Havas, Universal Music Alliance Taps Behavioral Data For Insight Into Musical Tastes, Perceptions
by Laurie Sullivan, January 05, 2015
Music says a lot about someone’s personality.
Havas Group and Universal Music Group (UMG) have formed the Global Music Data Alliance (GMDA) to aggregate and analyze the billions of data bytes that the music company and its recording artists generate across digital and offline media.
The behavioral data, as it relates to music, will enable the companies to tap into the human psyche — getting a better glimpse at what makes people tick, rather than focusing on the types of clothing they buy or cars they drive.
Yannick Bollore, chairman and CEO of Havas Group, and Lucian Grainge, chairman and CEO of UMG, announced the partnership at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). It aims to provide new revenue streams for UMG artists and labels by creating marketing and advertising opportunities for brands.
It’s about aggregating data to produce targeted messages for better results at a fraction of the cost.
“We want to continue to find new revenue and marketing opportunities for all of our artists around the world by leveraging our industry-leading big data tools and working with forward-thinking companies, such as Havas, to supercharge our efforts to realize previously untapped revenues from consumer brands and other new business partners,” Grainge stated.
Time magazine last year ran a study focusing on what music reveals about a personality. The study claims that musical taste accurately reveals political views. It’s typically influenced by parents. Favorite songs are associated with intense emotional experiences, and music that was enjoyed as a child will likely stick with a person throughout their life.
As part of the initiative, Havas will integrate UMG’s behavioral data into its platform to gain a better understanding of the correlation among artists, music fans and brands. This data includes not only music and video sales and streaming, but also social media and airplay, merchandising data from Bravado, UMG’s merchandising division, and ticket sales data from Vivendi Ticketing, which provides ticketing services for select UMG artists and events.
The result is a comprehensive view of music and music-related consumption across a range of platforms.
The two companies will develop behavioral data audience patterns and segments they will apply across thousands of artists’ online and mobile properties. Artists will have an option to to monetize their fan bases more effectively by understanding the different characteristics of their fans and what specific offers and products will appeal to them.
Advertisers will have an option to identify the genres and specific artists that appeal to their consumer bases, as well as the music-related opportunities that will attract those consumers. The hope is to bring more advertising dollars to music. For example, radio stations have begun to run advertisements across in-car radios rather than the artists name based on the location and the type of music and artist.
Country Music Guitar photo from Shutterstock
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