Fyre Festival was an event promoted by multiple celebrities, "influencers," and social media titans, most notably Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Emily Ratajkowski, without any proof of concept. These celebrities are not the victims: They are the perpetrators of irresponsible marketing that fails to consider the consumer.
- WIRED (May 2017)
Our Take: With brand safety top-of-mind for chief marketers, influencer marketing spent much of 2017 under the microscope. Fyre Festival's massive and public collapse served as a big warning for marketers, influencers, and event organizers everywhere.
For the first time in history, artists, managers, labels, event promoters, merchandising firms and marketers can all access a deep well of data that quantifies consumers' passions for different artists and genres.
- Marketing DIVE (October 2017)
Our Take: Despite the average American spending 32 hours per week listening to music, entertainment marketing budgets significantly favor sports to music. MAX's VP of Marketing Rosemary Waldrip analyzes why this disparity exists and identifies what will lead to more balanced investment.
Our Take: Facebook recently signed a multi-year deal with Universal Music Group (UMG) that allows the social network's users to legally upload music from UMG. Similar to Spotify's licensing deals, the deal between Facebook and UMG will likely be similar across major labels. Already an advertising behemoth, Facebook's foray into music will be a must-watch trend in 2018.
Snapchat's New AI Could Completely Change The Way We Watch Live Events Built in-house by Snap's research team, the proprietary machine learning technology stitches together Snaps submitted to Our Story, and uses geolocation and timestamps to piece the audio together into a semi-seamless video. The technology was put to the test during Lorde's performance at San Francisco's Outside Lands.
- Business Insider (August 2017)
Our Take: As the lines blur between real and digital life, technology that enables new experiences will continue to prosper. While Snapchat has struggled since its March IPO, the social media platform beloved by millennials continues to innovate and push boundaries with user-generated content.
Amazon Music Rolls Out Activities For Alexa Users The service says it has built new voice controls for music and over 500 activities utterances that for example can include meditation, partying, eating and more.
- Billboard (August 2017)
Our Take: Like Facebook, Amazon is further sneaking its way into people's lives with music. Considering that voice-enabled smart speakers are expected in more than 50% of US households by 2022, any development in voice search will be huge news for the music and marketing industries. On a related note, Brett Eldredge's song "Somethin' I'm Good At" (promoted by Dr Pepper) was one of the top 10 most requested lyrics on Amazon's Alexa in 2017.
Gatorade-owned Propel launched a campaign that offered users who listen to fitness-themed stations the chance to listen to a handful of songs on-demand.
- Adweek (May 2017)
Our Take: Streaming services continue to differentiate their offerings to music fans, and brands have massive opportunities in the realms of music discovery and consumption. Spotify shared a study of how streaming habits relate to psychographics for a few select audiences, and MAX has similar data on hundreds of more audiences. As brands increasingly invest in music, they must enable the on-demand fan with advertising that enriches (not interrupts) the music experience.
Wanting something more than an endorsement from a big music celebrity, Coors Light celebrates the rich tapestry of our nation’s diverse cultures by elevating the local music that represents communities across the US.
