In the period leading up to Michael Jackson’s death, the UK felt largely indifferent towards him and this barely changed even after the announcement of his 100 UK gigs. His death however has had a transformational impact upon consumers’ emotional connection towards him and we are still only at the beginning of the curve.

His PopScore has jumped to an all time high of 30, an increase of 50% from last year and his Purchase Propensity has spiked from 10% to 13%, taking him well above the industry average.

Those who are seemingly most affected by Michael’s death over the last month are 13-19 year old females whose love for him has increased by 9 points to 25% and 20-29 year old females whose love has risen by 7 points to 23%. These scores compare very favourably with averages for artists within these demographics of 9% and 7% respectively.

Amongst the most loved artists with female teens, the only male solo artists in the Top 15 are Michael Jackson (12th) and Justin Timberlake (11th). With females aged 20-29 Michael ranks 8th and Justin 11th.

Not only has the love for Michael increased but the dislike has dropped markedly. The table below shows the negative scores by demographic and the percentage point decline since his death. The most notable reductions are with females 30-39 (20% decline) and females 16-19 (24%).

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Michael Jackson is climbing the list of artists with the greatest consumer propensity to purchase their music. His PopScore rank this month is 36 but he is 10^th in the purchase propensity table, level with U2 and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

His purchase propensity is driven by females aged 13-29 with an average of 20% which is approximately three times the average for this segment. The implication is that if there is more unreleased material, Michael Jackson is likely to dominate the sales charts again for some time, reminiscent of artists like Tupac who released chart-topping hits from the grave.  

Understanding what kind of consumer is connecting with a song is arguably the most important first step. Once that target market is identified, it then takes someone to make the introductions to the target market. And once those introductions are made, stories start to spread.

In music marketing, the currency of emotional connection is love, and that’s exactly what it takes to build a strong relationship between the Song, the Artist and the Consumer. Although PopScores focuses upon artists it actually highlights the power of songs all the time. Take a look at the Hoosiers story.

In less than a year The Hoosiers have built a dream relationship with consumers based on just two songs

Another great relationship is currently building with Scouting For Girls. Consider this – the boys’ album made it to number 1 in the UK sales chart with no more than 40% Informed Awareness but with two big airplay hits that truly connected.

This is an extremely promising platform for the future and highlights again how important it is to track the key values of emotional connection to understand the true potential of an artist.

These big questions are often left hanging but there is an answer…

It lies in consumers’ familiarity with the artist. Knowing the level of familiarity is a vital starting point to increase sales. Artists often manage to sell significant volumes to tastemakers/early adopters but barely touch mainstream audiences. Here’s an example. Newton Faulkner is the current number 1 album seller based on his first single release from the album. His awareness amongst consumers (“Name Awareness”) is just 34% and crucially only 18% of consumers are sufficiently familiar with him to hold an opinion (“Informed Awareness”).

Newton’s benchmark target ought to be an Informed Awareness of over 90% and therefore the campaign should have a long way to run. However, songs drive familiarity and one connecting song won’t deliver 90% artist awareness. Take a look at The Hoosiers developing awareness:

The orange line shows their Name Awareness and the blue line shows their Informed Awareness since April this year.

“Worried About Ray” has taken The Hoosiers to an acceptable 46% Name Awareness. Where their familiarity (and therefore album sales) goes from here will depend upon whether they get decent radio airplay for their follow-up singles and whether those singles connect.

 
Moore’s adoption curve applies equally well to music consumers. So where on the curve is Newton Faulkner right now? PopScores indicates he’s got a long way to go in terms of familiarity and therefore significant sales ahead of him. This month his Name Awareness grew by 10% which was surpassed only by Kate Nash (11%). In a mass market, these are big steps.

Levels of familiarity are hard to guess correctly. When we think an act is hot, we think everyone knows about them. That was understandable when the only available measure of success was sales stats but with PopScores that is no longer the case.

What’s more, sales are a response to emotional connection and the driver is familiarity. When an artist without much media support fails, most of us agree they failed because nobody heard of them. Alternatively, when an artist with a big airplay hit fails we say that the song didn’t connect. In truth, the problem is most likely to be inadequate artist awareness. When Simon Webbe released his first solo album it took significant time for consumers to make the connection, despite heavy airplay, before the album went double platinum.

To better understand levels of familiarity, here are a few examples “we all know”. The artists enjoy some success but they all show incredible potential for growth. The number that matters most is Informed Awareness, the percentage of people who know enough about the artist to have an opinion.

What about artists that we consider established – artists that have sold platinum or double platinum?

What these artists have in common are strong songs that have helped build their familiarity. Muse had their big break this year, having delivered twelve UK Top 20 singles since 2000. Their level of Informed Awareness at 68% is still relatively low and should rise with their current break-through.

Kelly Clarkson has had five Top 10 singles since 2003 and the Killers two Top 5 singles and another five in the Top 20 since 2005. Since 2005 The Kooks have had five Top 10 singles plus another two in the Top 20 including “Ooh La”, a major radio hit.  So patience is necessary if an act has only a few songs at a time that connect with audiences. Mika however enjoyed a much faster ride with significantly more successful singles. One number 1 and 2 in the Top 10 since January has propelled his name awareness to 90%.

If you know where you are, it’s a whole lot easier to know how much further you have to travel and when you’ve arrived.