Thanks

Peter

Thanks

Peter

If you’re looking for a mortgage in Google you will find smart companies like Halifax on the front page. If you Google “hip hop music” not a single artist is featured apart from a couple of YouTube video inclusions. The same happens with “heavy metal” and so on. Apparently there were 74,000 searches last month for hip hop in the UK alone.

There’s no difference for artists. You should want your official property appearing on the first page of Google, not some backstreet page trying to make money using your brand. Take Snow Patrol for instance - this month’s second most popular artist in PopScores. If you Google Snow Patrol in the UK you will find the link for Snow Patrol’s homepage ranked nr 1 and 2, followed by Wikipedia, Myspace, Last Fm, a lyrics site, NME and an Amazon page to Eyes Open. One would consider that an excellent result if there was also a link to their catalogue.

Obviously, it helps to have a unique name, something that is not competing for visibility with other brands. Good examples include Coldplay and Sterophonics. Even if you don’t possess a unique name there is a way to dominate your chosen pages on Google. See for example The Priests for whom we helped secure 90% of the first page for a search term that generated 74,000 searches last month alone.

I’ve taken the Top 10 most popular artists from PopScores and Googled their name to see what share they own on the first page of results.

The Beatles 100%

Snow Patrol: 90%

Red Hot Chili Peppers 80%

REM 40%

Kaiser Chiefs 90%

Stereophonics 100%

Coldplay 100%

The Killers 50%

Kings of Leon 100%

Bon Jovi 100%

Apart from REM and The Killers that’s a pretty good result but it is somewhat misleading since these acts have all been around for sufficient time to build a reputation.

This is far from the only search traffic worth capturing. Let’s say one is looking for the song “Use Somebody”, not knowing it’s by the Kings of Leon. Last month there were 206,000 such searches. An actual search returns a page full of relevant links for the band but here comes the problem: The Kings of Leon homepage is nowhere to be found. There are three links to a video, two for videos that aren’t available in the UK and the other is a still image with the song playing. There are no links to Amazon, Play or HMV or any other purchase link. All in all a job no more than half done.

Another popular keyphrase is “Use Somebody lyrics” and for that keyphrase you will find 80% spammy lyrics site. Just like ringtones in the early days, it’s the “entrepreneurs” who are now making money with lyrics.

Searching for Kings off Leon Lyrics doesn’t help. The top 10 links comprise undesirable sites like Lyricsmania.com which load your system with popups that somebody is paying for. Not one official result. Kings of Leon is the norm, not the exception. If I google “yellow” which as a single word is Googled about half a million times a month, I find 2 Coldplay videos hosted by YouTube but no further sign of it in the top 10.

Search, if done properly, can lead to revenue and brand enhancement. Contact us if you would like to know more.

Brand new Live Sites: JLS

VV Brown

If you subscribe to PopScores you can see this firsthand. Most of the artists tracked by PopScores manage to score a purchase propensity of only 5% ie just one in twenty people who are familiar with these artists are inclined to buy new music by them. The average varies across demographics but the highest purchase propensity rate is with teenagers (7%) and it then declines to 3% amongst 50-59 year olds. So the consumer segment that has the strongest passion for artists and seemingly the highest stated purchase intention is also the one most likely to help itself to free music through social networking and file sharing bit torrent sites.

Now, what PopScores reveals is an exceptionally strong purchase propensity for some artists and these are typically artists who sell well in the adult segments despite that market’s relatively low inclination to buy music. Take That for example have a purchase propensity which is x 5 the average in the oldest segment (and amongst women). It’s no surprise therefore that they continue to sell music at a prodigious rate.

Listed below are the twenty acts with the highest purchase propensity. Obviously being in this position is no guarantee of success if the album is poorly received but what it does provide is the lifeline to come back with something that delivers what consumers want.

