Audience first comes to the music industry.
At D/A, we’re known for our position on Campaign planning with audience-first strategy audience-first marketing; we’ve written a great guide for that and also a minicast to bring yourself up to speed.
Still wondering if this is just a flash in the pan or something more mainstream? There’s been significant updates recently that shows the power of creators.
And not just any creators anymore. These are people who are shaping tastes and, ultimately, the financial success of many companies.
The most stoic of institutions, not known for its technology adoption, the US music charts (Billboard), this week announced the Billboard Song Breaker Chart.
The Song Breaker is a music chart that recognises that top creators can hugely impact how music is discovered, broken, and released.
“The monthly Song Breaker chart highlights the top creators on leading social/video platforms that incorporate music within their content. Rankings are based on engagement metrics provided by social monitoring service Shareablee…” Billboard
The chart’s inclusion is recognition that TikTok, with Instagram closely following with its Reels product, has come to dominate music discovery.
Of course, the simplicity is that it helps two people (unless they’re the same person) – the creator of the content and the musician – get their music into the hands of consumers who are entertained by the content.
Integration into apps like Spotify then takes the friction away from music consumption. And, of course, now private equity is playing to win in music rights – we’re suddenly seeing the power of the audience taking on new meaning.
How does this relate to audience first?
Audience first planning is simply understanding what an audience wants from interactions – whether you’re a brand or a music platform.
As we’ve written about before, the world’s creators understand their audience better than anyone else and are reaping the benefits. Brands have been slow to adopt this approach as more traditional marketing models are seemingly incompatible with audience understanding.
It’s not segmentation or personalisation but simply understanding and predicting needs and wants.
With mainstream marketing organisations like Billboard now recognising the creator’s power, we’re firmly out of the ‘niche’. We’re now looking towards creators as tastemakers – bringing their audiences with them on journeys.
So how does this help, say, an FMCG trying to get mass reach to move stock off the shelves?
By understanding the majority of the audience’s preferences and overlaying our marketing to making sure they’re engaged, we can tailor messaging. This helps address creativity and products to suit their needs and wants; improving effectiveness all-around.
