The fragmentation fallacy.

“ I want it, I got it, I want it, I got it

I want it, I got it, I want it, I got it

You like my hair? Gee, thanks, just bought it

I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it”

Ariana Grande, 7 rings

While I was writing something comparing music in Denmark to Australia, I read Playing to Strangers by Amber Horsburgh and loved the parallels between music and marketing principles. It got me thinking...given the low barriers to consumption that a digital platform like Spotify provides, can consumption effects in how people stream music show us something about how people might consume brands online (and offline)?

To do this, admittedly in a much less rigorous manner than a data scientist or academic researcher, I used Spotify Charts: a free, public and easily accessible dataset. Using the Top 200 Global Charts for the year to date, I began looking at trends across artists, tracks and place in the charts.

The following observations are made, noting that deeper data on listening frequency is publicly unavailable. [N.B. I’m building upon Amber’s 24% figure for fans to assume that higher streams are accompanied by a higher number of total listeners (not just the same group listening more)]

1. Macro-stable, micro-variable

“In nature a system that looks stable and seems to be in equilibrium is not static. A system that looks static and is static is a system that’s about to die. Mother Nature knows that to remain stable you have to be open to constant change, and no plant or animal can take its position in the system for granted — just as a durable economy, says the University of Maryland’s Herman Daly, is macro-stable but micro-variable.”

Thomas Friedman, Thank You for Being Late

Though the data only covers the year to date, it’s clear that music consumption in aggregate is fairly stable (discounting Feb 8, but more on that later). The consistent behavior, unsurprisingly, is the increase in streams towards the weekend.

The music market, as others, is a battle of share. And that battle is extremely unforgiving week to week. One way to see the dominance of the top artists is by looking at their staying power. This is could be seen as an effect of the Double Jeopardy rule (which says penetration and loyalty are positively related). As Amber’s analysis shows, larger acts have a higher proportion of fans than smaller acts:

“What’s perhaps even more grim is that for smaller acts (<1M followers, e.g.: Jeff Tweedy), the average is lower at 11%, whereas big acts (>1M followers, e.g.: Dua Lipa) it’s higher at 26%. This challenges the notion that building artists happens from engaging the hyper-dedicated core fan base of early adopters and instead results from increasing market share by adding more light listeners, which may not stick around for the next release.”

For artists on Spotify in the Top 200, this has a big effect on how many days they are likely to stay in the top charts. Those in Top 20 stay in for an average of 20 days (out of 49), whereas those in the Bottom 20 have just 5 days on average in the top charts. For all the ease of access, there’s more volatility in listenership the further from the top of the charts you go.

There’s a line of thinking I’ve seen online that goes something like this: as digital reduces the barriers to switching and consumption, there will be increased fragmentation in the categories that have been previously been dominated by a few players due to traditional market structures and distribution channels.

I’m not sure this is necessarily inevitable. What if the data above, from music consumption, is a sign of the brand success online more generally?

2. It’s Good to be Great

The distribution of stream volumes both by tracks and by artists for the year to date, conform to a familiar pattern. There are a small number of popular brands and products (artists and tracks) that account for a higher proportion of the category consumption. For example, 10 tracks (3% of the 357 that have been in the Top 200) account for 16% of streams. The top 10 artists are responsible for 33% of the streams.

Clearly, there is the impact of the presence (through Discovery personalised playlist), curation (appearing on leading playlists) and prominence (the visibility on the platform) but it does suggest that digital does not mean that consumption fragments equally across ‘brands’.

On a digital platform, brand matters. Niche might be cool but the pop bangers win out… massively.

What is also interesting is that the distribution of streams across the top tracks is consistent by day. There are small shifts in the make up of consumption in the category (again, February 8) but again, consumer behaviour is steady at the aggregate level.

(Side note: just another reminder about how misleading high-level data can be to the actual behaviour in a market).

3. Ariana, Flighting and Phasing

Which brings us to Ariana Grande. Since Jan 1 she’s been streamed over 1 billion times on Spotify. I’m personally responsibly for about 74 of those. There’s some interesting take-aways from her stats over the last month and a half. The flighting of singles thank u, next (Nov 3), 7 rings (Jan 18) and the album on Feb 8 are worth looking at.

“Improved mental and physical availability across the whole market are the main real world causes of the changes in [frequency and loyalty].”

Byron Sharp

One of the core recommendations for flighting from Ehrenberg-Bass is to maximise your presence in front of potential customers to keep the brand top of mind. First, thank u, next and 7 rings are great songs. And I think they behave like great advertising. By consistently reaching the market, they’re keeping Ariana Grande top of mind, essential before the release of the album. While this is typical music release strategy, it is nonetheless worthwhile pausing to observe the way that sequential product releases builds the appeal for the entire range (portfolio) — even on a digital platform with almost unlimited choice and little to no cost to switch consumption.

Grande’s two lead singles in particular drove consistent streams and set up the massive success of the album (Feb 8).

Limited data, yes. But still music data might be showing us that some of the old rules still apply to the ‘new’ consumption environments. In particular it could be evidence of the fragmentation fallacy that assumes shifts in market structure as a result of platforms.

To understand more about the way in which platforms and choice affect consumption behaviour, it would be interesting to see if the listening trends follow historical trends in album and single sales.

Thank you, next.