Authenticity is the key to success and the consumer will re-pay you in loyalty more than any paid advertisement ever will. That is Converse's CMO Geoff Cottrill's philosophy. He is a digitally savvy veteran of Starbucks and Coca-Cola who identified the deep connection between Converse wearers and music. A free studio was created where unsigned and un-famous musicians could lay down tracks and was seen as an opportunity to inspire brand engagement in a new and diverse way in giving-back to individuals and to the community. 'Rubber Tracks' is a recording studio opened in Brooklyn to serve Converse's core demographic... musicians. "We think of musicians and artists as our core consumer instead of somebody who we can borrow cool things from. As a marketer, when you figure out who your core consumer is, your job is to obsess over them and serve them." Geoff Cottrill has said

Jay Z and 16 of his high-profile musician friends now own a three percent share each into the music streaming company Tidal which was purchased for a whopping $56 million dollars. Tidal also claims to pay the highest percentage of royalties to musicians and songwriters within the music streaming market. In order to stand out from the rest of their competitors, i.e. mainly Spotify, Tidal is pinning its hopes on exclusives with other musicians, but the question beckons, will this be what sets them apart from the rest of these streaming platforms? Controversy is certainly ensuing as the rumour mill is a float with whispers everywhere about free model's vs paid model's and musicians giving Tidal exclusivity.

The automotive industry is a competitive market in which manufacturer's are aggressively competing to engage audiences. Many car maker brands are using music in their marketing strategy, let's try to decode and explain this trend.

Consumers have become emotionally disconnected and indifferent to brands looking for their attention. Branded entertainment allows these marketers to subtly become a part of the content itself; this deep engagement resulting in heightened affinity. Marketers have become acutely aware that music continues to be an effective way to create personal and meaningful affiliation's with desired consumers and automotive brands needs to differentiate, to attract them. That's where music should be thought of as a language and a culture that links brands to fans. Integrating music into their branding to form part of their market strategy is becoming competitive in order to create a tangible association with the consumer on an intuitive level.