Spotify. Spotify. Spotify.

It's everywhere you take your ears. The other day I even heard the comforting voice of 'Roberta' in my local charity shop. Obviously being ahead of the old adoption curve we've been Spotifying since early Beta stages last year and it's safe to say we are hooked. Getting hands dirty with cheeky collaborative playlists and inviting all our friends to join the party.

We've seen its popularity spiral first hand - from colleagues, to friends, to their friends, their parents and now Whitechapel's charity shops. As Spotify announces it has passed it's millionth user, it is clear that they have boldy leaped across Moore's Chasm between the 'early adopters' and the 'early majority' with safe distance. So 18 years on from the "Crossing the Chasm" gospel was published why are some propositions getting it right but others still getting it oh so wrong? What makes for a successful shift from those early supporters to the mainstream public? The key, as Moore points out, is to market to each of the 5 segments in the product adoption cycle separately.

Spotify perfected this with a cunningly planned snowball effect. In a similar way to the Gmail phenomena they staged a public beta with limited invites sent to opinion-formers, cool agencies and big gobbed bloggers. We all felt pretty special because after all we only had 5 invites each so we had to think carefully about who would actually appreciate Spotify. I selected my taste-maker friends of course and presumably so did everyone else. These people were key in seeding it in the mainstream. They weren't techy geeks, or industry bandwagon jumpers. They were all (fairly) normal people who loved the simplicity of Spotify.

There were no lengthy sign up processes, no downloading times, easy user interfaces and above-all a large enough library for more discerning musos. Within months they opened up the invitations to include those on the periphery of truly mainstream audiences and sure enough everyone is talking about it.

The challenge is the next wave of growth, getting the daytime radio listeners, who have little interest in interacting much with their media, to spend a little time playing with it so they can appreciate how easy it is to use. That said, the radio feature on Spotify is blissfully easy to use, but results vary with some pretty unusual selections of tracks. Traditionally it's this next wave of growth that needs significant marketing budget to push the service out to a mass audience - so we wait to see how this is managed by the Spotify marketeers.

Obviously as more brands get on board with more creative campaigns, that will also help spread the word. So all you media & marketing people out there - download it, and check out and add to some of our collaborative playlists...

Tracks I Wish I'd Played Drums On

80s Movie Classics

Legendary Boy Bands and Their Art

As a closing thought, another new service launched today using mixtape analogy to package new music. Time will tell if they can cross the chasm with equal success.

(Thanks to Natasha "Scrat" Peskin who co-wrote this post)

Music and its role at the heart of brand utility. Part 2.

Yesterday, I submitted part 1 of my blog on music and its role at the heart of brand utility. This is the second and final part of that blog, where I’ve listed five further considerations when using music to create brand utility.

6. Build strategic partnerships
Creating brand utility won't deliver your business and communications objectives single handedly. If you cement the right strategic partnership you can achieve a greater reach and better campaign results. Nike and Apple with Nike +, Nine Inch Nails and Tap Tap Revenge, Bacardi and Groove Armada, O2 and the Academy Group are all examples of partnerships that have achieved success through working together.

7. Build stronger, more meaningful relationships with consumers
The fragmentation of media, the empowerment of consumers through the Internet and the consequent shift from push to pull marketing, means that traditional media is increasingly less effective. Delivering brand utility can help increase resonance and consumer engagement (e.g. Pink, Snow Patrol and Nine Inch Nails phone apps were examples of bands offering free multi content offerings and track streaming with a clear drive to purchase).

8. In an oligopoly brand utility can be a major point of differentiation, as well as a driver for increasing customer loyalty
In a market where you have few key competitors, offering tangible utility can be key in marking you out from your competitors. For example, in a recent customer survey over half of O2 customers (52%) visiting the venue cited priority ticketing as a key factor in staying with the O2 network. Additionally, where there is not much differentiation in a brands product offering (handsets and service plans, for instance), these benefits can actually win you new customers. Provide realistic benefits to customers to set you apart from your competitors. This will increase customer retention, whilst in some cases win you new customers if the offering is strong enough.

 
 9. Keep your eyes open. Monitor new technology advancements and market developments
The Carling iPint application was one of the first apps to utilise the iPhone's accelerator technology and managed to become one of the top 10 most popular downloads in the US. Impressive, considering Carling isn’t even sold in that market. Early adoption created widespread word of mouth and PR as a consequence. However, the market has since become saturated with accelerator powered apps, so the wow factor is no longer as effective. Embrace technology but keep your eyes open to what's developing around you in order to enhance your USP.

