A huge amount of Generation Z and the millennial population are active users of digital music and entertainment apps. These audiences can only be appealed through creative branding concepts and smart yet subtle advertising. Location Based Marketing (LBM) is the perfect strategy for upcoming brands like TikTok and Spotify to target their audience and increase their reach. The marrying of digital experiences with the physical world of entertainment and monetizing this phenomenon in exchange of personalization is the key takeaway of these brands. Thus LBM would exponentially expand the market with its innovative potential of technology.
Spotify, Swedish award-winning digital music platform that provides access to more than 40 million tracks with more than 207 active monthly users and 96 million paid subscribers. Operating under a ‘freemium’ based model, heavy advertising is necessary to sell premium streaming subscriptions to users. Spotify going local to market itself to people on a much more personal level is a great strategy. For example, partnering up with Starbucks to create playlists of music by people at different locations of Starbucks around the world is a great opportunity to promote their app.
Many music festivals are also targeted to enhance traffic and subscriptions. Another instance of location-based marketing would be the advertisement where Spotify mentions the number of people killed in New York while wearing headphones the previous year. The term “Safety” was used in order to popularise the app and increase brand affinity while addressing social concerns through the listener’s perspective.
TikTok, an app owned by ByteDance, allows users to lip-sync popular audio clips, songs and dialogues. Many attractive features like personalizing videos though filters and live challenges through hashtags contribute to the achievement of one billion downloads in the stores. A very dynamic marketing strategy is needed to promote TikTok to all kinds of audiences.
Location-based marketing proves to be an ally here due to a large number of users in every part of the world. Using local artists and celebrities to promote the brand and selling localized merchandise are creative examples of marketing. Another innovative mass idea was to create contests in various parts of the world through hashtags promoting brands and identities on a local and global level.
A user’s whereabouts, routine, lifestyle through location sensitive technology and partnerships of brands combined is the perfect recipe for an immensely effective, personal advertisement that can appeal to millions together.