Media Marketing Essay

"In the Music Industry, the power of marketing online is the most useful asset in the promotion of music products." To what extent do you agree with the statement?

I fully agree with this statement. I think that traditional marketing methods have past their time and newer, more effective strategies have replaced them. Overall, push marketing has been overthrown by pull marketing. Push marketing is the normal marketing tactic used by advertisers. This is where the content is “pushed” upon the consumer, forcing them to consume the content. The more up-to-date strategy is providing the user with the ability and incentive to consume the content, resulting in higher levels of user interaction and giving the user the control of the message being sent out. Due to this change, the level of interaction that can be achieved with social media is becoming focal to the pull marketing campaigns.

Some great examples of successful pull marketing would be Odd Future and One Direction. They made great use of a prominent social media presence to advertise their tours. One Direction used their vast social media following to get the news out about the 55 “Go1Den Tickets”, promising a VIP experience for the lucky winners. The 1D website achieved its biggest ever volume of traffic and millions of people took part and engaged in the event. The band constantly maintained their presence through regular updates and managed to double their followers. Odd Future have their exclusive “OF Sweatshop” which features unique merchandise for each event, never selling the same thing twice. They give some of their music away for free and make a good portion of their profits from these one off stalls at their concerts. OF’s manager insists that “There’s no marketing, it’s exposing it at the right place at the right time.” and makes great use of the member’s social networking presence. The front man, Tyler, The Creator, is an addict of social network and uses this to his advantage, promoting shows as well as merch, adding personal reviews and opinions different to that offered by the common PR run social media of other artists. By the exclusion of traditional advertising and push marketing methods, the fans feel closer and more involved with the groups that they follow.

Pull marketing is becoming the standard for online marketing and marketing in general. Social media has become a major and focal part of media marketing adopting the pull marketing strategy. Pull marketing shifts emphasis and attention onto the consumer by marketing in the correct places and knowing where and who your target audience is. Consumers are increasingly customising music platforms to better suit their individual needs. An increasing number of people are downloading individual tracks and compiling their own playlists on platforms such as iTunes, Spotify and Last.fm. Fan-built mixes are taking over the way people get their music. As consumers gain access to a greater number of options/platforms, media marketing will inevitably shift from push to pull marketing tactics.

Another way that the internet has assisted in the marketing of music products is that it has given the artists the ability to create a special link between consumer and creator. There are many examples where the power of the internet has allowed creators to both make money and advertise their content. Arcade Fire made an interactive music video where the user entered their childhood home address and used the power of HTML5 to create a montage of photos from their old neighborhood. While this in itself might not be direct advertisement or marketing, but it does create a rapport between the consumer and creator and due to the unique nature of the music video, consumers are more likely to tell friends about the video and create a larger fan base.

Josh Freese used a platform called Topspin, a crowdfunding website for upcoming albums, that allowed fans to donate a certain amount of money and then get something in return, with these packages ranging from $7 all the way up to $75,000. These packages included lunch with him, a round of mini gold or even washing your car or doing your laundry.

Amanda Palmer managed to make $11,000 in 2 hours, all starting with a simple tweet saying that she was bored on a Friday night. Others joined in and soon a t-shirt design was created and a website was made to sell them for $25.

Matthew Ebel uses a subscription based service whereby users can pay monthly or annually for a wide range of perks such as VIP seats and member-only parties with prices from $5/month upto $15/month.

The Poison Control Center uses Tumblr to regularly update their fans while on tour with pictures, videos and posts about their experience and thanking the fans.

Gossip Grows on Trees uses an email list to regularly update their fans but it can prove difficult to grow that list, so they offered free music downloads in exchange for their email addresses, and even went as far as to give out custom fortune cookies with the URL of the download page and a short message from the band.

Perhaps one of the most in-depth ways of creating a link between consumer and creator is the use of gamification. This is very much a new concept in the industry but one that is definitely viable and already being adopted in many cases. Gamification can be defined as “adding simple game mechanics like points, badges and leaderboards to websites and apps”. As Albin Serviant put it, “Today’s fan wants more than just a track. They want a participative, personalised experience in a social environment. The 3 stages could be seen as Novice, Regular and Enthusiast. Novice needs onboarding (welcome + goals + progress + achievable rewards). Regulars need fresh content/activities/challenges. Enthusiasts need exclusivity, recognition and impact. There are already several services in place which have taken this concept and made it a reality. These include:

Turntable.fm, where players can collect points when people rate the songs they are listening to, and these points are used to unlock special DJ avatars to indicate their status.

Phantasy Tour, where fans pick which songs they think will be played during each music set, and are awarded points based on how many correct answers they get.

TastemakerX, a full-blown social game approach to music, where users can buy/sell shares of musicians and the users are given a score showing their influence.

Overall, I think that the power of marketing online is the most useful asset in the promotion of music products, however I think that a lot of creators haven’t noticed this yet. I think that online marketing is the best tool for any creator, whether they are a newcomer or an already well-established name in the industry. Online marketing has given creators the ability to create a link between themselves and their fans, and even a link between their fans to be created. Once fans feel more connected to the creator and other like-minded individuals, they are more likely to stay fans and spend their money on the creator. As more and more people realise the internet’s potential, more and more fans will feel as though they are a part of something greater, and that is the best stage that a creator can hope to create.