When a Song Suddenly Spikes COVERFEATURE
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06–07 Tools The Appreciation Engine 08–09 Campaigns Ariana Grande, The Kooks, Travis Scott 10–14 Behind The Campaign- John Coltrane SEPTEMBER 05 2018 sandboxMUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA ISSUE 211 AT THE SHARP END what to do (and not do) when a song suddenly spikes COVERFEATURE Tracks and artists spike on audio and video services for all manner of AT THE SHARP END reasons: being added to a playlist, landing a key sync, a video that gets everyone talking, a kink in the algorithm and more. But what happens after? How do you keep the ball in the air and turn good fortune into even greater fortune as well as long-term success? Rather than look at viral hits (ephemeral and often the start of the end of a career), here we look at what you can do after you spot a spike (and have determined it’s a genuine spike) and what you can learn from those who have been through it a number of times. what to do (and not do) when a song suddenly spikes has inbuilt obsolescence. A viral hit can quickly become a meme nyone reading Fredric Dannen’s 1990 and were even complicit in. In 2018, the marketing teams try and hold on for dear – and when it becomes a meme it is book Hit Men: Power Brokers & Fast media windows may have changed but life to something not of their own making; condemned to become the punchline to a AMoney Inside The Music Business they remain equally limited (if you don’t but they need to expect the unexpected joke it is no longer in control of. Arguably will be left with the impression that have YouTube, Spotify, Apple and Amazon from the off and have a contingency plan the definitive example is ‘Harlem Shake’ nothing happens in the music industry by involved, you might as well not exist). The in place. – a track that took off like a rocket but, in chance. It is all carefully orchestrated and difference, however, is that the ability to In this piece we are making an explicit going through its many iterations, was (in many cases) paid for by cash-crazed carefully manipulate hits has started to distinction between viral hits and tracks record companies as part of a complex crumble so that serendipity can and will that spike. “Viral” comes with a multitude power battle with each other for market take over. of negative semantic connotations. It dominance. The unexpected is not quite the new implies “novelty” and an explosive, but brief, The era he wrote about was rife with normal, but tracks and artists can now moment in the sun – a one-off that defines payola and other less abrasive tactics to catch fire in a variety of sudden and and, in doing so, sinks an act as they can make hits – something that the limited bewildering ways. This does not mean that never repeat it. Short-termism is the DNA media windows allowed, encouraged marketing strategies have to be torn up as of virality. A viral hit is unrepeatable and 1 | sandbox | ISSUE 211 | 05.09.2018 COVERFEATURE completely unhooked from Baauer, the you to choose the things that you want to act behind it. Indeed, most people using follow. So sometimes you are not actually the track in their UGC video had little or no following an artist because they are not in interest in anything else Baauer did. It was campaign, so it can still catch you off guard about that one track in that one fleeting even if you have a lot of those things in moment. place.” Equally, Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ might Sometimes just keeping an eye on things have racked up 3bn+ views on YouTube by manually checking them can be a way and the follow-up, ‘Gentleman’, might have to spot anomalies. But not every anomaly reached 1bn views by effectively being should be treated as a starting pistol for an ‘Gangnam Style II’, but that was really emergency marketing plan. the high point Psy’s career in the West, although he has continued to build his Spikes and red herrings: YouTube audience. If you keep trying how to filter out all the to bottle the same bolt of planned activity and lightning, your bottle is quickly going to smash. its impact If there is a lesson here, it is this: “viral” surprise spike has even happened and, if it “We get all the major data feeds The reaction to spotting a spike should is less of a springboard and more of a has, what you need to do next. coming back from most of the never be to immediately swing into action trapdoor. This invariably involves some forensic major retailers and that might and try to grow it; rather it should be Quite the inverse, a “spike” should be work in trying to figure out what the cause tell you that X’s streams have about ticking off all the possible causes the beginning of something – not the of the spike was. increased by Y% in the past 24 to see if this spike is genuinely a surprise. end of something. Speaking to marketing “There has generally been a bit of reverse hours; so then you can dig into that What might seem unexpected from one teams and managers about song spikes, engineering involved,” says Lee Barter, and see why that has happened. perspective can be very much expected it is immediately apparent that the cause engagement manager at INgrooves. “You see We use Chartmetric quite heavily and that from another. is often unique, but there are a number of you have a spike and then you try and figure will tell us if things are growing and if there Often, when rights are split universal responses that can apply. out where that spike is coming from.” are any spikes.” internationally, a marketer in one territory Here we offer key lessons from those Like the canary in the mineshaft, setting This is, however, not always a might not be aware of what is happening who’ve had to grapple with a song spiking up a series of flags and alerts on an analytics straightforward and convenient life-saving in another territory that can have global and what they did to build, rather than dashboard can give you a first-mover technique. Even a large label might be implications. Two decades ago, there bury, it. advantage. The issue, however, is how this is hesitant to put resources into tracking were territorial limitations to much of the benchmarked for every track and artist. An every song in their catalogue and, in marketing around an act and marketing Spotting a spike in overnight bump of 600 streams on Spotify doing so, putting their data dashboards teams would know when a track was or YouTube for a mega act is nothing; an under enormous (and often unnecessary) getting heavy radio play in their country or the first place overnight bump of 600 streams on Spotify or pressure. had landed a sync in a major TV show – and This is not a rhetorical or an existential YouTube for a brand new act with only one “Even if you were doing those dashboard so could prepare for it. question. Sometimes a spike has a track out could be the start of something records, the dashboard would have to be The internationalisation effect of, first, carefully planned cause – it just might not significant. Context is everything and will set up in a certain way to alert you when the internet, then music streaming and be immediately obvious where it has come define what you do, or don’t do, next. there is a huge jump in streams,” says now, with Netflix and Amazon Prime, from. So what might seem like a spike is in “At INgrooves, we have a lot of in-house Justin Barker, director of streaming strategy television, has removed many territorial fact part of a structured growth trajectory. tech that tells us if something is suddenly at PIAS. “But most dashboards, in order borders; this means that music marketing So the first thing to do is to figure out if a spiking,” says Barter. to minimise the data overload, will ask cannot behave in the way it once did. 2 | sandbox | ISSUE 211 | 05.09.2018 COVERFEATURE and artist, the net result being that cases and are more attuned to the way YouTube and Spotify streams of the things can be manipulated, is not always track suddenly accelerated. Again, bulletproof. that took a lot of digging to unearth “There are occasions where it turns out the root cause and then come up with I am totally wrong,” accepts Barter. “The a strategy to capitalise on it. artist might have had a sync or it turns Then there are the fake streams out that the people following that playlist that can and do happen. Bots can be just really love that playlist and it’s been deployed – unknowingly to marketing reposted by others. You have to dig deep teams – to try and game the algorithm into it and look at what is coming back. on YouTube or Spotify . Someone – From that you figure out what is legitimate perhaps the artist or their manager and what is authentic.” – has made the rookie error of paying a click farm to try and inflate streams Harnessing the serendipity: One marketer we spoke to proffered and drum up interest in this way. If a what to do next the example of a track that had been sudden spike in a track seems too good to released two years earlier – and only had be true, sometimes it is.