#2 ENGAGEMENT (4Es of music branding)
People are sick of advertising. A recent conducted survey by the SIFO Institute showed that 75% of people actively avoid advertising, whether it’s on TV, Internet or radio. New technology has set the customer in charge of the remote control.
In order to reach out to customers today you have to deserve their attention. To deserve their attention you need to engage them. If you engage them they will pass on your message, creating word-of-mouth which has always been marketing’s strongest tool (ranked as having seven times
as much impact as traditional advertising).
People love music. A survey from Millward Brown showed that music is the media that people would least like to live without (before Internet and TV). Another survey conducted by EMR (Entertainment Media Research) showed also that music is the main reason why people spend so much time on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Myspace. Music engages people in dialogue and conversation, whether it’s online or in ‘real life’.
The reason why a market leader such as Coca-Cola puts music at the heart of its marketing mix is that they understand that music engages people, that marketing today is conversation, and that when music is free it is one of the most important social media to start-up and nourish conversations around the brand and its products. In this way they can create not only consumers but friends, and in the long run, true fans of the brand.
