In the past year, we’ve started to see many fashion and accessories brands making their first foray into the world of music streaming. They’re taking the lead from the consumer technology, car and luxury brands that have already used music to deeply engage with their customers on an emotional level, in order to build brand advocacy and customer loyalty in order to increase sales.
Well let’s take a look …
If you’re not actively thinking about mobile customer engagement for your brand, chances are you probably won’t be reaching the entire target audience that you’d hoped for. In fact, your company strategy may be looking as outdated as one of those 90’s Internet ads …
According to Nielsen, with over 15 million Australians owning smartphones, time on mobile devices (43%) is now higher than time spent on desktop computers (39%). Nielsen also found that 35% of Australian’s dedicate time to social media, with entertainment (excluding gaming) next at 16%. Mobile is now the leading device used by Australians when accessing entertainment, information and social apps.
Today, companies are faced with challenges around marketing to the biggest spending generation: Millennials. According to Forbes, Millennials are looking to brands to create an authentic experience in order to build trust. And the fastest way to build trust with Millennials is through music, because it speaks to them on a deeper level.
Just as technology develops, so does a consumer’s taste for marketing which impacts your brand experience strategy. Putting it simply: music has the power to evoke real emotion in your customers and it causes them to act, all whilst building a total brand experience.
Here are a few ways that you can begin to implement music in your strategy and effectively target your growing Millennial consumers:
When you play music during exercise, there’s a good chance it’s upbeat in lyrics and tempo. The psychology behind this is relatively straightforward. Music lights up areas of your brain that cause you to feel emotions, depending on the memories, feelings and new experiences you have with a certain song. Music has the ability to make you feel the high of highs and even the low of lows, which makes it an important, powerful tool for customer engagement.
When it comes to the best brand experience, there are a few companies that stand out from the crowd. These companies maintain a number of elements that serve to engage and interact with its audience. For many big name brands, music is one of the most diverse, useful elements that build the best brand experience for their customers. According to the IFPI Global Music Report (2016) “The global music market achieved a key milestone in 2015 when digital became the primary revenue stream for recorded music, overtaking sales of physical formats for the first time.” If the report can tell you anything, it’s that Millennials place a lot of importance on their ability to access new music, even if it’s as a part of a brand experience.
But who are the companies that have used digital music as part of their brand experience strategy?
Most consumers have already researched your store online (if it’s new to them) before they’ve stepped a foot inside the brick and mortar. But what if the brick and mortar is where you’ve spent all your time building your brand? If you’re not seeing the ROI you want, it could have something to do with the mobility of your brand and its lack of effective customer engagement. What has worked in the past may no longer be working for your audience as Millennials take over the buyer’s market.
Branded entertainment is the process of combining a brand’s marketing strategy with entertainment, and is also known in the marketing world as "advertainment". This new marketing has been used again and again in movies, to the point where it began to look something like this:
The 2016 Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) statistics have showed that music streaming services have doubled from $23 million to $46 million, which now gives digital music the main hold of the market share, accounting for 62%. Australia has also seen the revenue for recorded music increase 3.2% globally, according the the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. This is an impressive climb in supporting artists and the music industry overall. It is no surprise that these 5 companies have used streaming services as part of their brand experience.
We create a brand experience customers love with the #PowerOfMusic.
Tuned Global is the leading B2B provider of white label music streaming solutions in Asia Pacific. We enable brands, labels and enterprises to harness the music as a potent marketing tool in their digital strategy to engage customers and collect valuable data to better know them. McDonalds, Coca Cola, Samsung, Virgin Mobile, JB Hi-Fi and L’Oreal have already trusted us.