The youth are driving culture, with Greta Thunberg one of the most influential people on earth, and it is cultural capital that creates brand success.
That was the view expressed by Universal Music chief of possibilities Olivier Robert-Murphy during a keynote presentation at IBC2019.
In a wide-reaching keynote, Robert-Murphy spanned from Josiah Wedgeword, famous for making pottery in Stoke-on-Trent in the UK, to Thunberg and her impact on the world.
He explained that the fundamentals of business and marketing has not changed since Wedgewood developed strategies for the mass production of pottery in 1766.
“So what has changed?” he asked the IBC audience. “The pace of business has accelerated. It used to take a year in Italy to launch a new clothing range, but now it takes weeks. Business cycles are shorter and quicker.
“We used to live in a world of relative scarcity where you’d buy a product during your weekly shop because you saw it on TV.
“Now 77% of consumers do not care if a brand disappears. Brands are fighting to get consumer attention, especially millennials,” he added pointing to the facts that average millennials have an attention span of just 12 seconds.
So what does this mean for the media industry? It highlights a need to adapt to understand the demands of consumers. Universal Music, he explained, switched from a cycle of annual releases to making music releases from its artists much more regular in order to meet consumer demand.
It is also about finding the right content and allowing that to dictate an approach to marketing.
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