Marketing Channels

acts across the organisation not alone in Denmark, but worldwide. The properties of social media data will be discussed later in this section.

of a customer analysis may be biased because the answer is not representative."

(Interview, Westi, 21:35)

The streaming services allow for real-time monitoring of Sony Music acts. The streaming numbers are like monitoring stock prices and the fluctuations are big on a day-by-day scale. This allows for real time monitoring of targeted marketing, and is concerned with the concept of data accessibility.

As stated earlier the use of in-depth data analysis concerning an act is a marketing investment decision based on the projected success of a given act. The introduction of the streaming services may allow for more in depth data regarding actual customer behaviour, but is still a novel work process. The Digital Business Director states his concern when having to assess this “new” kind of data.

"Since a lot of project are not profitable on the first or second release, you can not invest that many resources in acquiring an analysis at the cost of 200.000 kr. on a band that has

just been signed, where the potential might be to have a turnover of 100.000 kr. The point of breaking even is now more difficult to reach because of the streaming services.

While sales of CD's quickly made a picture of the profitability of an artist, this process might take more than a year when assessing the streaming numbers."

(Interview, Westi, 7:05)

This is an issue concerned with the relevancy of the data. It cannot be established yet which amount of streams is a criterion for success and how to use the more in-depth data for decision-making purposes without having to allocate too many resources. The argument is that it is cheaper to make an assessment of the act’s potential by releasing music and then start the process by a structured data driven assessment. Another argument is that the Nordic countries have been market leaders concerning music streaming for the lasts couple of years. Many formal work processes of Sony Music are dependent on the tools and insights delivered by the international organisation. The hope is that the analysis of streaming generated data will pick up now that these services are being marketed and used in bigger markets such as the UK and the US market.

"It is still in the early days, a low level, in the music business when comparing the use of data analysis to other industries." (Interview, Westi, 6:40)

7.3.2.2 Social media

The structured use of social media at Sony Music is confined to Facebook. Twitter and Instagram data is deemed to be of poor quality and not accurate enough. Facebook is used to

brand acts, to effectively market to consumer and to find new consumers. The product managers from the Commercial department, and the promotional managers from the Marketing and Communication department create the content for Facebook. Then it is the Direct to Consumer manager who communicates this content.

Sony Music uses a Danish social media-marketing tool named Komfo. The main purpose of the tool is advertising. This is used to boost posts made on the Sony Music Facebook page. This is a marketing cost. The tool is also used to make Facebook apps in order to make competitions, participation forms, and polls. This creates traffic on the fan page and creates awareness on the artist and the Sony Music Facebook page. The tool is used to schedule posts across more than 30 Facebook pages of artists, in order to keep an overview. Then they can calculate, when the best time to make a certain kind of post is. This use of Facebook is to create awareness of a given act, but it also allow for Sony Music to gain data and insights on the persons who chose to interact with the advertising. One way of doing this is make competitions regarding the acts, which generate interaction data in return. This process is also used in order to identify and reach out to new “fans”

of the act. In order to enter a competition the user would have to like the Facebook page of the act but will sometimes be required to give up more personal information in order to participate. This can be geographic or demographic data such as age and sex. In order to identify new fans, is to analyse on the interests of the already known fans – people who “like” the fan page or have entered a competition, and target the artist to users on Facebook with similar interest. Interests are in this case “likes” of different pages. This kind of data is also used to analyse consumer behaviour of the fans, since it tells what the fans affiliate them with on Facebook. This kind of comparative analysis is done with the inbuilt analysis tool Insights. Insights deliver “insights” on the fan base of a given act’s Facebook page administered by Sony Music. The setup is that the band usually controls the Facebook page alongside with the Direct to Consumer Manager. The data delivered by insights are geographical data, sex and age.

"This kind of data we use a lot. Especially for the marketing of a product, made by the artist, then it is super important to know, who to target the campaigns towards."

(Interview, Mariager, 7:43)

Another use of Facebook is co-creating product in collaboration with the consumer. Usually this concerns more established acts with an already established fan base. But newly signed acts usually come with a fan base, from which they can perform analysis regarding consumer behaviour. This kind of co creation is often the development of more exclusive products for the “hard-core” fans such as signed albums, vinyl, merchandise and other products that will not be available in stores.

These products are sold through the Sony Music Web Shop. This is another way to collect more precise data on these hard-core fans. The data concerning geographical and demographic characteristics of the consumer, whether it is from the web shop or from Facebook is deemed to be accurate.

7.3.2.3 Radio

Even with the digital streaming services being popular, mass media radio still is very important in order to create awareness of a new artist. At Sony Music they have two employees who are concerned with radio promotion within the Marketing and Communications department. In

Denmark it is only DR P3, according to A&R manager René Cambony that plays new music where there is an audience that subsequently will buy the music. Commercial radio stations does not play music by unestablished artists since they are depended on commercial revenue, and therefor can not afford not giving the audience what they want. This limits the choice of where to promote new music, but it is still important in creating awareness of a new artist. The data used to assess the performance on radio can monitored through the Airplay Chart (hitlisten.nu). This information is deemed to be accurate and valid.

7.3.2.4 TV

TV is used for advertising primarily, either as bought airtime or personal interviews in evening shows. One of the more successful and effective uses of the media is to get a song affiliated with a recurring TV-show.