Let’s focus upon Kings Of Leon. Here is an act whose Informed Awareness is only 75% which places them in 90^th position. However, their purchase propensity score is an overall 16% across all demographics and that puts them in 3^rd position. What is remarkable is that although Kinds Of Leon are an act with its primary market in the 13-29 year old segments they manage to score x4 the average purchase propensity with the 30-49 year old demographics and over twice the average in the 50+ year old segment.

Not only do Kings Of Leon currently command more purchase intention than the vast majority of more familiar artists, it’s highly likely that with increasing familiarity they will become one of the biggest selling artists in the UK. Only The Killers are in their company with a 79% informed awareness and a 15% purchase propensity.

Whilst it’s eminently possible to deconstruct a brand into its components eg image, music, credibility etc there’s only one thing that matters and that’s the amount of Love consumers have for the artist. To be liked is a good start but it won’t monetize a brand. Love is the only currency of value. Whilst love for a song starts the process of building emotional connection, what drives it is the level of love that connects artist and consumer. PopScores monitors exactly this

The two artists with currently the strongest growth in emotional connection are Lily Allen and The Kings Of Leon.  Lily’s new album is helping her recover from the decline in emotional connection she suffered towards the end of last year. Her PopScore is now back at an all-time peak of 24 and her negative score is at an all time low at 21%

The Kings Of Leon continue to enjoy an extraordinary growth in emotional connection as their familiarity rises. In just over a year the band’s purchase propensity has almost tripled from 5% to a remarkable 14%. This places them 4^th in the purchase propensity tables ranked together with Snow Patrol and The Killers.

Kings Of Leon

Emotional connection can all too easily drain away. Take Chris Brown for example; his behaviour has cost him dearly. Driven by the quality of his music Chris Brown has been a rising star since early 2008. His PopScore chart above shows a consistently improving Score up from 10 to 16 over 10 months. It then took only one month to drop back to 14. The biggest set-back has been with his core fan base of 13-19 year old females who knocked 4 love points off an outstanding connection of 28%. We expect to report a further decline in the May results.

Chris Brown

  Amy Winehouse is another artist whose brand has been stronger. In 2007/08 she was one of the artists with greatest brand building potential but over the last year the opposite has happened. In just 12 months Amy’s PopScore has dropped from an impressive 28 down to a more modest17. This decline is largely driven by an increase in negative perception. Dislike for Amy increased from 29% in March 08 to 36% this month. On top of this, her purchase propensity has dropped by over 30% in just over a year, from 13 down to 9.

Obviously, building an emotional connection with consumers depends significantly on the artist’s musical output. However, the industry persists with the old school release pattern of an album once every 1- 3 years. This makes it difficult to maintain brand momentum. It would be far better to release product when it’s ready and retain brand visibility.

This would be consistent with purchase patterns in the digital world in which consumers like to buy single tracks. There’s always time to bundle an album and release a physical product at some point. Aside from the release of songs artists can continue to communicate with consumers through blogs & diaries and social networks; something which still happens only inconsistently.

 Coldplay are ahead of the pack. Their Twitter following now exceeds 400,000. The benefit from having that number of people simultaneously listening to what they have to say can be immense.

 In the digital world, Out of Sight equals Out of Money.

The reality is thatincome comes courtesy of the blockbuster artists, not the long tail. This is not unlike TV where the biggest shows generate the highest ad revenue. With YouTube it’s not the site itself that’s buzzing but the hot properties within.

Take for instance the Universal Music channel. It holds 9,315 videos and has about 630,000 subscribers making it the most popular channel. Its most viewed video has generated 84 million views and the runner-up about 40 million views. Roughly 800 videos have more the 1million views. The typical “favourite” score for a video around 1m is 6,000. The remaining 8,000 or so clips are either new or in the long tail.

So, there are 1,000 clips that work well but of them only a few hundred are a daily attraction. Whilst these figures look large they are relatively small in context.

Take radio for instance. Music radio lives through the attraction of music and artists but its numbers are far bigger. When Chris Moyles plays a tune on his breakfast show he’s pushing the track to 6 million people at once. A few more spins during the week and a track will have enjoyed an exposure to 25 million people in a matter of days. Equally, commercial radio through its generally high rotation policy achieves similar numbers.

