Brand Is The New Vinyl

With the fall of the ‘old music industry’ A musicians career is in their own hands like never before. Their use of personal brand and fan interaction will be more critical than ever as we look to the future of the music industry.

Industry Revenue Through the Years

Vinyl, once was the lifeblood of the music industry. Sales of vinyl and later CD’s made or broke a band or artist’s career. Looking back to the heigh of vinyl in 1978, adjusted for inflation, music industry revenue was at 15 Billion USD. (Routley, 2018) This was the height of vinyl sales. In 1999, adjusted for inflation, the music industry revenue was at about 21.5 Billion USD. (Routley, 2018) This was the peak of sales for the industry and driven mostly by sales of CD’s. This business model was destroyed by the introduction of the internet and mp3 downloads. Jumping forward to 2017, music sales were down to about 6.9 Billion USD (Routley, 2018). This lower revenue is due to the constant lowering of physical sales. But this also marked the first time since 1999, that music revenue went up. This can be attributed to the rise of streaming from companies like Spotify and Apple Music.

The internet may have destroyed the music industry’s business model, but the industry has been able to evolve and adapt to this, with new growth being centred and driven by the internet. Spotify and Apple Music learned from media, with Netflix pioneering their streaming-based business model.

Current State of the Industry

This means In the current state of the industry, “music is priceless, but it is also worthless” (Keyes, 2019). People still love music like they did in the ’60s through the ’90s, but they no longer buy music like they used to. With streaming, everyone now has instant access to almost every song ever made. This means every one of your songs is competing with the giants of the industry. A musician may be at the level of Ed Sheeran, Metallica, or Justin Beiber, but if they can’t find people to buy into them individually, there won’t be enough interest in their music. So this means musicians must figure out how to compete with artists that are already on the top of the music world. They need to find a way to differentiate themselves and create a unique selling point. The most comprehensive way of creating a unique identity is through creating a strong brand.

What is Brand?

The first step is defining the meaning of brand. In the book ‘The Dictionary of Brand’, brand is defined as “a person’s perception of a product, service, experience, or organization.” “A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or organization.” (Neumeier 2004). So for musicians, brand is about a person’s perceptions and feelings of them as a person and their music. This is what will often be the deciding factor for why they would listen to one artist over another and might be the difference of which artist they choose to support financially with a purchase. Each successful brand is often a success due to its uniqueness. They convince their fans or customer base that they can provide a superior or unique experience compared to their competitors. Musicians can look to successful companies to understand how they achieved their success through brand.

Disney

Disney, one of the biggest brands in entertainment, is the self-proclaimed “Happiest Place on Earth” (Ogino, n.d.) One of their strong points is their focus on storytelling. They create stories that become integral parts of people’s childhoods. They build on this by treating each movie like an event, from the merchandising to theme park rides. Theme isn’t only for their theme parks. They also use it as a guide to shape and control their overall image and customer experience. Everything Disney has a similar feel to keep you immersed in their world. Their focus on customer satisfaction keeps people coming back and sets them apart. Musicians can find the value of storytelling within Disney’s branding. Through their music and social media, artists can share their own stories connecting to their fans directly. Disney’s commitment to theme can be an example of how musicians can branch out when promoting their music, creating a comprehensive creative marketing plan. Using similar phrases, colours, or images across their ads, social media profiles, and merchandise.

Apple

Apple has one of the strongest tech brands in the world. They have developed their brand on their product’s reliability. Because of this, people gladly pay a premium for their tech. One of Apple’s biggest focuses is the customer experience. They make sure that all parts of their business follow their brand. Their products are designed to be ergonomic, easy to use, and feel top end to customers. They also have a strong overarching Brand, from the iPhone, iPod, iMac, iBook, iLife, iWork, iPad, and iCloud. They have more recently moved to using the Apple name in their product line names, With Apple Music, Apple Tv, Apple Watches, and Apple pay. These consistent names help reinforce the sense of brand. (Marketingminds.com.au, n.d.) This product plan was one of diversification. Many product lines were created for a Brand Halo effect. Their goal was to bring in new customers and hope to hook them on their mainline products over time. Musicians can take from this that people are willing to pay a premium for reliability, and quality. This means they have to always provide their fans with their best. Musicians can also find value in the consistent branding across product lines. For musicians, this would be having an effective logo to use on their music, merch, album covers, and social media platforms.

