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Music marketing: Influencer trends and short-form video

In the age of TikTok, it was impossible to ignore the worlds of influencers and short-form video at our Sandbox Summit Global conference last week.

Sessions included a fireside chat between Warner Records associate director of influencer marketing Jen Darmafall and Songfluencer CEO Johnny Cloherty, focusing on trends in the way labels and artists work with social stars.

“I would say TikTok these days is definitely the bread and butter of where we’re focusing most of our attention. It’s a big focus for us,” said Darmafall, adding that the clear correlation between TikTok success and spikes on music streaming platforms is the key reason for that.

However, Cloherty suggested that an emerging trend is for labels to not judge their influencer marketing campaigns purely on the streaming uplift.

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Vevo explores demographic differences in digital video habits

Music videos firm Vevo has published a report called ‘The Anatomy of a Video Experience: a Multicultural Story’.

It analyses how people are watching video on various devices – TV, mobile and PC – as well as exploring whether there are differences in behaviour between demographics including Asian, Black / African-American, Hispanic / Latino and White viewers.

The report, which was produced with Magna and IPG Media Lab, unsurprisingly includes some findings that play neatly into Vevo’s business model: for example, 60% of each group is receptive to ads while watching music videos.

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Virtual re-Ellie-ty: Ellie Goulding makes XR music videos

British artist Ellie Goulding has a pair of new videos out for her new tracks ‘Brightest Blue’ and ‘New Heights’.

They’re the result of a partnership between label Polydor and Vevo for the latter’s ‘Official Live Performance’ series, but what’s notable is their use of ‘XR’ technology, which blends camera footage with computer-generated content in real-time.

For ‘Brightest Blue’ it begins by adding lighting effects (blue, of course) as Goulding sings and then stage dressing is added and it ends with the camera pulling back to reveal the soundstage it was filmed on and the musicians performing live that were previously out of shot. ‘New Heights’ does something similar but focuses on an evolving backdrop instead.

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Sandbox Issue 239: Music and Advertising’s tense union

Lead: The old rules of advertising are long gone – as is a lot of the inherent guesswork around advertising’s effectiveness. In its place has come greater tracking of ad spend and ad impact, but the entire process itself has become much more convoluted. We speak to those working in this rapidly changing world to […]

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Vevo on how to get more YouTube views (and avoid an ‘algorithmic death-spiral’)

Ed Walker, VP of original content & production at Vevo, used his presentation at Music Ally’s Sandbox Summit to explain how to ensure videos on YouTube benefit from – rather than rub against – the platform’s recommendation algorithms.

Walker used Vevo’s catalogue of music videos and original content – more than 400k videos in total – to illustrate the kinds of tactics labels and artists should be thinking about. Vevo’s catalogue generated 76.3bn views on YouTube in the first quarter of 2019 alone.

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Vevo says its music videos generate more than 800m daily views

A birthday we almost forgot about: Vevo is 10 years old this year. The music-videos firm has published a few new stats to celebrate the performance of the 400k-plus videos in its catalogue.

Vevo says that its catalogue is currently averaging more than 800m views a day, rising to near-1bn on the weekends. It also says that it has seen a 300% growth in daily views over the past five years.

That period, of course, includes the moment in May 2018 when Vevo decided to ‘phase out’ its owned-and-operated services – its website and mobile app – in favour of working purely through distribution partners. YouTube remains the most prominent, but Vevo now also makes its catalogue available through Amazon, Apple, Roku, Sky, Virgin Media and Viewd.