Having a great product isn’t enough. Find out how this artist leveled up his brand! [Monday: Marketing Marvels]
Miles Everson’s Business Builder Daily speaks to the heart of what great marketers, business leaders, and other professionals need to succeed in advertising, communications, managing their investments, career strategy, and more.
A Note from Miles Everson:
Happy Monday, everyone!
We hope all is well in both your personal life and work life.
Let’s start the week with our “Marketing Marvels” where we talk about outstanding people in the fields of business, marketing, and for today, music.
Every Monday, we highlight these people’s experiences, contributions, and insights in their respective fields.
Today, we’ll talk about a musical duo that became known for their instant hits.
Keep reading to know more about these “Marvels” and what they can teach us about marketing.
Miles Everson
CEO, MBO Partners
Chairman of the Advisory Board, The I Institute
Marketing Marvels
Did you know that during the 64th annual Grammy Awards (GRAMMYs) in 2022, there was this musical duo that took home 4 trophies out of 86 award categories?
Record of the year…
Song of the year…
Best R&B performance…
Best R&B song…
Winning these awards wasn’t an easy feat for the duo, since they went up against many nominees. Despite that, they were able to overcome challenges in the nominations!
Any ideas on who we’re referring to?
Silk Sonic!
Photo courtesy of YouTube
Silk Sonic is a musical collaboration between Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak. The partnership was formed in 2020, when everything was put on hold and everyone was forced to stay at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The duo decided to work together and form Silk Sonic because they wanted to keep themselves occupied.
In case you don’t know yet, the artists behind Silk Sonic came from diverse musical backgrounds…
Mars, known for chart-toppers like “Uptown Funk,” “That’s What I Like,” and “24k Magic,” has been identified with pop, R&B (rhythm and blues), soul, and funk genres. Due to the commercial success of his music, he is one of the most famous artists in the music industry.
Meanwhile, .Paak is a rapper/singer whose songs like “Come Down,” “Come Home,” and “Bubblin” fall under hip-hop, soul, and R&B genres. Even though he’s won a few Grammys because of his musical talents, .Paak wasn’t as famous prior to his stint as the other half of Silk Sonic.
Despite the differences in their popularity, Mars and .Paak’s shared background in various musical genres enabled them to collaborate as equals.
The duo’s chemistry was on full display when their first single, “Leave the Door Open,” was released in 2021. The song was a massive hit, becoming the number 1 song on Billboard’s Hot 100 music chart for 2 consecutive weeks.
Photo from DLTR Radio
Following the success of their first single, Silk Sonic rode on their popularity and used it to generate hype for their first studio album. Teased in March 2021, the album, “An Evening with Silk Sonic,” was released in November of the same year.
Photo courtesy of Spotify
Critics and fans alike praised the 70s-inspired album. According to Wongo Okon of entertainment website Uproxx, the album is “fun, charismatic, and ambitious in all the best ways.”
The album was certified platinum, meaning it has sold over 1 million units. Moreover, it reached a billion streams on Spotify at the end of 2021.
Due to the critical and commercial success of their first album, Silk Sonic became one of the most exciting artists to listen to in 2021… and because of the quality of their music, the duo bagged multiple awards in the 2022 GRAMMYs.
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While attaining popularity wasn’t .Paak’s reason for collaborating with Mars, there’s no denying it was a genius move from a marketing perspective. Partnering with an industry icon like Mars allowed .Paak to elevate his brand to the next level.
The main lesson you can get from this musical duo?
In a highly-competitive industry, having great products or services isn’t the only thing you need to attract customers. There has to be a high brand awareness as well. After all, how can you sell a good product or service if no one’s aware of its existence?
By increasing brand exposure through collaboration, you can tap into previously unreachable audiences and market your products or services to more people.
… and the higher your brand’s engagement rates are, the higher your chances of generating more profits.
However, keep in mind that while partnering with other brands is beneficial, there are a few considerations to take note of:
| – | The values of the brand you intend to partner with must align with yours. |
| – | Your partner must complement your brand in terms of offerings and consumers. |
| – | You and your partner must share similar objectives. |
Finding the right business to collaborate with can be tricky especially when there are lots of brands out there. So, keep these tips in mind when creating plans for collaborations.
We hope you learned a lot from today’s “Marketing Marvels!”
(This article is from The Business Builder Daily, a newsletter by The I Institute in collaboration with MBO Partners.)
About The Dynamic Marketing Communiqué’s
“Monday Marketing Marvels”
Too often, industry experts and the marketing press sing the praises of some brand or company’s marketing strategy.
… only for the audience to later find out that its product was a flop, or worse, that the brand or company went bankrupt.
The true ROI in marketing can’t be separated from the business as a whole.
What good is a marketing case study if one can’t prove that the company’s efforts actually paid off?
At the end of the day, either the entire business is successful or it isn’t. And the roles of marketing and communication are always paramount to that success.
Every Monday, we publish a case study that highlights the world’s greatest marketing strategies, marketers, and communicators.
However, the difference between our articles and the numerous ones out there is that we will always make certain that the firm really did generate and demonstrate earning power worthy of study in the first place (compliments of Valens Research’s finance group) in keeping with a person’s leadership skills in the area of marketing and/or communication.
We’ll also study the greatest marketing fails and analyze what they did wrong, or what they needed to improve. We all make our mistakes, but better we learn from others’ mistakes—and earlier, rather than later.
Hope you found this week’s marketing marvel interesting and helpful.
Stay tuned for next week’s Monday Marketing Marvels!
Cheers,
Kyle Yu
Head of Marketing
Valens Dynamic Marketing Capabilities
Powered by Valens Research
www.valens-research.com
