Authenticity and influencer marketing in music media

In an age where advertisements are everywhere and are increasingly distrusted, it’s imperative that your marketing creates a real connection.

We live in a world saturated with advertising – both offline and online. In 2007, Yankelovich conducted a marketing research experiment and claimed that the average person is exposed to around 5,000 ads per day. It’s scary to think what that number would be today.

The music industry is no different. About 60,000 songs get uploaded to Spotify every day. For comparison, the best books 2021 had to offer wouldn’t even be close to this number. Becoming more than background noise requires marketing – but not in the traditional sense. Let me explain.

Overexposure to marketing has made us experts at tuning out advertisements and sniffing out manipulative campaigns. However, this doesn’t mean advertising is ineffective. It’s just evolving. One of the most formidable marketing strategies of recent is ‘Influencer Marketing’. Jules Lund, the founder of heavyweight marketing agency Tribe, believes that influencer marketing unlocks “community, content, and then commerce” for brands.

“This enables brands to be able to turn their customers into their marketing department, which I think is all about unlocking your most influential customers, communities, and then using influences to be able to drive amazing social content”.

If we break down Lund’s three claims (originally reported by Mumbrella), it’s easy to see just how powerful influencer marketing can be.

Community

Let me ask you a question. If a music production software claimed it was “easy to use” and a producer in the industry said the software was “easy to use”, who would you believe more? The producer, right?

So how do you make your advertising feel as authentic as a Dolly Parton interview?

Well, a company’s selling points come across as more earned and authentic if a consumer tells you, rather than the brand itself. Influencer marketing bridges the gap between product and consumer, resulting in brand trust.

This isn’t a new phenomenon either. It’s the reason fashion brands like Gucci get Iggy Pop, A$AP Rocky, and Tyler, The Creator, to wear their clothes in advertisements, as opposed to paid models that we’ve never seen before. Suddenly, the community of Gucci wearers are also sharing their love of music. The clothes have become more than a product. They’ve become an attitude. Like the best covers of all time, the artist embodies the subject at hand.

Speaking of music, influencer advertising in the music industry is rapidly becoming mainstream. And for a good reason. Take Fender’s campaign for their American Professional Stratocaster. Instead of getting a professional luthier to explain the product, Fender filmed loveable goofball Mac Demarco giving the Stratocaster a noodle.

Demarco has been playing Fender’s for years, so naturally, we feel more trusting of the product, and the gap between product and consumer is bridged even further.

Content

Influencer marketing in music media is beneficial not just for the brand, but also for the influencer. If the content is published by both the brand and the influencer (which it should be), the audience outreach is multiplied. Take Happy Media’s recent collaboration with producer Go Freek and production software Ableton.

In the video, we observe a day in the life of Go Freek; taking the dog for a walk, a growing collection of cacti, and sitting down to work on some remixes. Nothing is disingenuous, yet Go Freek and Ableton are both receiving advertorial content that boosts their brand’s reputation and audience outreach.

Social media content like this is imperative for brands, as 45% of all internet users globally use social media to investigate goods and services before deciding on a purchase (as of 2020). Generating print content and not digital content for your brand is like bringing checkers to a chess game.

Commerce

To summarise, influencer marketing in music media will help with

• Consumer trust.
• A deepened connection between product and consumer that positions the company in a real-world context.
• Increased audience outreach.

All of these earned benefits from influencer marketing should result in a sales increase, hence Lund’s final claim of “commerce”. Don’t believe it? A study from SocialChorus found that influencer marketing campaigns can be a staggering 16x more effective than owned or paid media.

In short, there’s no one better to connect with your audience than… your audience. In the music industry, musicians are the spine of the culture.