Everyone loves music, but not everyone loves advertising. Faced with increasingly impatient and fickle customers, some of the world’s most famous brands have been turning to music and artists to engage the public in a way they could never do alone. Why? Because music speaks to our emotions, brings people together and starts conversations. If used correctly, it can turn a one-off purchaser into a loyal fan.
“Jakob Lusensky has done a great service to all marketers by writing Sounds Like Branding. Every company should have a music strategy. Some do; most don’t. This book shows you how. It’s a five step programme – a very short stairway to heaven.” - Kevin Roberts, CEO Worldwide, Saatchi & Saatchi
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (A&C Black Publishers Ltd) will publish the English version of Sounds Like Branding in the UK on the 18th of July.
fanatic.fm is a music sponsorship platform where brands and bands can find each other in a new way. Instead of paying for advertising spots on music destination sites, brands set up a pool of funds for a branding campaign and “invite” musicians that they feel best portray their brand values and image. Then it’s up to the invited musicians to accept or refuse the invitation (yep, you’re right! It works just like a friendship request on Facebook). A band and brand relationship is formed only when mutual consent is reached. Pretty cool! Don’t you think?
But, what’s in it for the artists?
The branding fund is allocated among the invited musicians based on the number of plays. Both parts have the incentive to engage their social media network to drive traffic to the newly formed relationship, creating a win-win scenario for both the band and the brand. Musicians take 70% of the total sponsorship revenue and fanatic.fm takes 30%. And then musicians and fanatic.fm donate 2.5% each to charities that musicians select to help them change the world.
Yesterday Samsung started its first campaign on fanatic.fm, sponsoring Sydney Wayser’s album. This however doesn’t close the opportunity of other musicians to upload their songs and suggest sponsorship to Samsung as well.
Ian Kwon, co-founder of fanatic.fm, comments on the service, “More and more brands are playing the role of content curators and music is great content to express a brand identity. We wanted to create a platform for those needs. The platform also provides a good way for bands to monetize their music streaming.”
The value of a sound…sound strategy is still a dim second in advertising briefs but smarter brands are catching on. Audi achieved sonic branding two years ago, with its sport for the A5 sportback - a steady, pumping heartbeat, breath and a piano as seen (and heard) above.
Not so long ago, brands wanted nothing but the big bands – to promote their (often big) brands. Today however, global companies such as Diesel, Mountain Dew (Pepsi) and Converse have adopted the ‘exploration strategy’, to reach the crowd and build their own fanbases.
Many things have changed within the music industry during the last fifteen years or so. The business is growing increasingly diverse as music fans enjoy a wide range of platforms to consume music. In the 80s and 90s most brands strictly wanted the big bands to promote their brands, because only they would generate the desired customer attention and raise sales (brand managers thought). Now however, brands have started to adopt what we at Heartbeats refer to as the ‘exploration strategy‘. Instead of spending loads of money on our time’s counterparts to Michael Jackson, Prince or Madonna, brands choose to promote new and up-coming talents, the superstars of tomorrow.
An early adopter of this strategy is fashion brand Diesel, with Diesel:U:Music (D:U:M), launched 10 years ago, as a yearly unsigned music talent award and a worldwide support network with new artists, labels, radio stations, journalists and producers across the world. Recently D:U:M partnered with Sonicbids, a music gig discovery and booking website, to launch Diesel’s Stupid for Music World Cup in celebration of D:U:M’s 10th anniversary. In World Cup style, indie bands battle for a chance to win not only prizes from Diesel, but a professional PR campaign, music video production and recording session as well.
Another brand that has adopted the ‘exploration strategy’ is Mountain Dew (Pepsi) with record label Green Label Sound, where the brand gives away free downloads and promotes new artists and bands - giving their audience something more than just a soft drink.
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Yet, another example of a brand exploring undiscovered artists and musicians is Converse with its Get Out Of The Garage contest, as well as its global creative project ‘You’re It’, launched earlier this year.
New technology has definitely opened the door for these kind of marketing strategies. However, it’s not enough to only be present at places where the audience is, or own a platform. Rather, marketing needs a higher purpose. A number of brands have understood this, and they are now building the fanbases of tomorrow, yet there are many that still have a long way to go… The ‘exploration strategy’ is one proven path to take.
More and more brand marketers are playing with original music to engage their customers. Our last example was Coca-Cola and how the beverage company successfully used music (K’Naan’s Wavin’ Flag) during the World Cup.
Sounds like Branding (How to use the power of music to turn customers into fans) is the forthcoming book by Jakob Lusensky, CEO at Heartbeats. The book takes you on an ear-opening journey through the history of music and marketing, from the humble jingle and Muzak to today’s music which is blurring the line between brands and bands; making brands in to the record labels of tomorrow.
This weekend we got a very interesting marketing study that researches key factors for success when creating and implementing a sonic/music identity. Niklas Andersson has a master of science in business and economics at the Lund University in Sweden.
Below are ten of the key conclusions Niklas draws in how to be successful when establishing and implementing your sonic/music identity.
1. Knowing your brand identity, i.e. knowing who you are before trying to convince consumers of who you are, through sonic branding.
2. Conducting a deep and thorough analysis, prior to engaging in the creation of a sound identity; investing sufficient enough of resources for this to be made possible
3. Understanding that when determining core values, tied to a company´s or brand´s identity, one must also include a consideration to them being suitable, as far as being possible to clearly and distinctly recreate as music and sounds
4. Gaining knowledge of the tastes and preconditions of certain targeted groups
5. Differentiating the transmitted core values of a sound identity from that of competitors, so that it can become clear and unique
6. Understanding that certain core values, when attempted to be translated into music and sounds, may lie very close to being perceived in a completely different, and perhaps greatly undesired way.
7. Reaching internal conviction within companies, of the reasons for a certain sound identity´s components and attributes. If co-workers are not entirely convinced of the cleverness and importance of its sound identity, they may reject it and in so increase
the risk of it rather weakening as opposed to strengthening the image of the brand
8. If possible, conducting consumer tests prior to the implementation of a sound identity, testing its perceived values by measuring emotional association
9. Enabling a sophisticated marriage between sonic and visual attributes; in so creating the sense of overall aesthetic appeal
10. Reviewing and, if needed, modifying a company´s sound purchasing strategy, in so possibly saving large amounts of resources, as well as increasing the chances of creating a unified sound identity