There is little doubt that eventually online broadcasters like YouTube will make serious money for themselves and labels will share in their good fortune but that will require more time and innovation.

What the industry needs in the meantime are more blockbuster artists. A look at this month’s PopScores compared to 18 months ago shows how dependent the industry is becoming upon a relatively small number of artists. Only a few still have the capacity to attract and maintain a level of emotional connection sufficient to generate a prodigious financial return. Pink, Take That, Kings Of Leon, The Killers, Rihanna and Leona Lewis are some of those that can, being truly in the hearts and minds of consumers.

Propensity to purchase new music by Males (%) March 09

If we go deeper and look at purchase propensity we find that there are currently only 9 artists that have a new music purchase intention score above the mass market benchmark of 20%. What’s more, 5 of those artists are in the 13-19 year old age group which is obviously a low purchasing segment. Only Oasis, Kings of Leon, Michael Jackson and U2 seemingly have mass market appeal with males 20 years old+. There are no artists in the 40+ age groups that score 20%.

Amongst females, the situation is even more heavily skewed towards teenagers - of the 10 artists that currently have purchase propensity scores of 20% and above, 8 appeal exclusively to 13-19 year olds. Only 2 artists – Take That and Pink – achieve above benchmark in the older age groups.

Propensity to purchase new music by Females (%) March 09

Propensity to purchase new music by Males (%) Sept 07

Propensity to purchase new music by Females (%) Sept 07

This approach succeeds some of the time but an analytical perspective reveals that there is another more powerful way of looking at it. Commercial success, in the short term is dependent upon building a strong emotional connection in the teenage segment. It is also a pre-condition for enduring long-term success. The Killers, Christina Aguilera, Beyonce and Pink all share a strong connection with teens that has extended into the older age groups.

Other artists with sufficiently strong teen support that are likely to join them for a long and rich career are Rihanna, Chris Brown, Scouting For Girls and Katy Perry. This of course assumes that their product remains consistently good.

Typically, when we hear the term “teen artists” we think of artists like Rihanna, Jonas Brothers, Hannah Montana or JLS. The truth however is that there is a whole range of artists we wouldn’t necessarily expect to find in this young segment. Favourites of theirs include the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kings of Leon and Snow Patrol. All artists happily at home on AC radio stations.

The chart below shows how deeply affected teens are by Kings of Leon. A Love score of 22% spreads like a virus. Album sales are however likely to come from the 20-29 year old bordering age group ie adults with disposable income.

 Kings of Leon are yet to build a strong relationship in the older demographic segments. But to illustrate what an established relationship looks like, have a look at the graph below for Coldplay which shows the Love for the artist from teens to the 50-59s.

Cultivating a sizeable teen fan community isn’t easy and nor is it cheap. There is very little radio listening amongst young people which makes it much harder to achieve mass market awareness swiftly. However, since there is very little room for new music on radio playlists nowadays there is little to miss out on.

The big advantage of targeting teens stems from the much overlooked fact that they much more easily in love with artists and their music than older age groups. And when they do, word of mouth is likely to drive awareness and that’s when your digital marketing campaign should really kick in.

When the first web 2.0 social network sites launched, their members were mostly teen mobs. Today there are as many adults on these sites as there are teens which makes spreading the word into other segments so much easier thereby speeding the journey from Teens to Tesco’s.

Radio has not been much help recently to labels in terms of supporting their new acts and yet radio remains a very significant force. Without radio airplay it is nigh on impossible to achieve commercial success, but radio continues to go back to classic tunes, the ones with the greatest familiarity which make the hairs on your neck stand up. And why? Because much of the new music doesn’t sound like its produced for the ears but for the eyes and although the eyes can eat they can’t listen to the radio.

