While music streaming is dominating the way Americans listen to music, according to Business Insider, the space is saturated with brands that are so similar it is hard to tell them apart. Using E-Score Brand we analyzed the attributes and brand connections of six of the leading music streaming services and it is clear music streaming brands need to either differentiate or consolidate.

 

 

• The six streaming music services we compared (not including Napster) scored very similarly in several key differentiating brand connections: Brand Familiarity, Brand Loyalty, Would Try Brands New Products/ Services, Better than Competitors, and Would Recommend.
• As the top music-streaming brand for the attributes A Leader, Innovative, and Trend Setter, Apple Music is ahead of the field and hoping to differentiate itself from its competitors with exclusive original TV shows such as Carpool Karaoke: The Series.
• While their business is experiencing difficulty lately, SoundCloud as a brand is excelling. The brand has the highest Appeal (56%) and Brand Loyalty (58%), while it is also the considered the coolest music-streaming brand with a Cool score at 37%; nearly twice as high as Apple Music (20%), Tidal (20%), and Amazon Music Unlimited (19%).

 

Singing Apple Music’s Praises

With the success of James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke segment, Apple Music picked up Carpool Karaoke: The Series for its platform and appears to have nailed the pairings, as odd as some may seem. We looked at several of the announced pairings in E-Score Celebrity and discovered that they make sense according to our data.

 

 

• Many of the announced pairs feature a celebrity with an Awareness at, or above 50% higher than their pair, with Shaq (69%) and John Cena (48%), as well as the pair of Maisie Williams (14%) and Sophie Turner (11%) as the only exceptions.
• Several pairings share the exact same scores in various categories. Shaq and John Cena score the same for Interesting and Experienced (26% and 23% respectively), while Ariana and Seth McFarlane score the same for Confidence (22%) and Blake Shelton and Chelsea Handler also share an Interesting score (22%).
• Many other pairings scored within one or two points of each other including Will Smith (19%) and James Corden (18%), as well as Lebron James (19%) and James Corden (18%), both for Exciting. Also Shakira (29%) and Trevor Noah (31%) score similarly for Good Energy.

 

Takeaway

As in other industries, the music business is fiercely competitive and driven largely by the brands of artists and the companies that distribute their music. E-Score products work together to provide you with a comprehensive, real-time view of your brand, and your competitors, in the eyes of consumers.

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Methodology

Data Sources: E-Score Brand and E-Score Celebrity, both fielded after 1/1/16 among respondents ages 13+. Music streaming data is from E-Score Brand for brands in the categories “Streaming Media Service”, “App”, or “Website-Entertainment.

 

Resources

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