Making noise: what brands and retailers can learn from tuning into music artists’ social rhythms
There is currently much debate around the role of the high street retailer. How should they be utilising and maximising the potential of digital and social channels, dealing with the threat of showrooming, offering new and exciting experiences to customers enticing them out of the house and instore?
Aviici's The True Reveal campaign
How ought brands to be behaving to increase or maintain loyalty in an increasingly noisy and cluttered marketplace?
How should social be used (or indeed not used) to communicate and maintain dialogue with fans and brand ambassadors?
Initially one might think there are few parallels between this set of challenges and those which have been faced by the music industry over the past 15 years, however having lived through those myself the principles are startlingly similar.
The basic principle of building and maintaining a fanbase is fundamentally critical to the success of any recording artist. Nowadays proving your credentials through the size of your fanbase (ie your social media footprint) has become the norm before any type of deal – recording, live, merchandising and beyond – is signed or even considered. Gone are the days in which an aspiring artist can send a demo tape to an A&R in any part of the business and get a deal on the basis of talent alone.
Because building and maintaining a fanbase is so vital, fundamentals such as acquisition, retention and engagement are now the basis from which the majority of music marketing efforts are derived. These are also the same considerations for successful retailing.
Applying these same principles to retail could comprise the following:
1. Getting your target audience interested in your offering through the generation of awareness and PR (artists often do this through playing live, uploading and seeding content online and targeting key tastemakers in their area).
2. Once your target audience is interested, encourage an emotional connection with your fans or ambassadors, i.e. ‘Love For The Brand’.
3. Developing and maintaining an on-going relevant dialogue with this community, who have often requested it.
4. Rewarding loyalty, and doing so on a personal basis – especially to those that help spread the word, and may actively enjoy giving a helping hand to recruit more fans (street teams are a good example).
5. Understanding that the behaviour of some music fans can be tribal – for example within the dance or electronic dance music community. The ability to understand and harness this tribal behaviour can enable retailers and brands to evolve with multiple layers and offerings, building the business in a variety of related but different commercial areas (for example, dance music labels like Defected that have a recorded music arm, a publishing arm, a management arm, a merchandising arm and a live arm).
Music artists can also provide retailers with invaluable learning in terms of rewarding fans, such as with access and information – not just free product.
A great example is the recent Avicii Twitter artwork-unlock campaign, ‘The True Reveal’, based around an album artwork teaser campaign for EDM the artist’s next album. The tweet-to-unlock mechanic used a physical element: two "giant speakers" in an old nuclear reactor somewhere in Stockholm, book-ending an opaque pane of glass that's hiding the album artwork. Every time a fan tweeted using the hashtag #truereveal, the speakers got a little louder playing parts of a new track. Starting with the bassline, the song is unlocked instrument by instrument until ‘You Make Me’ is played in whole and “the glass pane shatters from the bass pressure," explains the official site. The scene was streamed live, with tweets projected onto the glass. There was also a pre-order link for the new album on iTunes, as well as a link to follow Avicii on Spotify. Nearly 60k tweets were posted in the first two days, according to the figures displayed within the livestream.
Digital provides a part of the experience, and in this case, also offers a great distribution mechanic for recorded music. It also enables personalised communication and two-way dialogue. Ultimately it’s a great way for artists to cultivate truly global fanbases. Digital has become fundamental to the way artists relate to their fans. Previously you were restricted to clunky direct mail or the live environment almost exclusively. The principles however can be applied to any environment, including retail. Context and relevance are key.
The fundamental principles of good marketing and retailing remain the same, regardless of the channels through which you execute (and indeed often the industry in which you sit).
Kim de Ruiter is head of mobile & entertainment partnerships at Cheil UK