Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Music Marketing
- Creators: Department of Marketing
Releasing music 20 years ago looks a lot different than releasing music today, and it is still ever-changing. Artists can make music in their bedrooms and release it independently by simply uploading it online. These artists can use social media to market their music themselves. But with it being so easy for new and small artists to put out a song it begs the question: in this customer era of marketing, how can new and small artists use co-creational marketing strategies, such as themes of nostalgia and hidden messages, to differentiate themselves? This project seeks to answer that question. In this partial creative project and partial research project, I tasked myself with writing and producing a song myself, then using that work to test these different marketing strategies. I distributed a survey where participants would listen to the song and then decide which of two visuals they preferred for a cover, merchandise item, and social media feed. Each set of visuals had one with a nostalgic theme and one that utilized hidden messages. This project discusses the importance of social media in an independent artist’s career and marketing efforts, as well as discusses customer-centric marketing and co-creation marketing strategies through nostalgia and hidden messages. I found success in a nostalgic strategy and interest in hidden messages. This research sets the stage for testing similar strategies by collaborating with other artists and their work in the hopes of creating guidance for independent artists when marketing their releases.
For decades, the music industry followed a structured business model that relied on the sale of albums in order for musicians and record labels to see revenues. Due to the rise of streaming services and changes in consumer behavior, this is no longer the case. Aldo Cundari argues that because of these changes, we are in the Customer Era of marketing, where marketers must use customer-centricity in order to drive consumers to want to engage with brands, as we now face informed and empowered consumers. Taking this theory and Vargo and Lusch’s argument that marketing is now service-centered—where consumers should be a part of the production process through co-creation of value, relationships, and customization of offerings—requires an analysis of the drivers of digital streaming and approaching them through a value-adding approach, finding the right channel of distribution, determining potential brand advocates, and assessing their preferences and behavior.
This paper first examines the history of music consumption, assesses today’s consumption, the shift from buying to streaming, and uncovers the indirect relationship between music and social media. I find that millennials and Generation Z are the drivers behind streaming, so primary research via a questionnaire is conducted to further evaluate their preferences and what they value in order to recommend customer-centric marketing strategies for music marketing. It was found that today’s consumer is a heavy social media user, integrates his/her social media and music consumption, and that the best channel of distribution is Instagram. To allow the consumer to co-create value, I found that the use of brand advocates and organic influencer marketing (through playlists and sponsored posts) is needed in the dynamic of today’s music industry.
We found that traditional means of exposure offer little insight into an artist's growing audience and can pose several challenges when measuring their efficacy and return on investment. Through these channels, artists can spend thousands of dollars promoting themselves to disinterested individuals while learning very little about their audience in the process. If only there was a reliable method for artists to introduce themselves to the people most likely to enjoy what they have to offer…
By harnessing the power of Facebook’s audience targeting machine learning ad platform, artists have an opportunity like never before to:
1) Find an audience without compromise
2) Study and engage with said audience
3) Find millions more listeners who, based on their Facebook data, resemble their growing fanbase.
Furthermore, the more time and money artists are willing to invest in their ad campaigns, the more opportunities they create for Facebook’s machine learning algorithms to learn and optimize, thus targeting more desirable listeners more efficiently
Though access to new listeners is at an all time high, finding this audience requires strategy. In the context of driving results and creating an audience - honing one’s skills as a marketer is just as important as it is honing their skills as an artist. Before all else, artists must identify their genre and differentiating factors. A firm understanding of positioning and value proposition is necessary to inform one’s targeting, content and copy development strategies.
By harnessing the power of targeted advertising, machine learning, and brand strategy any artist can find and develop an engaged following. Furthermore, these powerful advertising platforms let independent artists circumvent the top-down system that the music industry has operated on since its inception. No longer do artists have to find a label or sign away their next five years to be successful. Through digital advertising and a small amount of ad spend, any artist can find the
right listener, a listener waiting to fall in love with their music.