10. Simple is sometimes best
One of the best case studies to illustrate this point is Intel’s partnership with MySpace. Intel Powers Music targeted bands and artists by offering a fifth track on their player, plus expert industry advice in exchange for being a friend of the Intel Powers Music MySpace community. The campaign results for something so seemingly simple were impressive:

 
-       Attracting friends from 46 countries
-       6 million page views
-       31,000 clicks on the blog
-       22,000 plays of the expert industry tips
-       19,000 band sign ups
-       42,000 consumers becoming friends
-       23.8% of respondents could also recall a recent MySpace advertiser
-       When prompted 33.5% correctly recalled Intel’s activity on MySpace
-       69.5% rated the Intel Powers Community as “excellent / quite good”

In summary, brand utility is becoming increasingly important in order to build up more meaningful relationships with consumers. The media landscape is more complex than it was 10 years ago, it’s harder to communicate with your target audience and the development of the Internet is empowering consumers more than ever. Consequently we’re seeing marketers adopt a different stance - a shift from push to pull marketing and providing value to consumers. Here, brand utility and useful content offerings, when well planned and delivered as part of your overall strategic planning can not only increase customer retention but win you new customers.

Music is a very powerful asset that can help brands deliver utility or branded content.

If you need pointing in the right direction with that in particular, you know where to find us.

Music and its role at the heart of brand utility. Part 1.

Over the last month or so, one of the biggest themes to have emerged from the industry press, blogs and smoking Twitter feeds has been the concept of 'brand utility'. To consumers / customers / punters, fans & mere mortals - that's getting benefit and / or value received from a brand offering. And although the concept is nothing new, providing useful brand or content offerings is becoming an essential way to build up strong connections with consumers as part of an overall brand strategy.

The music industry plays a key role here; it generates utility and content for other brands to pass that benefit onto its own consumers (e.g. through brand partnerships & rights / content deals) and also for its own means through trying to help its artists build their own new connections with fans. (e.g. Oasis songbook & CD-Rom media partnership / giveaway with NME).

Providing brand utility is key to building up relationships with consumers and communicating brand messages. Music plays a key role within this.

I’ve put together a list of 10 key considerations when using music to offer brand utility. Here’s the first five:

1. Brand utility & branded content isn't going to deliver your business & marketing objectives on their own.
They need to form part of a coherent and well-planned marketing strategy. Utility can build up positive PR, offer rewards to consumers as part of strengthening a CRM strategy and generate positive WOM. Barclaycard’s recent strategic partnership with Live Nation, is a clear, well though out partnership to reach a particular audience, whilst highlighting product relevance. Utility is a bit part of an overall strategy in this case.
 
2. Invest for the long term.
Align yourself with, and invest in music not over the course of months, but years. This is your safest bet to create any consumer credibility and ultimately ROI. One of the hardest hurdles brands face when trying to create an association with music is to earn the right to be there in the first place. Nokia have been a long time investor in music and the launch of Comes with Music goes further to underline this commitment with a long-term plan in place.
 
3. Experiment
Don't be afraid to follow your gut instinct - it's a whole new world out there. The media landscape is a more complex beast than it has ever been. See what works. Does it feel right? The Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails Case Study is a great example of how a band has embraced technology and creative thinking to produce new ways of marketing and business models that have seen tangible positive business results.
 
4. Build communities and spread the love
Innocent did this better than most and their free festival, Fruitstock, in Regent's Park. A prime example of a brand giving something back, it built community and a very personal consumer relationship with the brand. Red Bull (a slightly more alpha male comparison) has been doing it over 10 years with Red Bull Music Academy. Providing opportunities for talented, up and coming musicians Red Bull have provided a highly regarded, somewhat under the radar, niche offering that has been met with global high regard. Use social media to listen, learn and develop and to build community with a very clear idea of why you are using it in the first place. If creating a digital offering, ensure it can be shared and can be embedded into any site or personal page.
 
5. Get the right team
May seem an obvious one but make sure you've got a realistic, but progressive and creative team around you. Employ agencies that share your vision and are willing to experiment.

Tomorrow, I’ll finish off the remaining five points and provide some examples to illustrate different types of utility within music. For the moment, as part of my own utility offering, here’s a useful, wiki brought to my attention by Anjali Ramachandran.
 
See you tomorrow,
James Male.
FRUKT Music.

