Music has never meant more to people, because we live in a VUCA world:

Volatile – Quakes to debts, pirates to censors!
Uncertain – To Euro or not to Euro?
Complex – Apple is worth more than Greece.
Ambiguous – Banks that can’t fund themselves.

Music is the anti-VUCA. It is SuperVUCA, plugging and amping who we are and how we really feel.

Vibrant, Unreal, Crazy, Astounding.

Wherever you sit in the music mix, to engage any audience is to understand that SuperVUCA is lived in the moment where people feel happiest. Music takes you directly into the moment.

In SuperVUCA, people are driven by primary impulses to go where the brightest light is.

This is a time of instant expectation and response, and continuous experimentation, streaming and sharing.

In music SuperVUCA is everywhere: cloud streams, albums as apps, apps as instruments, direct-to-fans, fans as promoters, million-person listening parties and more.

Every channel is blurred. Nothing is ever finished. Life is in permanent beta mode, and it is lived instantly.

New is over; welcome to the Age of Now.

Winning the Now through music is universal. For a brand, an artist, a label, a publisher, an app, an anything, the key is to winning is emotion.

Reason leads to conclusions; emotion leads to action, and you are all in the action business.

The world has got too much noise, too much information, too much imitation. It’s low fidelity and high stress.

High emotion is what pumps high premiums for marketers.  For marketers, music is the shortcut to the heart.

Back in the day the primary application of music to advertising was “the jingle.” Now the relationship between music an marketing is so much deeper, broader, richer.

It’s about:

• experience (SoundCloud)
• convenience (Hype Machine)
• discovery (Shazam)
• simplicity (Songkick)
• mobility (Mobile Roadie)
• personalization (Amazon to Pandora)
• purchase (iTunes)

And who cares if it comes from labels, bands, brands, fans, tech companies – or a super-combo?

The truth is, there are no marketers. We are all connectors.

RATIONAL	EMOTIONAL
Shareholder-value	Purpose-inspired
Attention	Participation
Inform	Inspire
Interruption	Interaction
Pumping Markets	Creating Movements
Return on Investment	Return on Involvement

People have only 3 questions of any brand engagement:

• Do I want to experience it again?
• Do I want to share it?
• Do I want to improve it?

Create an emotional experience and you get action.

Music and brands are a fantastic marriage. It promises emotional resonance, exposure to large audiences, new revenue opportunities, and ongoing fan conversation.

Music and dance (and when did they never go together?!) have been the heart of our work for T-Mobile.

Saatchi T-Mobile “Life’s for sharing” platform: participation-powered, music-driven, dance-based, entertainment.

• Dance – Liverpool train station
• Sing-along – Trafalgar square
• Josh’s band – amateur to superband
• Welcome back – Heathrow airport
• Royal wedding – watched by more people than the real wedding!

Topline results:

• 68M views on the YouTube channel
• Hundreds of FaceBook / MySpace / Twitter groups
• Tens of millions of calls / texts / photos / headline news.

Resulting in:

• A 52% sales increase from the launch
• 80% high end users
• 11% increase in pay-as-u-go plan opt-ins
• Record footfall to T-mobile stores nationally.

Also:

Kate Perry – casting call: ”Firework” video
Mariah Carey – multi-country simultaneous-‘live’ hologram The challenge is to become bigger than a brand.

• Brands are owned by companies, marketers, and stockholders. Lovemarks are owned by the people who love them. Radiohead to SXSW.
• Brands are built on Respect. Lovemarks are created out of Respect and Love. Adele.
• Brands build Loyalty for a Reason. Lovemarks inspire Loyalty Beyond Reason. Beyond Attribute, Benefit, Range, Price. Beatles to Gaga.
• Brands aim to be Irreplaceable. Lovemarks are Irresistible. 

Here are the 3 secrets for turning brands into Lovemarks through music.

MYSTERY

Brands tell us what we already know; Lovemarks show us what we don’t.

Mystery is creating intrigue, the way indie acts go hot by staying in the shade.

Exclusivity is in demand. Millennials want to win, and getting exclusivity is how.  Surprise bonuses, secret access to new work, last minute tickets, system hacks.

For the release of her last album, Feist announced a “secret” show in a small Harlem Church over Twitter. First come, first serve.

Mystery is inspiration, icons and symbols. Every brand should have a music identity, a sonic platform, a play list that inspires. Ask someone what Apple sounds like, and they’ll tell you The Ting Tings.

Mystery is storytelling to entertain us, introduce us to new characters, bring us together, lift and touch us.

Danish futurist Rolf Jensen: “The highest-paid person this century will be the story-teller.”  

SENSUALITY

Sensuality is music’s DNA. Technology can strip it or stroke it, depending on the mix.

Everything is digital. Nothing is digital.

Adele’s Single Someone Like You was the first-ever U.S. No. 1 to feature nothing but voice and piano.

The challenge ahead is to create sensory excitement using mixes of sound, sight, touch, scent and taste – and to add motion to accelerate. Go Bjork!!

Brand managers ignore music’s power. How many retail stores make you want to dance? How many brands are hit songs?

How many company Christmas cards have 25 songs written recorded by their own people? Saatchi & Saatchi!

Creating sensuality is about reframing. Lady Gaga turned weird into wonderful. Steve Jobs turned presence into absence.

INTIMACY

Intimacy is the small touch, the perfect note and it is the future of business. The role of business is to make the world a better place for everyone.

Intimacy is empathy, the brand in the audience’s heart, (not the audience at the brand’s heart). U2 360 increased ticket sales by 20%.

Examples of driving intimacy through music:

• Brands, bands and fans reflecting each other
• Personal gestures. Songkick enabling lifestyle!
• Tribal listening, liking and sharing
• Facebook integrations
• Location-aware albums.

Immersive technologies, apps and games, are fantastic vehicles for getting fans closer to the musicians and working the intimacy factor across media and events.

Intimacy is commitment, ongoing love for the audience and undying respect for artistic talent.
People want to be part of something bigger than themselves. If you stand for nothing, you fall for everything.

And Intimacy is passion. Passion for people, who have one question in the Age of Now: “how will you improve my life?”

Passion for creativity, which has unreasonable power to answer that question. Intimacy is Willie Nelson covering Coldplay’s ‘The Scientist’ for Chipotle.

TAKEOUT 3Es

• Enthusiasm – (from Greek enthousiasmos). Be an irresistible force of nature. Risk it!  Put music at the heart of your brand.
• Execution – The audience won’t wait for inspiration: Form a music partnership. Start a conversation. Ignite a movement. Fail fast, learn fast, fix fast! Now!
• Emotion – Music is life. Lead with your heart, and you will become priceless.