behavioral characteristics of electronic music...

BRET EWEN, GRADUATE STUDENT, BERKLEE COLLEGE OF MUSIC, VALENCIA (USA & SPAIN)

2015

BEHAVIORAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC FANS

ABOUT THE PROJECT

• A survey was undertaken in which 4,404 respondents participated to share their behavioralhabits with regard to their interaction with music and its marketplace. Analysis of theresponses was performed in order to discover differences in behavior between those whoidentify as electronic music fans and those who identify as fans of other genres.

• Various behaviors were questioned in relation to listening habits, social media engagement,spending history, willingness to pay, and more. The data show that electronic music fans dobehave differently from fans of other genres in a variety of respects (e.g. price expectations,music format preferences, and social media habits – among others).

• The motivation to conduct this research stemmed from several music industry reports andother studies that have shown that the business and the consumers surrounding electronicmusic have certain characteristics that differ from the rest of the music market. This researchaimed to expand upon the existing information and provide a deeper analysis of why this is thecase. The intention was to find answers for any previously observed cross-genre behavioralanomalies as well as to explore other potential differences in behavior not yet studied.

MOTIVATION & PRECEDENCE

• One example highlighting the differences between electronic music and other genres was a2012 Nielsen industry report which showed that digital track sales of electronic music grew36% that year while overall digital track sales growth for the industry was a mere 5%. Anassumption was made that in order to achieve such a relatively high level of growth,consumers of electronic music must be behaving differently than consumers of other styles ofmusic. [1]

• Upon further investigation, this assumption was supported by a 2013 study performed byticketing company Eventbrite in partnership with the Harris Interactive Service Bureau. Thestudy took the form of a survey of 1,019 respondents through which they were able to showsome clear differences in the behavioral patterns of electronic music fans compared to fans ofother genres. For instance, the study found that 67% of electronic music fans heard about theevents that they attended via social media compared to only 40% for “other” concertgoers. Thestudy also found that 73% of electronic music fans report that seeing friends post aboutattending an event on various social media platforms makes them want to attend the eventmore. This was compared to other music fans where only 36% held the same response.[2,3]

1. Nielsen Holdings. “The Nielsen Company & Billboard’s 2012 Music Industry Report.” BusinessWire.com. http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20130104005149/en/Nielsen-Company-Billboard%E2%80%99s-2012-Music-Industry-Report (accessed June 20, 2014).2,3. “EDM Fans: Not Your Average Music Fans.” Eventbrite.com. http://blog.eventbrite.com/edm-fans-are-not-your-average-music-fan/ (accessed June 20, 2014).

RESULTS

PREFERRED MUSIC GENRES

*Includes: Pop, R&B, Folk, Jazz, Country, and Classical

36%

26% 25%

13%

Rock Electronic Hip Hop *Others

RESPONDENTS WERE CHOSEN ACROSS THE BOARD

5

WILLINGNESS TO BUYQ: WOULD YOU BUY MUSIC THAT IS LEGALLY AVAILABLE TO STREAM FOR FREE?

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

Yes, DigitalFormat

Yes, PhysicalFormat

No

Electronic Other Genres6

PREFERRED FORMATSQ: WHEN YOU PURCHASE MUSIC, WHICH FORMATS DO YOU SEEK?

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

Vinyl

CD

Uncompressed/Lossless

320kbps MP3

128kbps MP3


PREFERRED STREAMING SERVICEQ: WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE WAY TO LISTEN TO MUSIC ONLINE?

46,01%YouTube26.94%

Spotify20.62%

Pandora6.43%

Electronic Fans

Soundcloud YouTube38.86%

Spotify34.40%

SoundCloud13.97%

Pandora12.76%

Other Genre Fans

8

LISTENING HABITSQ: HOW MANY HOURS PER DAY DO YOU SPEND ENGAGED IN LISTENING TO MUSIC?

0%5%

10%15%20%25%30%35%40%45%

< 1 hour 1-3 3-6 > 6

Electronic Other Genres

9

LISTENING HABITSQ: HOW MANY DIFFERENT ARTISTS DO YOU LISTEN TO IN A GIVEN WEEK?

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

1-5 5-20 20-50 50+

Electronic Other Genres

10

SPENDING HABITS

Q: HOW MUCH HAVE YOU SPENT ON RECORDED MUSIC IN THE PAST YEAR?

ELECTRONIC FANS: $146.70

OTHER GENRE FANS: $174.40

11

PRICE EXPECTATIONS

Q: WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER TO BE A REASONABLE PRICE FOR THE FOLLOWING FORMATS? ($USD)

Format Avg. Price (Electronic Fans)

Avg. Price (Other Genre Fans)

128kbps MP3 $0.63 $0.73

320kbps MP3 $1.07 $0.99

.WAV (or other uncompressed/lossless format)

$1.35 $1.11

CD $9.90 $10.11

Vinyl $15.41 $16.42

12

SHARING HABITS

Q: HOW MANY TIMES PER MONTH DO YOU SHARE MUSIC ON SOCIAL MEDIA?

ELECTRONIC FANS: 8.73

OTHER GENRE FANS: 6.04

13

DISCOVERY METHODSQ: HOW OFTEN DO YOU USE THE FOLLOWING METHODS TO DISCOVER NEW ARTISTS?

0,00%

5,00%

10,00%

15,00%

20,00%

25,00%

30,00%

35,00%

40,00%

45,00%

50,00%

At least once/wk At least once/month At least once/year Never

METHOD 1: RECOMMENDATIONS FROM FRIENDS



0,00%

5,00%

10,00%

15,00%

20,00%

25,00%

30,00%

35,00%

40,00%


METHOD 2: RECOMMENDATIONS FROM ARTISTS (E.G. THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA)



0,00%

5,00%

10,00%

15,00%

20,00%

25,00%

30,00%

35,00%


METHOD 3: CUSTOMIZED RECOMMENDATIONS FROM “SMART” PLATFORMS (E.G. PANDORA, ITUNES GENIUS, SPOTIFY

DISCOVER, ETC.)



0,00%

5,00%

10,00%

15,00%

20,00%

25,00%

30,00%

35,00%


METHOD 4: MUSIC BLOGS



0,00%

5,00%

10,00%

15,00%

20,00%

25,00%

30,00%

35,00%

40,00%

45,00%

50,00%


METHOD 5: FORUMS & ONLINE COMMUNITIES



0,00%

5,00%

10,00%

15,00%

20,00%

25,00%

30,00%

35,00%

40,00%

45,00%

50,00%


METHOD 6: LIVE MUSIC EVENTS



0,00%

5,00%

10,00%

15,00%

20,00%

25,00%

30,00%

35,00%

40,00%

45,00%

50,00%


METHOD 7: FESTIVAL LINE-UPS



0,00%

10,00%

20,00%

30,00%

40,00%

50,00%

60,00%


METHOD 8: RECORD LABEL ROSTERS



0,00%

5,00%

10,00%

15,00%

20,00%

25,00%

30,00%

35,00%


METHOD 8: RADIO/PODCASTS


DISCOVERY METHODS (CONT’D)Q: HOW OFTEN DO YOU USE THE FOLLOWING METHODS TO DISCOVER NEW ARTISTS? (CONT’D)

An additional comment field for “other” responses was given to all respondents.

More common to Other Genre Fans:• Physical CD stores• TV/Movie/Game soundtracks• Magazines• Bandcamp• Wikipedia• Public library• Collaborations between artists

More common to Electronic Fans:• Beatport• Remix competition submissions• DJ mixes

Common to both categories:• Hypemachine• YouTube• iTunes/Amazon/Online Retail• Torrents• Soundcloud

23

RESULTS SUMMARY

• Electronic music fans have shown themselves to be a much more “digital” crowd. They morestrongly prefer higher quality digital formats of recorded music. Additionally, they are willing topay more than fans of other genres to obtain those high quality digital files. Unsurprisingly,they are less willing to pay for physical formats such as CDs and vinyl records. Even if themusic they desire is available to stream, electronic music fans are still more likely to purchasethe high quality digital files (if available) than they are to refrain from purchasing the music alltogether.

• Not only are electronic fans listening to more music, but also they are listening to more artistsoverall – not just repeating their favorites. They are discovering more and consuming morethan fans of other genres. Their methods of discovery also differ somewhat significantly.

• Electronic music fans have shown that they are individually contributing less money per yearto recorded music than fans of other genres. However, they are sharing music more often viasocial media. The relative value of social media shares to dollars is unknown, butundoubtedly sharing does provide some indirect financial contribution.

• Lastly, electronic music fans have shown a unique preference for online streaming of music.While Soundcloud was preferred roughly three times less than YouTube for fans of othergenres, it was the most preferred platform overall for electronic music.

24

INTO THE FUTURE

• During the course of this research, several areas stood out which could be investigatedfurther. The primary topic of interest is the relationship between social media sharing andfinancial contribution. Social media sharing is a form of marketing for artists, and marketingcertainly has value in generating sales of music. The key piece of missing information is howmuch sharing it takes to indirectly generate a certain amount of money. This question isundoubtedly very complex and could be looked into more deeply in new research to try todiscover a monetary value in social media sharing.

• Another topic to look into could be the relationship between streaming platforms and whatcould be causing the divide in preferences among genres. The streaming platforms in thisresearch were not found to explicitly cater to any one genre more than another, but perhapsthere are some underlying features, some aspect of marketing, or something else that tendsto skew the genre preference of the listeners.

• The form of this research as a mostly quantitative survey was limited in several ways, whichcould also call for more research to be completed using new methodology. The self-reportinginvolved in this type of research is prone to bias issues from respondents and more researchis needed to draw accurate conclusions. The full details of the methodology used here alongwith complete data sets can be obtained from the Berklee Valencia library.

25

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

THIS REPORT IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY MIDEM

• Bret Ewen is a recent graduate who holds an M.A. in Global Entertainment & Music Business from BerkleeCollege of Music and a B.S. in Music Industry from the University of Southern California. For more details on thisproject and other inquiries, reach out to him at [email protected] .

• This work has been supervised by Dr. Alexandre Perrin, Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music –Valencia campus. This campus offers a one year Master in Global Entertainment and Music Business managedby MIDEM speaker, Dr. Emilien Moyon. This academic program offers a global vision of the music industry tounderstand the emergent tendencies across music genres, technologies and places.

Midem is the leading international business event for the musicecosystem, bringing together more than 6,400 upper-level musicprofessionals, cutting-edge technologies, brands, ad agencies andfresh artists.Midem is the place to boost your network, make new deals, sourcemusic content, innovate to engage with your audience and learn aboutthe latest trends.

SHARE THIS REPORT ON AND

Contact us: [email protected] midem’s website - www.midem.com

Follow us

26

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Midem/25119315898


http://twitter.com/midem


http://feeds.feedburner.com/midemblog

http://feeds.feedburner.com/midemblog



http://www.youtube.com/midem

http://www.youtube.com/midem

http://www.slideshare.net/midem

http://www.slideshare.net/midem



http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=3638936

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=3638936

behavioral characteristics of electronic music...

Documents