97% brand directors believe that music strengthens their brand...

It's exciting after many years of evangelising about the opportunities for consumer brands to get more deeply involved in music to read a new study this week which clearly implies that brand directors appreciate how important music can be for their brand.

The report from Stockholm-based brand communication agency Heartbeats International, entitled 'Sounds Like Branding,' outlines the views of brand directors from 70 major brands and found that a massive 97% of them believe that music can strengthen their brand. Around 76% are actively using music in their marketing with a further 74% understanding that music is to become all the more important in the future. However, despite the seemingly overriding understanding that music use is critical for building a consistent brand image (at 68%) brand's marketing budgets are not effectively representing the necessary shift. The report cites a lack of resources that these companies devote to music remaining a significant problem, highlighting the fundamental need to invest in this space by suggesting that "brands no longer compete on a product level, but on building a brand that people connect to emotionally". Another recent report pointed to the fact that 69% of passionate music fans believed brands will provide a new revenue stream for the music industry.

So it's clearly an area with much potential. So we've got to pose the question why don't more brands get their hands a little dirtier with music? Still the majority of budgets come from divisions who have a one dimensional interest in using music - so the brief and the activity are either PR, sales promotion, experiential or advertising - and rarely true multi-channel 'big ideas'.

With more music being consumed by more people than ever before in history, and with the traditional restraints of the recording industry broken, brands now have the ability to stake a true claim on the hearts and minds of music fans, but I believe this will only happen when the discrete marketing budgets on the brand side are aligned under a common big idea.

Brands, Bands and Fans at SXSW

 Austin, the self-proclaimed ‘live music capital of the world’ showed no signs of resigning the title last week at the 16th annual South By Southwest (SXSW) conference and festival.  

It’s always a pleasure to travel somewhere lovely and warm, full of friendly locals and which has about 1400 bands playing across 64 venues during just four days. I’ve fallen in love with Austin in the course of my last three visits, and the pull of SXSW never fails to impress me.

Over the past three years there’s been a clear move by brands at the event away from traditional banner placement and conference sponsorship towards more sophisticated activities that enrich the experience for the punters and get them some love of their own.

SXSW has it’s trade event activities, and the brand partners there such as Miller and Fuze do a good job of reaching out to delegates and certainly add to the experience themselves – however the impressive stuff happens at and around the shows, where plenty of beer is flowing and music is blasting out of countless speakers.

My favourite brand activity was undoubtedly the Levi’s Fader Fort, which is a perfect case study of how a brand can sit naturally inside a music experience. Levi’s employ a clever strategy of letting the highly credible music magazine The Fader programme and run their activity, this helps ensure the best bands are chosen (and presumably play for less money, due to the subsequent coverage) and that music lovers hear about it in advance (and increasingly talk about it afterwards). The space created is more like a mini-festival with an abundance of places for consumers to interact with each other and the brand, it’s also open to anyone who rsvps (ie not just festival delegates) meaning that the large local student population are drawn in. Levi’s also allow a few select complementary brands to join the party, adding to the collaborative and laid back feel.

The best thing about this activity is that the branding is ubiquitous but at the same time subtle, the event looks beautiful and the production is impeccable meaning that fans enjoy themselves and will undoubtedly tell others about it. Fader also uses its relationship with artists to overcome the potential headaches of content clearances. They film performances and interviews, which are streamed live online and archived for fans around the world to consume and share in the days and months after SXSW ends.

Red Bull is also definitely worth a mention. Their Moon Tower stage was positioned as the unofficial SXSW after party, and ran from 11pm until 5 in the morning. The event was invite only which helped add to the buzz, as did the free booze all night for everyone there. SXSW is getting more and more crowded with shows and brands, so finding a space where no-one else is operating can help ensure that what you do receives cut-through and is talked about.

Some clear lessons can be drawn from what brands were doing right over in Austin this year:

•    Understand your audience: make sure the talent and the overall experience is something that matches their tastes and use the right channels to reach them before and after the activity in order to extend the reach and improve the impact

•    Don’t force messages: keep branding simple and be cautious of coming across as a corporate sponsor or an intrusive presence

•    Use the right partners:  operating in music requires specialist skills, use the right people to help identify talent, negotiate with management and agents, manage show production and clear content rights

•    Content is the next frontier: pure experiential activities don’t reach enough people, content from the shows is the best way to broaden the audience

And finally it would be wrong not to give a tip of the hat to a few of the new bands I discovered out there: