Music marketing is a particularly tricky business. Both industries are ever changing and they are trying to adapt to new technologies, changing consumer attitudes and online distribution channels to name a few. This paper will discuss current evolvements within music marketing, focusing on what beginning artists and marketers should pay attention to if they want to successfully market themselves and their music to one of the most involved and variable group of consumers of any entertainment product (Datta, H., Knox, G., & Bronnenberg, B. J., 2017). To do this, I will analyse three articles related to online marketing, social media and streaming behaviour.
The first article, called ‘’Integrated Marketing Communication and Postmodernity: An Odd Couple?’’ discusses the effect of combining integrated marketing communication (IMC) with a postmodern consumer society. IMC is simply defined by all forms of communication to consumers, being linked together and carefully controlled to ensure a coherent message is both sent and received. The article states that consumers in postmodern society are resistant to the concept of IMC. They wish to be actively involved in the process of communication rather than just being receivers. Experiences, both with the brand during communication, and linkage with like-minded people are two factors that work against IMC and postmodernity.
The second article is titled ‘’The Effects of Social Media Marketing on Online Consumer Behaviour.’’ This article lays focus on the relationship between social media marketing followed by consumer reaction. Social media allows companies to communicate to consumers directly, and at a more informal level than ever before. It also allows consumers to communicate back, and be part of a conversation rather than being a listener, as postmodern society dictates. For many consumers today, brand identity is almost as important as the product itself. If a consumer feels like their personal values do not line up with the brands values, it could be the deciding factors between two options, regardless of the product’s quality.
The third article is named ‘’Changing Their Tune: How Consumers’ Adoption of Online Streaming Affects Music Consumption and Discovery.’’ It discusses changing consumer behaviour as they adopt to new channels of distribution for music. The main example used in the paper is Spotify. Spotify is currently the biggest music streaming platform and it works on the principle that a monthly fee is charged, regardless of how much media (music, in this case) is consumed. Before, consumers would have to pay per song, or per album to be able to consume the media. This means that media consumption, in amount of songs, was directly correlated to the amount of money paid for the media. As visible, streaming platforms like Spotify radically changed the game by allowing people to consume more, both in amount and diversity, without paying more. The effect this has had on music consumption and discovery was immense. Consumers were listening to more songs, discovering more artists and exploring more new genres than ever before.
As music marketers, it is our job to be up to date on recent developments, and how to use these developments to our benefit, whether we are marketing our own music or someone else’s. The first important thing to know is that consumers are looking for a conversation, and experience with your brand (Christensen, L. T., Torp, S., & Firat, A. F., 2005). The experience economy has been growing steadily the past few years and for consumers today it has become a need for many consumers. Furthermore, it is important to realize that social media is the most powerful tool, especially for a beginning musician. The connection that consumers have with a brand can sometimes be more important than the product itself (Vinerean, S., Cetina, I., Dumitrescu, L., & Tichindelean, M., 2013). The company values, which are part of the customer experience are just as important to align with the consumer values, as the product itself. Finally, postmodern consumers are very fond of the sharing economy (Datta, H., Knox, G., & Bronnenberg, B. J.,2017). When consumers have the option to be involved, and consume media at an unlimited rate they tend to do exactly that. This is something important to remember as a music marketer. Following is an example of a rock band that’s been forced to adapt their marketing strategy to current times.
Iron Maiden is an old rock band that has been forced to adapt to postmodernity. The Book of Souls is their new studio album in a long time. It was announced mid last year, the they were very secretive about it, leaving consumers to guess and think what the songs would sound like. Then, a stylized version of the cover, together with a 27-second guitar solo was released via Facebook Twitter and YouTube. They got an astonishing combined 1 million views. They also relaunched their official YouTube channel, adding 19 of the bands most popular videos. To create involvement, they made a web game and launched it 7 days before their album release, receiving over 250k additional visitors which drove a big share of the pre-orders for the album (Milne, 2016).
References
Christensen, L. T., Torp, S., & Firat, A. F. (2005). Integrated marketing communication and
postmodernity: an odd couple?. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 10(2), 156-167.
Datta, H., Knox, G., & Bronnenberg, B. J. (2017). Changing Their Tune: How Consumers
Adoption of Online Streaming Affects Music Consumption and Discovery. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2782911
Milne, J. (2016, 04 29). THE BEST SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGNS IN MUSIC. Retrieved 09 22, 2017, from Harkable Blog : http://harkable.com/blog/the-best-social-media-campaigns-in-music/
Vinerean, S., Cetina, I., Dumitrescu, L., & Tichindelean, M. (2013). The Effects of Social
Media Marketing on Online Consumer Behavior. International Journal of Business and Management; Vol. 8, No. 14, 8(14). doi:10.5539
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