Facebook US Market Share Increases at the Expense of MySpace
Guest Post by Shaun Austin - Senior Research Manager/Entertainment Media Research
There’s No Business Like Death – Michael Jackson’s Popscore Personality (Part2)
Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi describes how our emotions are affected when people we don’t think
Some Things Don’t Change After All
“My advice to labels is take your eyes off the ball…and start listening to it.” That’swhat a top UK radio man told me the other day and it makes a lot of sense.
Radio has not been much help recently to labels in terms of supportin
Matthew Effect Marketing
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That in essence is the Matthew Effect. The term was originally used in science but can explain how music marketing works most effectively in the digital age.
At the heart of the internet there are lists. Lists are t
A La Carte Vs Subscription
Today’s debate on A La Carte versus Subscription digital models is intensifying, driven primarily by new unlimited download offerings from the mobile telcos. In time they will presumably be joined by the ISPs. The force is seemingly with these utility service provi
Of Permanent Value
Yes that’s the title of a Warren Bufffet biography but it’s also my idea of the worth of music. Consumers think music is free because of the many streaming opportunities and free legal downloads, never mind the piracy. It’s tragic and will probably take an age
Push It
With the rise of social networks we are constantly being reminded that the familiar push culture is being replaced by the pull culture. How true is it? Pull is an attractive concept once your artist has secured a level of familiarity sufficient to create an emotional
The Bridge
The bridge that connects artists and consumers is music, or to be more accurate, the love for their music. Despite much nonsense spoken to the contrary, building this bridge with artists still relies primarily on traditional media such as Radio and TV. Sure, there ar
The 100% Club
The truest measure of artist traction is familiarity and the most successful artists are those whose informed awareness is 100% or as near as damn it across all demographics. Informed awareness means “Yes, I have an opinion on this artist” and high informed aware
Teenage Marketing
With an ageing population at a time when the importance of the single is much reduced and rock is in the ascendant the music industry has shifted focus to adult-oriented artists and rightly so given the proportion of music sales accounted for by the over 20’s. Howe
All you Need Is Love
Once you’re scoreing 20-30% love in your target segment, you’ve made it. That’s so much love you will almost feel under pressure. Getting there is difficult. It can take a long time most of the time and when it does, it also takes a lot of great songs. There ar
A Real Teen Story
A quick look at the list of the most popular artists with teens reveals a category dominated by male-fronted Rock Bands. So not only aren’t there any female artists, but there also aren’t any solo male acts to be found.
The list is driven by all aspects of
Music’s Exchange Rate
So the two worlds are finally getting to know one another. The Music world and the Online world. Both have their own currencies and an exchange rate is becoming apparent.
Love is the currency that makes the music industry tick. Love for an artist or a song is
A Numbers Game – Popscores Commentary April 08
Last month we talked about using Popscores as a discovery tool; looking into artists that are as yet unfamiliar but show a strong connection in a small segment. If you remember: Big Fish Small Pond. So when an artist is in the small pond then all that matters is to i
New Music Marketing
Only consumer attention can turn an unknown song into a hit. Get that song on the radio and consumers will generally start to pay attention. Obviously there are only so many songs radio and music TV can support so it’s fortunate there are other means to get that at
February PopScores Report
The Hoosiers continue to show how an artist can build a strong relationship with consumers over a very short period of time. Over the last month for example they grew their total PopScore by 4 points with the largest growth coming from females 30-39 with a massive 9
PopScores January Report – The Most Popular Acts in the UK 2007
In this report we have aggregated PopScores data from 2007 to identify the biggest growers and the most successful acts of the year.
There is a range of different music buying segments in the UK and with PopScores we define these core segments using age &
This Month’s Movers & Shakers in Popscores
The biggest grower this month is Leona Lewis.
Although X-Factor afforded her a significant amount of familiarity, only now is she close (86%) to reaching the magic barrier of 90% Name Awareness where just about everyone has heard of her. Once there, she will b
How Much Love Is There?
The music we love is not something new we find everyday. Many of our favourite songs we’ve been loving for years. From the time we first hear music we love, it can then take a long time if ever to truly connect with the artist. An emotional connection between consu
The Royal Wake-up Call
Reports of Prince suing fans and internet companies continue to arrive daily. Many suggest that Prince is trying to hold onto an analogue music world controlled by copyright. I wonder if that’s so. The physical world is more controlled than ever with CCTV, DNA,
Whither Britney?
Britney Spears had hit rock bottom, so she told her fans in an open letter in May 2007. Whilst possibly true from her perspective worse was to come. As PopScores shows, her actual PopScore fell from 13 in September 06 through 10 in May 07 to 3 this month.
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PopScores October Report
Back catalogue has always been a banker for the music industry. The big artists, the ones with a life span of ten or even twenty albums, have to date been able to generate substantial income for labels with their repertoire. Just think how many Top 10 selling Greates
Your Attention Please
There’s little difference between a radio commercial and an unknown song on the air. Both interrupt listeners and interruptions are generally disliked and avoided which is one of the reasons why unfamiliar songs generally test poorly.
For a decent ad or song
The Popscore Personality of Michael Jackson (Part 1)
Popscores started to monitor Michael Jackson in June 2008. His scores with music consumers were what you would expect from a deeply troubled iconic artist – he had a mediocre Popscore of 20 made up of Dislikes of 31%, Positives of 41% and Love of just 10%.
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Breaking a new artist today
How long does it really take to break an artist? What’s the tipping point? When is the album campaign really over or is it just over when it’s over? When an album goes platinum and the third or fourth single with good airplay doesn’t drive further album sales m
P1’s and P2’s ….A new world
It was a sign of the times when the term Top 40 gave way to CHR (Contemporary Hit Radio). It was in the 1950s when stations started to build formats around music and because juke boxes generally held 40 records the term Top 40 was coined. Today stations play a lot le
Music still sells…
Despite much editorial about the right business model of the future there are still some artists who appear to generate some serious revenue. That’s not fundamentally the result of clever marketing or new business models. It’s down to old-fashioned consumer love