Music marketing, when done right, shifts culture. And when you shift culture on a macro level, generally all of your KPIs are met.
By Nue Agency’s Jesse Kirshbaum
This doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to make deep, emotional connections with consumers. It might take a few years and a diverse series of swings.
If a brand needs a measured, quick hit, then paid media and influencer marketing are safer bets because they can guarantee you impressions. Impressions, however, are not the same as shifting culture. That requires long-term thinking and tactics that yield exponential results and changes a brand’s trajectory.
The world is changing and the vibe is shifting. Brand marketers need to think about the longer term to achieve a culture marketing result, all the while creating short-term wins that build relevancy and trust.
As brand leaders think longer term to shift culture, they’ll need to show up where consumers are. In music, this requires aligning with the right artists and partners, and telling stories together that are authentic to all parties.
It requires consistency, persistence, and diversification. Brand teams need a finger on the pulse of culture and a strategy flexible enough to make opportunistic moves on a dime.
These are not one-off campaigns, although a series of smaller campaigns that tie together can make up the bigger picture. The idea is to create momentum and have it tie back to a bigger mission statement.
When I started working with Sour Patch Kids, they saw themselves as the emerging player in the sour candy space. They felt like they were up and coming. Over the course of the program we designed, we partnered with more than 300 emerging artists in three cities and won a Clio Award for our efforts. By the end of the campaign, some of those one-time “emerging” artists had grown into the hottest talent out, sitting at the top of the charts, while Sour Patch Kids became the number one selling candy in its category in the U.S.
