Philip Burrows
A Billion-Dollar Miss, Because They Didn’t ...

Goldman Sachs. Citigroup. Barclays, all confidently modelled the future of music…and all completely wrong. Meanwhile, fans quietly built a billion-dollar resurgence right under their noses. A story proving that if you don’t understand fans…you won’t see what’s coming next. New edition of the Superfan Formula

Philip Burrows
“MEET FANS WHERE THEY ARE!" BUT THEN WHAT?

The phrase “meet fans where they are” is thrown around a lot in the music industry, but rarely understood. This edition of The Superfan Formula explores what it really means, why tiered monetisation misses the point, and how to use attitudinal insight to scale emotional connection and build a fanbase that lasts.

“MEET FANS WHERE THEY ARE!" BUT THEN WHAT?
Philip Burrows
PUTTING THE WORD ‘STRATEGY’ AFTER THE WORD ...

Everyone’s talking about “super-serving superfans” but no one’s asking what’s the actual plan? Strategy isn’t slapping “digital” in front of a campaign—it’s understanding what your artist means to fans, and where they’re going long-term. If you’re still throwing spaghetti at TikTok and calling it a strategy, it’s time to read this.

PUTTING THE WORD ‘STRATEGY’ AFTER THE WORD ‘DIGITAL’ DON’T MAKE IT STRATEGY, MATE!
Philip Burrows
WE SAW THE FUTURE…APPARENTLY SOME DID’NT LISTEN

A decade ago, we predicted how streaming would reshape music — and we were half-right. The industry embraced track-based strategy but ignored the need to build enduring artist brands. Now, labels lean on catalogue, artist development has stalled, and WHY data is more essential than ever. Time to rethink. #superfans

WE SAW THE FUTURE…APPARENTLY SOME DID’NT LISTEN
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THE BEHAVIOUR WAS VISIBLE. THE BARRIER WAS NOT.

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Spotify knew an extraordinary amount about how people used its service.

It could see who listened, what they listened to, when and where they listened, what device they used, which tracks they skipped, which features they explored and who moved from Spotify Free to Premium.

If any company should have been able to find the answer within its behavioural data, surely it was Spotify. Surely.

Except the answer wasn’t there.

During my time at EMI and Warner Music, we worked closely with Spotify to understand the motivations, perceptions and emotions of different tribes of music fans across ten countries.

In our research at the time, nearly half of Spotify Free users thought Premium had limitations that simply did not exist. Perhaps even more remarkably, around a quarter of existing Premium subscribers didn’t know that features they wanted were already available to them.

Spotify could see the behaviour.

It could not see the misunderstanding behind it.

The behaviour was visible. The barrier was not.

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SFF45: YOU KEEP USING THE WORD “INSIGHT”…

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I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the slide in your presentation labelled “Insights” probably doesn’t contain any.

Streams increased by 14%. Frequent match attendees buy more replica shirts. Vinyl buyers spend more on concert tickets.

These may be useful observations, patterns or correlations. But they do not necessarily explain why anything happened. And without the human explanation, we may be measuring activity while completely misunderstanding the person.

This atricle: why data, evidence and insight are not interchangeable and why knowing what fans did yesterday is not enough to create growth tomorrow.

You Keep Using the Word “Insight”…

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AN AUDIENCE IS NOT A COMMUNITY. AND A COMMUNITY IS NOT A FAN STRATEGY.

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There’s a growing consensus across music - and increasingly sport - that we need to build stronger, more direct relationships with fans. I agree completely, but we also need to be much more precise about what we mean.

An audience is not automatically a community.

A database is not automatically an owned relationship.

A group of highly engaged consumers is not automatically a fan strategy.

And calling something a community does not make it one.

Not every fan wants the same relationship. Some want access. Some want recognition. Some want to participate, create or advocate. Some simply want to listen, attend and remain quietly loyal for decades.

That does not make them less passionate. Although many of the engagement metrics we use to judge fandom would suggest otherwise.

This week’s edition of The Superfan Formula distinguishes between six things that are related - but absolutely not interchangeable.

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SFF43: THE MANAGER IS THE AUTEUR.

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Has artist management accidentally been reduced to project management? The manager spends the day responding, approving, forwarding and chasing. Busy? Absolutely. Strategic? Not necessarily. 

Somebody must optimise for the artist’s whole career, not simply the stream, ticket or T-shirt in isolation. That responsibility belongs to the manager.

THE BUSINESS MODEL ALWAYS WINS

Changing the vocabulary doesn’t change the incentives. You can create new departments. Rename existing functions. Add Strategy, Audience and Insight to job titles. 

But if the underlying business model is designed around rights management, catalogue performance, operational efficiency and shareholder returns, strategy will follow those incentives.

That isn’t an attack on labels. It is the reason managers must stop borrowing strategy from somebody else’s business. 

WHO OWNS YOUR FANS?

The next ownership battle in music won’t be over masters. It will be over understanding. Artists have spent decades fighting to own their recordings, publishing, image rights and merchandise. But as audience insight, fan intelligence, AI and predictive analytics become more valuable, another question is becoming increasingly important: Who owns understanding of the fan? Labels, streaming services, promoters, ticketing companies and merchandise partners can all contribute valuable information. But each sees the fan through its own commercial lens. Only management sees the whole career and the complete fan ecosystem. This is not about weakening commercial partners. Management-owned understanding should make every partnership, brief, campaign and investment decision better. Article 41 of The Superfan Formula: Who Owns Your Fans? Because once someone else owns understanding of your audience, they begin influencing the decisions that shape your future. Who owns the strategic picture in most artist businesses today?

