Why Hermitude Are The Perfect Example Of How To Crack The US Market

First-and-foremost, “labels are never gonna go away. Nobody else is taking the risks.” Pandora's Lars Murray clears this up straight away during his BIGSOUND mini-keynote. 

In a mini-ted Talk with Pandora streaming service’s Lars Murray, this presentation was about how to break an artist in the new streaming environment. Where ‘breaking an artist’ used to mean breaking the Top Ten charts, the game has shifted seismically.

He lists a bunch of artists who are doing it right in terms of taking advantage of the new digital stream business model. One of the biggest take-aways from this presentation was how Hermitude are doing it right in the new digital market.

Our own Syd City-based Hermitude, he describes as the shining example in using the new business model to maximise their opportunity in the US market. Taking full advantage of Pandora’s toolbox they’ve managed to leave huge footprints behind them in perhaps the largest market in the world. Currently pulling over two million streams a week, Pandora has access to over 145,000 addressable fans with which to message directly. 

Challenges versus opportunities was a main focus for Murray, whereby unit sales declining presented a challenge, the opportunity is ‘frictionless consumption’ taking advantage of the million-plus views of Youtube into a base for streaming services.

“You want the audience to be big and you want them to act on it,” Murray pointed out.

This is a market where artists such as Young Thug and Rich Homie Quan are receiving as many spins on Pandora as the likes of Adele and Kanye “and any other one-named major artist”.

Murray also highlighted the brilliance of Frank Ocean who recently dropped his own album fresh off the back of his last contracted LP, allowing him full access to recoup financially.

Others ‘doing it right’ include Flume - whose ticket sales promotion by Pandora proved a runaway success by simply trialling a novel way of accessing their customer base of his and selling 20 per-cent of tickets via direct messaging. Other artists such as Oak-town’s own G-Eazy (also home to pandora) who used Pandora’s numbers to springboard onto terrestrial radio.

Included in Murray’s presentation was the list he titled ‘Who Could Do it Better”:

Streaming services

Major labels

Indie labels

Established radio artists

New radio artists.

“You need to collect the nuts when they’re falling off the tree, people” finishing on a light note after what was a heaving topic trying to grip the new wave of maximising the digital media eco system.