Rocking the music fan’s world

Musically, there is a lot to shout about in Britain this summer. Radio 1 have just hosted their free Hackney Weekend for 100,000 people, festival season is underway and stars like Madonna and Lady Gaga are bringing their world tours to Britain in the next few months.

Whilst many marketers will be looking to target festival goers, the most canny will place particular emphasis on reaching those most likely to do much of the hard work for them by promoting their message on. Latest insight from Kantar Media's TGI survey reveals 2.3 million British adults, 15+, fall into the TGI Word of Mouth segment music 'champions'. - those who promote their music views to the widest audience, carry a great deal of influence through their music knowledge and have strong powers of persuasion. Whilst the message to be communicated might not be music-related, by getting onside the 'hard core' of influential music fans, marketers may gain an advantage over their rivals.

These music champions are a cultured bunch: they are 36% more likely than the average British adult to visit the theatre every 2-3 months. They are also 36% more likely to visit art galleries at least once a month. Encouragingly for marketers looking to reach this group, they are almost three times as likely to buy products from companies who sponsor exhibitions and music events.

They also enjoy eating out: they are 43% more likely visit a restaurant at least once a week and their preferred cuisines are Japanese and Mexican. Being music-lovers they of course regularly enjoy gigs and live music events, but their love also extends to opera, indicating that they are true musical all-rounders.

Insight from TGI reveals that when it comes to buying music, these music champions still like to buy from the high street. Only 37% buy CDs online, compared to 48% who have bought CDs in shops in the last year. In the case of spend on CDs from shops, music champions spend almost twice as much (£61) as the average British adult.

These music champions are a media-savvy group. They are 88% more likely than the average British adult to be amongst the heaviest 20% of consumers of cinema. They are also significantly more likely to be amongst the heaviest 20% of consumers of internet and outdoor media and well over twice as likely as the average adult to be willing to pay to access newspaper and magazine websites.

Insight from TGI Clickstream, a new solution linking TGI consumer insight with metered online behavioural data, reveals the online habits of these music champions in detail. In keeping with their love for music, they spent an average of three hours in the last month on Youtube - almost an hour more than the average British adult. They also viewed an average of 137 pages on Youtube in the last month - again, more than the average. When it comes to average time spent on site per visit, dailymotion.com, a video sharing site, ranks particularly highly.

As feautured in MediaTel Newsline, June 2012