OVER THE YEARS OUR WORK WITH SOME OF THE BIGGEST NAMES IN MUSIC HAS TAKEN US ALL OVER THE WORLD GAINING AN APPRECIATION OF DIFFERENT MARKET DYNAMICS AND THE NUANCED AUDIENCE CONNECTION WITHIN EACH.
However, in all this time it has surprised us how little rigour and insight can sometimes go into the decisions that brands make when investing, sometimes huge amounts of money, in the music space. Rationale like “We’d like to work with XXX, because the CMO wants to have dinner with the lead singer” or “my 12-year-old nephew says this song will be awesome for our Ad” are exceptional examples, they do nevertheless happen.
However, brands can’t be wholly blamed for some of the erroneous decisions made around their investment in music.
Although a brand will have a huge understanding of its own audience and sector, they won’t be experienced at navigating the landscape of the music industry; understand segmented fandom or where they as a brand could fit in the landscape. And why would they, it’s not their area of expertise. To compound this, the brand is provided with very little useful insight to inform their decisions. At the very best, brands are given a myopic view of an artist’s profile and audience with very little real insight into the entire competitor landscape or audience potential.
Perhaps this is because the traditional ‘agents’ of any potential partnership will themselves only be focused on their roster or their client. And potentially, only artists that are in cycle at that moment. Their focus; their objective will more than likely not be an impartial and strategic thought about what that brand is trying to achieve.
WHEN IT COMES TO MUSIC, BRANDS NEED MORE ROBUST INSIGHT THAN THEY GET AT THE MOMENT.
Depending on who that ‘agent’ is, their supporting commercial rational will more than likely be based on retrospective consumption or narrow social data and a lot of opinion.
Music is such a powerful and emotive platform to drive closer audience connections with a myriad of options for brand experience and content, that brands needs a far more comprehensive level of insight to select the ultimate vehicle and devise a successful activation.
It’s why we developed the range of tools and services that we have at Sound Effects. We’ve then taken our experience from inside the music business to help clients identify audiences, define potential growth and understand where their opportunity lies within the landscape of music and popular culture.