The Joy of Jazz Festival is one of the biggest music festivals held in Johannesburg each September, where music fans are treated to a stellar line-up of some of the world’s most talented musicians. This year, the festival’s sponsors decided to extend the reach of the festival to some very lucky motorists during rush hour traffic via an unorthodox and creative marketing campaign, bringing music experiences to life.

In what would be considered an authentic concert experience and extending the event’s  reach outside of the jazz festival, music fans were treated to a two-hour gig on a live jazz billboard on the corner of William Nicol and Republic roads in Sandton, Johannesburg. 

The live jazz performance on a billboard marked the start of South Africa’s premier jazz music festival, which featured more than 20 artists from across the globe and one authentic marketing campaign to reach wider audiences.

The trend of employing a music streaming service is fast becoming the latest marketing tool that retail stores are using to stand out in the crowded mobile commerce world, where more often than not, consumers are inundated with apps that get deleted as quickly as they're added or worse, have never been opened. 

Throughout American Eagle Outfitters stores, consumers are greeted by a collection of music which has been specifically curated in an effort to connect with music fans and give consumers an all-around brand experience. Now, the American clothing store is taking its music marketing strategy one step further by adding music streaming playlists to its mobile shopping app, ensuring that the mcommerce shopping experience is consistent with the in-store shopping experience.

By connecting with consumers over a shared love of music, this new music tool has kept consumers shopping in-app for longer periods and has boosted engagement and sales to its e-commerce app.

British heritage fashion brand Hunter is on a global mission to expand and integrate music into its marketing strategy in a bid to engage with festival-goers. Hunter is ramping up its ties for 2016 with music festivals and debuting new flagship stores in the highly sought-after fashion capitals of Tokyo, New York and Hong Kong.

The company is popular for its  Hunter Wellington boots and is on every festival goers must have items, so it made sense to leverage music in their marketing strategy to create an authentic connection with consumers.

Hunter’s creative director, Alasdhair Willis said: “Hunter has been on an incredible journey these past two years, gathering real momentum as we set about transitioning this 160 year-old business. During this massive transformative period,we have delivered four brand-defining Hunter Original shows at London Fashion Week.”

Shazam is one of the world’s most popular music discovery apps and is usually thought of by music fans as being one-dimensional, with their identify songs and leave function. Their latest feature is giving fans the opportunity to see what their favourite artists are listening to. The company is calling this transition from a pure “discovery” experience to a “shared discovery” experience.

The app is increasing engagement with users by keeping them within the app for longer periods, a strategy that could ultimately lead to greater ad revenue. In addition, it is possible that it might assist in picking up a few extra “referral” sales if Shazam users happen to love what their favourite artists love.

Hewlett-Packard is launching HP Lounge, a music streaming service which will be available for free to consumers who purchase a brand new HP Computer. In a marketing move to make HP computers more attractive to a younger demographic with the inclusion of everyone's favourite pastime, music.

HP has partnered up with Universal Music Group to offer all brand new consumers one year of free music to people located in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

15 years ago, Lars Ulrich of Metallica become the most hated man in the music industry for taking away Napster. This P2P music service, created in 1999 by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, allowed people to get free music illegally by downloading MP3 files from other users’ computers.

Little did this couple of college freshmen know that what they had created back then would pave the way for a digital revolution of gigantic proportions with the rise of downloading services like iTunes and music streaming services. The important point though is that music fans did not want to pay for music 15 years ago, and not much has changed now.

In our blog, we are often speaking about the #PowerOfMusic for brands and how music can lead to an emotional connection with their audience.

Today, at Tuned Global, we wanted to explore how music can have a strong impact on our emotions and the way we feel.

The Brooklyn record label, UNO NYC, released on Wednesday 15th of July a music app that only works on the Williamsburg Bridge.

It tailors a new 2 track playlist daily to your exact location on the East River overpass.

The "local’s" local station, WBBR is only broadcast on the bridge. The app switches on automatically when you arrive at the bridge and plays fast-paced songs as you move up the bridge and more chilled low-tempo tracks as you travel down towards land.

Brands need to consider digital music as a key part of their content marketing strategies, in order to deeply connect with their customers and build loyal relationships by offering positive experiences through music.

Today’s marketers are astutely aware of the vast changes in digital music consumption with 67% of music consumers now listening to music online according to the 2014 Nielsen Music Report.

While Edison’s ‘Share of Ear’ study said that people spend an average of four hours and five minutes each day consuming audio, meaning music is their top form of entertainment.

It goes without saying that an effective way into a consumers heart is through their ears!! And Gwen Stefani and MasterCard are doing just that with their new collaboration, they've joined forces in an interactive and engaging marketing campaign in the next series of "Priceless Surprises".

The credit card company, have been enlisting the help of popular singers such as Justin Timberlake in previous ad campaigns to their current muse, Grammy award winner Gwen Stefani. The concept is simple, the consumer needs to use their MasterCard with the Apple Pay function in order to be "surprised" with prizes such as concert tickets, to golf experiences, to meeting the Rock Goddess herself! With digital marketing being at the core of this very flashy ad, #PricelessSurprises is the campaign's hashtag which is being used to drive social media engagement for this fun and rewarding marketing strategy.