The confluence of data and creativity—and
figuring out how to combine the ‘math and magic’ to best effect—seems destined to be one of the
marketing world’s biggest challenges in coming years. And Anthony Gardiner has checked both of those boxes with a website called www.25mostplayed.com that, by combining Facebook data and iTunes data, offers a look at what’s tickling the musical fancy of different demographics.
Gardiner, who works as a social strategist at OMD, says the seed for the website was
planted when someone asked him what he thought the most popular song in the
world would be. He had no idea, but he thought iTunes—and particularly the always quite revealing 25 most played playlist—would be a good place to
find out. As the idea developed, he realised that being able to segment the most popular songs into different age demographics, locations and interests would also be
useful, both for individuals and brands.
Spotify, which now claims around 20 million users
globally, recently announced some changes to its set-up in an effort to make it more social, more personalised and hopefully more attractive to advertisers (like
Facebook, you can now follow individuals so it’s aiming to become more of a discovery service than just a listening service). But Gardiner says iTunes, which has around 900
million users globally, had “absolutely no social aspects at all” and was ripe for the picking (he says he worked with Apple the whole way through the 18 months it took to build it).
By downloading an app and connecting to your Facebook account, user data is added to the site (at present there are only around 30 users,
but as the numbers increase, he says the lists will become more accurate). He
believes it’s a possible world first and while he hasn’t looked at every page on the internet, as far as he’s aware it’s the first time anyone has combined the two data sets.
He says privacy is a big issue for all
users at the moment and, given he has worked in the social space for so long (at NZ Army,
Skinny Marketing, Affinity ID and now OMD), he says gaining permission and having a robust privacy policy was “very important”.
“A lot of people are talking about Big Data, but
what you need to do is find a way to use it that adds utility and gives it back
to the user in a different form,” he says.”People are asking for a return from the data they provide.”
From a marketing perspective, he believes there are a lot of
applications for this information, particularly around brand alignment, and he’s looking
forward to seeing how creative types find ways to use it.
Previously, he says the only way a brand
could find out what its audience’s favourite songs were would be through a
focus group, and that was “claimed behaviour rather than real behaviour”. But
this tool will allow brands to find out the 25 most played songs for those,
who, for example, like Air New Zealand on Facebook, or maybe those who like Air New Zealand on Facebook and are between the ages of 20-30.
He thinks it will be especially valuable for
brands aiming at the youth market, but he reckons it could help with anything
from choosing the music for your store or your ads, deciding what kind of
downloads to offer as freebies or even choosing the right radio show to sponsor.
“As marketers, it’s hard to know what’s
cool,” he says. “For example, Glassons could find out what their fans are
listening to and tailor their playlist to that instore. Music plays a big part in getting consumers to flop out their wallet.”
As for the site’s business model, the songs on the lists are linked through to iTunes and he gets five
percent of every song downloaded through 25mostplayed.com. Brands and marketers are
able to check out the information for free, and he hopes the trade-off is that these brands
promote the service to their fanbases to help grow the network, make the data more accurate and, of course, give him some more pocket money for the Herne Bay Local.
Here’s the about us:
25mostplayed.com is a brand new way to share your music tastes, and to discover new music.
25mostplayed.com creates custom music charts based on things that are relevant to you. No more looking at the regular top 20, based on what 13 year old girls are buying.
Discover new music based on what your friends are listening to, or people your age, in your city, your country. Find music based on people who have the same interests as you. Or find famous people and see what they are listening to.
We look at the demographic data from Facebook, then blend that with the music that people have been listening to on their iTunes — not just songs people have bought, but what they are actually listening to. You can use the custom playlist options on the left hand side to make your own highly relevant music chart and discover new music that you are probably going to really like.
So join the fun, invite your friends, shame out the Beliebers, make sure your partner is aurally compatible, find famous singers who listen to themselves, but most of all, find lots of cool music that you know you will love.
