IF MUSIC IS SUCH AN EFFECTIVE WAY TO CONNECT WITH AUDIENCES, WHY DO SOME BRANDS NOT COMMIT TO IT MORE? AND WHY DO SOME SEEM TO AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS, WHILE EMBRACING SPORTS SPONSORSHIP?

There is undoubtedly a security within sports sponsorship. The structure and recurring routine of sports can make it a safe and predictable ecosystem for brands to inhabit. One that is easy to plan and strategize around. But it’s that predictability that can make sport activations so, well…predictable.

Are some brands missing an opportunity to have a more emotive connection with a more targeted audience?

Music is perhaps the most emotive and widely consumed art form on the planet. It has the power to evoke deep, primal feelings at the core of the shared human experience, sound tracking the very highs and lows of life.

There’s not much creative wiggle-room for a brand, as they have to fit into the established structure of a particular sport. So often brand activations in sport can be generically broad brushed, built around the same recurring tropes. Although some sports will have massive reach, there is a danger of an almost ‘mud-against the wall’ form of communication due to the attitudinal diversity of the audience. But then, how often is a sports activation actually from the fan’s perspective - built around specific human experience?

Music has the reach, but it’s also highly targetable, highly emotive and bursting with content. There is also an inherent form of segmentation around fandom, which is more than often attitudinally grounded. The breadth of creative content creators within music, also enables you to find the right artistic values that marry to those of your own brand.

So, if music offers so much, why the reticence to dive right in or to even dip-ones-toe?

Some brands do clearly worry about that perceived unpredictability, and many find it difficult to navigate an unfamiliar landscape. Over during the time that we’ve worked within the music business, we acknowledged that apprehension and identified the solution in better insight.

Sometimes, despite the best intentions the start point for a brand will be the ‘talent’, where in fact they should be starting with the audience. Time and again for example, we see audiences that seem very similar at a demographic and consumption level yet couldn’t be further apart at an attitudinal level.

Put simply, if brands were provided with a sufficiently robust level of insight, that perceived unpredictable could be removed.

It’s why we developed the range of tools and services that we have at Sound Effects. It allows our clients to identify audiences, define potential growth and understand where their opportunity lies within the landscape of music and popular culture.