Many of the recent successes on the radio are not necessarily the ones you would instantly recognize on the street. The Kings Of Leon are a good example. So its no surprise that when youplay Guitar Hero or Rock Band you find that the most popular tracks are the classics with 12 year old boys battling online to songs like Hotel California. Kids worry much less about how old a track is than how buff it is and the more they get involved the less they care about the visuals.

With Beatles music due for digital release sometime this year via Rock Band kids will have the opportunity to learn about the band for the first time. It shouldn't be a surprise then if we see something of a Beatles revival.

There are some commentators who say that today's audiences have changed in that they are much more segmented than they were 10 years ago. They therefore argue that superstarswith mass audiences are no longer possible.Those people should start playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band and watch kids unifying over some classic Bon Jovi or Lynyrd Skynyrd. We shouldn’t always blame change; some things just don’t change.

And that love starts with a song. A perfect example of the power of a song and how the love for it translates to love for an artist is seen in this month’s PopScores result for Beyonce.

In September Beyonce’s PopScore stood at a mediocre 17 but by December it had risen to a lofty 26 placing her 49^th overall and in the Top 10 with teenage females.

As the PopScores chart shows the release of the single “If I Were A Boy” in the 3^rd quarter had a pronounced impact upon Beyonce’s positive scores which started to improve and her negatives which began to decline. The trend continued as the single reached Number 1 in November after airplay during October. The positive trend continued with her 2^nd single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) which reached position 14 in December. Following her X-Factor performance with Alexandra Burke “Listen” re-emerged in the singles chart at number 8.

 Click for fullsize image

During December Beyonce’s PopScore increased by a massive 4 points to 26 driven by a strong increase in love of 3% points amongst 13-19 females and 40-49 females. Her love with female teenagers is now at 26% which is over 3 times the average and this propels her into the Top 6 list of most loved artists. She is now closing in on the 3 female artists who claim the Top 10, namely Pink, Christina Aguilera and Rihanna.

Artist PopScore
Rihanna	37
Christina Aguilera	31
Pink	29
Chris Brown	29
The Killers	26
Beyonce	26
Leona Lewis	25
Scouting For Girls	24
Britney Spears	23
The Script	22

With female teens taking the lead it is likely that Beyonce will start to build a stronger connection with adult females in early 09.

As noted, Beyonce’s negative scores have also been in decline for several months. During December the trend continued with a further 4 % point decline to 22%.The largest change is attitude is with teenage males whose dislike fell by a massive 8 % points. We believe this can partially be explained by the change of sound with her single “If I Was A Boy.”

The graph below illustrates how clearly the love for Beyonce correlates inversely with age falling from 26% with teenage females to 6% with over 50 females. Beyonce’s Popscore in the 20+ demos is already strong with an average of 30 and driven by the prospect of “If I Was A Boy” moving to recurrent radio playlists and higher rotations on AC stations we expect Beyonce’s love score and therefore Purchase Propensity to grow significantly in the first half of 09.

This should translate into continuing album sales and a rising PopScore.

It’s said that 95% of signed artists aren’t going to sell because they don’t connect with consumers. We subscribe to that view because everyday we at EMR see these problems. In the past, these products would simply be deleted. Now they end up in the long tail for friends and family filling up the internet (ie making search so much harder).

The continuing cries for music taxes, all you can eat subscriptions and licensing like TV and Radio make me feel nauseous. Consider a lake full of artists with only a few big fish. The big fish don’t want to be obscured by the mass of tiddlers whereas the tiddlers are happy to be there in case someone wants them. In such a model the earning capacity of the few big fish is much reduced and you would expect them to exclude themselves from such a model and sell their products individually, download by download at a far higher unit price with revenue visibility. When other big fish follow their exit the lake will be left with the small fish that get thrown back into the water because who wants to pay a fishing license for a lake without big fish?

I think it’s now time to seriously stop people downloading illegally by working together with the ISPs. They were, after all, able to block access to a Wikipedia site displaying a 1970’s album cover by the Scorpions. That should open some eyes.