FAKE HYPE IS NOT FAN STRATEGY

THE GUARDIAN EXPOSED THE TACTIC. ARTISTS & MANAGERS NEED TO UNDERSTAND THE RISK.

The Guardian recently published a fascinating, uncomfortable and very useful article about fake fans, cynical viral campaigns and agencies “confecting social media buzz” around artists.

Artists and managers should read it carefully, not because it proves marketing exists. Fans know artists are marketed. They understand campaigns exist. They're not idiots. But the issue is more serious, because it’s when marketing starts pretending to be fan culture.

  • Fake fan pages

  • Seeded narratives

  • Paid creator activity dressed up as organic excitement

  • Artificial discourse designed to make an artist look more culturally inevitable than they really are.

And yes, you know what I’m going to say next…this is not fan strategy. No, this is artificially simulated momentum, a very weak foundation on which to build an artist career. But hey, the appeal, of course, is obvious.

  • It's relatively cheap

  • It's visible

  • It creates screenshots

  • It gives the label something to point at

  • It makes the campaign feel alive

The Guardian cited one package at around £1,490 per month with a nine-month minimum. In label budget terms, that is not huge, which is probably part of the problem. It’s cheap enough to buy without enough strategic scrutiny, and visible enough to create the comforting illusion that something is happening.

A senior label marketer recently described this type of activity to me as “a short-term sugar rush”. A spike of noise, the feeling of movement, some shiny screenshots…but then…it just dies away. Because nothing has really been built.

  • No deeper fan relationship

  • No owned audience

  • No strategic insight

  • No long-term growth engine

  • No greater understanding of why people care.

It’s just smoke-and-mirrors growth - a flash-in-the-pan solution that ‘games the system’ rather than builds anything solid underneath it. And that matters because artists do not need the illusion of momentum. They need authentic, solid and defensible organic growth, at scale.

AN INDUSTRY TRYING TO ENGINEER THE SYMPTOMS OF FAN MOMENTUM

A Spike of Noise is not the Same as a Fanbase.

The Guardian article is not just a story about one agency or one band. It is a warning about a much bigger industry weakness.

Record companies are under pressure. Their commercial model has changed. Experienced in-house marketing knowledge has thinned out. Teams are being asked to do more with less. Everyone needs proof that a campaign is moving. Everyone needs to show heat. So the industry defaults to cheap, visible, short-term solutions. I mean, I suppose it’s understandable, but understandable doesn’t mean strategically wise. Because the risk isn't shared equally.

  • The label can move on

  • The agency can move on

  • But the artist? Well, they carry the trust damage.

In almost all cases, the Fans are not going to feel betrayed by “the marketing department”. Nope, they’ll feel betrayed by the artist. They’ll question whether the excitement was real. Whether the fan accounts were real. Whether the conversation was real. Whether the success was earned or engineered.

a fake spike of attention, quickly plunges into a crash of disinterest.

It risks one of the few assets in music that cannot simply be bought back. Trust.

  • The issue is not influence. Influence matters. The issue is fake influence.

  • The issue is not creator marketing. Done well, creator marketing can be useful.

  • The issue is marketing pretending to be fan culture.

Because real fan culture is not just distribution. It is meaning, identity, belonging, credibility, advocacy and emotional ownership. When that gets faked, the damage can be disproportionate. What we have is an industry trying to engineer the symptoms of fan momentum without understanding the causes.

  • A fake fan account can post three times a day

  • A creator can be paid to use a track

  • A narrative can be seeded

  • A comment section can be nudged

But none of that answers the questions that actually build careers.

  • Who genuinely cares?

  • Why do they care?

  • What role does this artist play in their life?

  • What are the ‘artist truths’ that connect?

  • Which fans are emotionally invested, not just passively aware?

  • Which audiences are adjacent but reachable?

  • Who has the motivation and credibility to carry the artist into new communities?

Those are not a bunch of airy-fairy, tree-hugging questions, no, they’re solid commercial questions. Because trust, belief, identity, belonging and advocacy are the foundations to the value everyone eventually tries to take credit for, package up and monetise.

IF THE ANSWER IS F*** ALL, YOU HAVEN’T BUILT GROWTH. YOU’VE RENTED NOISE.

So, this is where artists and managers need to be careful, because the question isn't whether a tactic creates activity this week, but what remains when the activity stops. If the answer is f*** all, you haven’t built growth. You’ve rented noise.

How To Be More Efficient. How To Be More Effective..For Longer.

At Sound Effects, through the Superfan Engine, we approach the problem differently. The last thing we’re looking to do is 'game the system'. We are trying to help artists, managers, rights-holders and sports organisations build a better one.

Superfan Engine uniquely combines attitudinal fan insight, strategic foundation and tactical implementation. Not as separate exercises, but as one connected system: understand the fan, build the strategy, then activate real people and communities in ways that compound. Authentically.

Amazingly, it is not dramatically more expensive than some of these flash-in-the-pan solutions. But what it leaves behind is fundamentally different: reusable fan understanding, owned audience intelligence, two-way audience relationships, strategic clarity, authentic activation and a stronger foundation for future growth.

That is the point. In a future edition, we’ll come back to the uncomfortable truth that proper fan understanding costs more than cheap tactical noise. Of course it f*ing does, because it actually builds something of value!

And artist careers should not be built on shifting sands.

The future is not better fake virality. It is better fan truth.

If you’re an artist, manager or rights-holder trying to build real fan growth rather than rent short-term noise, let’s talk.