Influencers And The Numbers Game and The KISS THEORY.

“Music has always been about fans liking the looks of an artist and which leads them to their songs. It’s never been about algorithms and data. That’s being way too nerdy and overly analytical to something as simple as Pop music. Plus, many of these numbers can be fake by purchasing them, but none of this is going to help make a real sale. What’s being sold these days is the ILLUSION of popularity and fame which is useless for a business that needs to see a return on investment”. 

A.Non

When some of us were in the music industry and working for or even running the Regional offices for majors like Universal and EMI Music, we hired street marketing teams- smart young music fans who knew the music they liked and helped us market their favourite artists. 

They were paid with getting free merchandise and the opportunity to meet their favourite artists and attend concerts.  

What did us “important” music executives do? 

Nothing much except look after our sales projections of the company’s Global and Regional priority acts, take them out for dinners and clubbing, attend various music conferences, get the best deals possible for these artists with music video channels and make sure we delivered the promised sales numbers to Head Office. 

Were these numbers real? 

Mostly not. 

As we would say back then, these sales had “wings”- cheaply manufactured CDs and music cassettes from places like Malaysia and China that found their way into Europe en masse to certain retailers who sold all this at much lower prices than the original product and which helped us make our numbers. 

Of course, Head Office wanted to get rid of this scourge, but when often times fighting the enemy within without knowing it, it somehow worked out.

Always remembered is when with EMI and suddenly selling exactly fifty thousand units of a Keith Urban CD in Thailand that excited his manager so much that he wanted Keith to have two concerts in the country.

Other than going to a temple in Bangkok to help get me out of this situation and then engage in tap dancing to the manager about a slight mistake in the fifty thousand in sales, this one act of desperation and how we used street marketing teams say much about what’s happening, or not really happening, in marketing music in today’s online world.

Those we know today as “influencers” and “KOLs” and the fast disappearing social media companies once hired by companies to help staff meet KPIs- Key Performance Indicators- are exactly the same as street marketing teams though the music landscape has changed drastically. 

These are still very excited young music fans who can help those in artist management and what’s left of music companies build up numbers by becoming integral in the marketing of the music product.

They can also cleverly add more and more numbers to their OWN fame game by piggybacking on these successes to reach Influencerhood!

It’s not really cheating. It’s just how the way it is in these online music streaming times where everyone wins except those who spend worthless time desperately trying to understand different customer segments who make up the youth market. 

Every youth market has never really understood themselves, let alone trying to be anything else. 

It’s always been a silly phase they and many of us have gone through and are going through.

It’s not unlike the current huge popularity of a certain K-Pop girl group who it’s said will soon disband as they don’t exactly get along. 

These “influencers” will choose their favourite member- and they have- and work it to mainly support her and pump up her numbers for all the content she produces, some of which might become massive hits while others quickly fade away. 

Through marketing osmosis, and perhaps the purchasing of numbers from certain sites, this helps the views and followers of the entire group. 

With these numbers gained, there’s now the opportunity to attract sponsors and advertisers and business partners, go on tour and the beat goes on and management of the right act can make BIG BANG BUCKS!

With producing music having become push button and auto tune and AI simple, it’s about sticking to the KISS Theory- Keep It Simple, Stupid. 

Overthinking simplicity often means becoming entangled in details that don’t exist and being fed numbers that were never there. 

It’s all a bit of slight of hand illusion.

Will this modus operandi last? 

Not long. 

It’s already become boring and pointless and is making way for something new.

What’s important is to stay ahead of the curve and create the next trend instead of working to formulas and being one of those followers that you were trying to attract!!!

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