and velocity, Billie Eilish, her brother Finneas, and Darkroom/Interscope, the labels behind their latest album Hit Me Hard and Soft , have delivered a masterclass in executing a superfan-focused release strategy.

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Fallout is another transmedia hit, but the strategy needs to evolve

Rhys Elliott

26 Apr 2024

Amazon

Prime Video

Fallout

Everyone was talking about the Super Mario Bros. Movie (The Mario movie ) and HBO’s The Last of Us this time last year, and now Fallout has entered the mainstream thanks to the Amazon show. But, for game publishers, the transmedia strategy is nowhere near maximising its potential.

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Taylor Swift, The Black Dog, and the fan frenzy flywheel

Kriss Thakrar

25 Apr 2024

Fandom

Superfans

Taylor Swift

A new Taylor Swift album is almost guaranteed to start a fan frenzy - the question is, what form will it take? Breaking Spotify records is a given, but digital consumption is not enough to satiate super fandom.

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Collector’s editions are becoming a backdoor for monetising early access

Rhys Elliott

17 Apr 2024

Xbox

Xbox Game Pass

Ubisoft

Since publishers first increased AAA game prices from $60 to $70 in 2020, many people have asked MIDiA if publishers will raise that price further. Our answer: they already have – sort of, anyway. Via collector’s editions – more expensive versions of games with extra content – publishers are...

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Why don’t we hear popular music on popular podcasts?

Rutger Rosenborg

29 Feb 2024

Audio

Podcasts

Streaming

There are a number of popular podcasts that dissect popular music. One is called, well, Dissect . Others are Popcast , Song Exploder , and Switched on Pop . Podcasts like these usually play extended sections — if not whole recordings — of popular tracks, but beyond that, it is virtually impossib...

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The crumbling of music media is a disaster for the music industry

Tatiana Cirisano

22 Jan 2024

Music fandom

music journalism

Record labels

As a former music journalist, I can say that layoffs are somewhat to be expected when you work in media. Nobody gets into this industry looking for stability. But the past 12 months have felt especially grim, with a growing list of mass layoffs and complete shutdowns that includes Bandcamp Daily , M...

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Paramount’s marketing for the new Mean Girls movie was totally fetch, but like, did it pay off?

Ashleigh Millar

18 Jan 2024

musicals

Mean Girls

TikTok

It’s official: the Mean Girls 2024 movie is the new Regina George of cinema (for now), topping last weekend’s US box office by bringing in $28 million, raising to $32 million on Martin Luther King Jr.

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Ghost podcasts are haunting your social feed — what to know about the new ad format

Rutger Rosenborg

17 Jan 2024

Podcasts

TikTok

Social media

We typically think about podcast advertising in terms of brands advertising their products on podcasts, but an emerging podcast advertising trend is calling into question what a podcast actually is. Rather than advertising on podcasts, brands are starting to advertise as podcasts.

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Why the Stanley tumbler may be half full

Tatiana Cirisano

16 Jan 2024

music industry

Social media

TikTok

If you were not familiar with the Stanley cup a month ago, you likely are now. Over the holiday season, the 40-ounce tumbler rocketed from being a relatively niche item favourited by moms to the Gen Z stocking stuffer sold-out at Targets everywhere, and now it is seemingly inescapable.

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Podcasts are following in the footsteps of TV and film…. should they?

Rutger Rosenborg

14 Dec 2023

Spotify

Netflix

Podcasts

Spotify’s 17 percent workforce reduction was one of the biggest headlines in music, audio, and tech last week. Those layoffs coincided with the cancelation of some of the most critically-acclaimed podcasts to come out of Spotify’s acquisition drive: Heavyweight and Stolen .

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Artists are speaking out about the content treadmill — is it too late to slow down?

Tatiana Cirisano

14 Dec 2023

burnout

music industry

Music creators

If you were on the music industry bubble of X this week, you probably caught wind of Bethany Cosentino’s honest reflection of her solo album release. For the uninitiated, the frontwoman of cult California rock duo Best Coast released her first solo album, Natural Disaster , in July, but it did not...

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Identity and culture have killed genre in a scenes-driven industry

Kriss Thakrar

31 Oct 2023

Scenes

jazz

TikTok

This year has seen a renaissance for jazz in popular culture, with artists like Laufey, DOMi and JD Beck, and Ezra Collective succeeding on commercial and critical levels. However, their successes also demonstrate one of the key dynamics driving the modern music industry: identity and culture are mo...

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As Sam Ryder cuts to the chase, the question is do all artists become indie?

Keith Jopling

7 Sep 2023

Streaming

music industry

Creator economy

Like everyone, I have a basket of core artists I am a dedicated fan of. But there is a wider group of artists I follow and am always intrigued about, both musically and in terms of their career trajectory.

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Bauer and Audible: Radio and podcasts CAN work together

Annie Langston

9 Aug 2023

Bauer

Audible

Radio

Although podcasts are sometimes considered radio’s replacement, there are key differences between the formats – such as on demand versus live – that serve distinct audiences. In Bauer’s new partnership with Audible, presenters Fleur East (Hits Radio) and Tyler West (KISS Radio) will discuss ...

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