Subaru

Subaru is a particularly good case study for musicians. They are an example of a company that used rebranding to go from losing money to turning a profit. “Subaru of America was essentially unprofitable for its first 40 years” (Olenski, 2017). In 2006 they hired a new creative agency and launched their ‘Love Campaign’. A series of emotionally charged ads, proposed love united their loyal customer base. It stated love was ‘what makes a Subaru, a Subaru.’ They were able to create a personality for their brand. This personality complemented their existing brand of making cost-efficient, safe vehicles. This change has led Subaru to have 8 consecutive years of record-breaking sales. (Olenski, 2017) Artists can learn from Subaru by creating a community around them, that brings people together. This will make their brand loyalty stronger, leading to diehard lifelong fans. What Does This Mean for Musicians? Why bother with creating a brand, if people aren’t buying music anymore? Traditional music sales continue to go down, so musicians now have to sell their brand. Artist’s can do this through closer engagement with their fans. Through modern advances in social media, musicians can now be more connected with their fans than ever. This also means musicians can bring more value and interaction to their fans, than ever before. Musicians can look to successful brands like Disney, Apple, and Subaru for how to create a brand. Using the same techniques, customer satisfaction, community, and story, musicians can create a brand as strong as these industry giants.

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift is a great example of a musician pulling these things together to create a strong brand. She uses storytelling to captivate her audience. She is often considered one of the top songwriters in the world and this is where her storytelling shines. She continues both her storytelling and her consistent core values over on her social media platforms. Tying her music and social media together, she has been able to create a sense of community stronger than Subaru with her fans even naming themselves ‘Swifties’ (Urban Dictionary, n.d.) She has built up her brand as a strong songwriter, even being the sole songwriter on over half her songs, something increasingly rare in her genre. (Gulati, n.d.) She is also more aggressive than most musicians when it comes to protecting her lyrics, as she has trademarked key phrases from throughout her career. (Gulati, n.d.) She also works hard to Much like Disney, she has worked hard to keep up a consistent theme through her social media, representing herself as down to earth, organic, and devoted to her fans. (Gulati, n.d.) Her strong branding even crosses over into her songwriting with Friedemann Findeisen (Holistic Songwriting) pointing out in his video on Taylor Swift that she often employs an ingenious way of using one-note melodies. Where the one-note melody takes up approximately 60% of the melody, followed by the tail end which consists of higher notes, followed by a descending note. (Holistic Songwriting, 2017) She uses this so often he calls this ‘The Swift Line’. Using his definition of ‘The Swift Line’, he determined every song from her 1989 Album uses this technique to some degree. This clever use of one-note melodies keeps the melodies feeling fresh, but also shows how she knows her audience as these types of melodies are easily the catchiest and easiest to sing, appealing to her younger audience. (Holistic Songwriting, 2017) Musicians can look to Taylor Swift as someone who truly understands what it means to build and maintain a personal brand in the music industry. This shows how so much more goes into having a long-standing career than just the music.

Merchandise Sales Are Growing While physical music sales are down from what they used to be, sales of music-related merchandise are trending up. In 2015 music-related merchandise reached $2.83 Billion (Forde, 2018). In 2016 it reached $3.1 Billion (Forde, 2018) A 9.4% increase. This huge increase was followed in 2017 by sales reaching $3.33 Billion (Chapple, 2019). A 6.9% Increase and 2018 reached $3.48 Billion (Chapple, 2019). A 4.3% Increase. From 2015 to 2018 there was a total increase of 18.68%. This trend shows music-related merch sales are likely to continue to grow into the future. This change in merchandise revenue may be attributed to the change in how people pay less for music. With the price to listen lower, more people may be inclined to support artists in other ways.

Looking to the future As musicians look to improve their brand, they also need to find new ways to monetize their passion to make a living. I predict in the next few years musicians will increasingly use methods of monetization heavily reliant on rising merchandise sales, and the ability to directly connect with fans. I believe musicians will find increasing success through merchandise sales. Looking at this data, you can predict crowdfunding sites like Patreon will be a great opportunity for musicians soon, as they allow musicians to have a more direct connection with fans and the freedom to create the kind of content that they want.

More Than Just the Music

As the biggest companies in the world have proven, brand is the key to creating a consistent income. Artists have to realize that their music, is only a part of who they are to their fans, and they have to look at all the different ways a potential fan may view them. This will be increasingly important as musicians look to diversify their monetization streams, which I predict will rely heavily on selling merchandise and crowdfunding through sites like Patreon.

In the coming years, the ability to cultivate and grow a brand, and therefore create a direct connection with their fans, will be what makes or breaks a band or artist. This is why Brand is the New Vinyl.