Q&A: Big Data on how labels and music companies can use data in their marketing plans
CEO and Founder of London-based Media Insight Consulting, Chris Carey has announced that his company will bring their influential MIC Music Consumer Report to Australia in early 2016. The report will be based on findings of a state-by-state survey covering consumers attitudes to music, discovery habits, recorded, live and merchandise spend, TV & radio consumption, social media habits and other interests.
Speaking to TMN, Carey who was previously Global Insight Director at Universal Music Group said that it’s an exciting time to be working in music data analysis and that helping companies of all sizes extract audience development and cost saving insights is one of the things that motivates him and his team some of whom are in Australia to attend BIGSOUND.
In the Q&A below Carey chats about how music companies can use data to drive better results in their marketing plans, as well as talking about the future of the use of big data for companies of all sizes.
What clients do you have in the music industry? And what work do you do for them?
Media Insight Consulting (MIC) is set up to do a few different things. One key focus is Consumer Insight, where we write surveys for clients, carry out the research, analyse the results. We produce a report based on the survey results which helps clients understand how they should use that data to inform their strategy, whether that is marketing, product or event related.
We also produce the annual MIC Music Consumer Report. We delivered the first UK report to business clients earlier this year and we’re about to start work on the first Australian survey and report. We have a team coming down to BIGSOUND to meet with Australian music execs to kick that process off.
In terms of clients, we have done survey work with The London’s 02 Arena, Spotify, Lowlands Festival in Holland, as well as research for artists including UK newcomer Ella Eyre and Catfish and The Bottlemen. We also specialise in Big Data Analytics. Our largest big data client is Sony Music.
How can labels and other music companies use data in their marketing plans? Can you give specific examples?
When it comes to growing your audience, understanding the existing audience is still the first step. Once you know who you are reaching you can make an informed decision on how best to grow your audience. Do you want more of the same kinds of people or is there an opportunity to reach a wider audience?
You can use data not only to identify the groups you would like to target, but you can also assess how responsive they are likely to be and whether they are worth pursuing – or whether the group you would like to engage are very unlikely to appreciate your artist – all before spending marketing money.
What do you think is the future of data in music marketing?
The future of data in music marketing is the combined use of Big Data with consumer survey data, leaning on the strengths of each in the right circumstances and layering consistent views of fans and potential fans across all platforms, not just targeting people within platforms.
Consumer surveys such as the one we are about to conduct in Australia can give you an insight in to the attitudes that underpin a consumer’s actions, not just measure the action itself. The same measurable behaviour (searching for an artist on Wikipedia for instance) might have many motivations. Understanding those motivations can be incredibly valuable in selling future products and engaging with fans. Big Data can tell you when the purchases took place, maybe even the person who purchased, but it does not have that same depth of insight in to the reason behind the purchase, this has to be inferred.
Consumer surveys are also good at understanding a consumer’s behaviour across multiple services. For example, a consumer who hears a new song on the radio might look up the lyrics, then search Spotify and listen to the track there. Big Data would see the lyric search and the Spotify activity, but it wouldn’t be able to track the journey.
What more would you like to be able to do with data and music?
The next step for music data is to get a single view of the customer. That is to be able to see not only my Spotify streaming behaviour, but to be able to join that up with my other listening data, social media behaviours, and my relationship with the artist through CRM and D2C platforms. At the moment a vast amount of data exists but it isn’t possible to see if whether one person’s dramatic drop off in streaming of a track on Spotify is a result of boredom setting in or their decision to purchase the download from Apple or ordering the CD from Amazon. The data exists in each silo, but there is no way to join it up at present. Getting to that ‘single customer view’ will be an incredible achievement if possible.
Data is also being used powerfully in live music. There is a lot of innovation in live which often gets overlooked. Live is increasingly using Wifi hotspots and beacon technology to track on site locations and many festivals now use RFID technology on site purchases, which creates a unique purchasing history as people spend.
Both sides of the music industry are wrestling with the volume of data available, but both are making strong progress on their respective sides. Establishing a single customer view of recorded music habits and live music habits would be very powerful.
What are the limits of data in music marketing?
Big Data is often valuable and in depth, but it is restricted to one platform at a time. This is a very limiting factor when you consider how many platforms there are to consider. The other aspect is that the sheer size of the data set – which can often be billions of rows of data – can be very slow to process and often means that it needs to be aggregated to be accessible, but this loses a lot of the value.
When it comes to consumer insight, the fundamental challenges are whether the consumer can understand the question, whether they can remember enough to answer the question accurately. There is then the challenge of what ‘normal’ looks like, so that you can judge whether your artist varies from the norm. These can be overcome with a solid survey methodology and that’s something I’m confident we’ve nailed with our MIC Music Consumer Survey and Report.
The more challenging aspect is whether the consumer actually knows what they want! There is a right place for A&R to take consumer research with a pinch of salt. If you are testing an artist who is cutting edge, it is sometimes alright that the mass market consumers don’t like it. There is a right place for leading the consumer towards something that they don’t yet know that they want.
A number of the bigger music data companies have been bought up over the past few years (eg MusicMetric and Apple, Next Big Sound and Pandora) – what effect do you think this will have?
These acquisitions are really encouraging. I think this shows the appetite that the tech companies have for data and shows how valuable data can be.
There are a number of interesting companies emerging in this space and few more lurking below the surface. I hope these high value acquisitions will fuel further investment into data led music start-ups and that new platforms will emerge.
Of course, having the data is one thing. Using it to good effect is something different. I hope that these innovations will also help drive a deeper understanding of what data can do, where it can be valuable.