From tour sponsorships to Taco Bell commercials featuring Turnstile, major companies see billion-dollar branding opportunities in partnering with artists, and a new study from Luminate has some matchmaking suggestions.
The industry-leading music analytics platform looked at five years’ worth of survey results and metrics measuring likability, awareness and brand endorsement to determine the best artists to market sodas, snack foods, cosmetics and credit cards. “Cultural capital isn’t something brands should tap into retroactively,” the report authors write. “Behavioral audience entertainment data can inform marketers, helping them to locate artists whose fan base matches a brand’s target audience. Think of it as ‘moneyball’ for brand partnerships.”
Luminate has collected quarterly online survey results from a representative slice of U.S. consumers, ages 13 and up, since 2021. It identified super-purchasers of food & beverage, personal care & hygiene, travel, telecom, mobile apps and banking & finance products, and analyzed the survey results and other metrics to understand their attitudes and perceptions toward some 600 artists and 100 music genres and sub-genres.
The study deliberately stayed away from megastars like Taylor Swift and instead identified artists who may be less well known, but who among certain groups are well-liked and trusted, and therefore could provide brands with a better return on their marketing dollars, says Grant Gregory, a researcher and manager at Insights at Luminate.
“The decision-making process was a mix of identifying artists with high likability AND artists who are uniquely appealing (in terms of likability) or have uniquely high reach (in terms of awareness) among that category purchasing group vs. the general population,” says Gregory.
The artists who scored among the highest in each consumer category were: country crossover star Bailey Zimmerman for food and beverage products, the queen of regional Mexican music Ana Bárbara for personal care & hygiene products, rising country star Lainey Wilson for banking and finance, Bebe Rexha for telecom, Jamaican singer and rapper Shenseea for service and e-commerce apps such as ride hailing and food delivery and electronic artist Kenya Grace for travel.
Here are some of the highlights from the report.
The study plotted the “Fall in Love” singer’s likability and brand endorsement scores from survey respondents who bought at least three packaged snacks, coffee or other food products recently. Zimmerman outscored JENNIE, Leon Thomas, Dolly Parton and Queen as a good bet for marketers. While Chris Stapleton had the highest awareness score, Zimmerman won on likability. His fans tend to be younger and more affluent than the overall population and are more likely to listen to music at least twice a week on Apple Music and Spotify.
“Zimmerman presents a narrower but deeper fandom among category buyers,” Luminate’s authors found, while “Stapleton offers a broader though still highly efficient fandom.”
The longtime grupero singer/songwriter Bárbara beat Young Miko, Arya Starr and Dolly Parton when it came to her strength as a personal care product brand endorser, with only Parton beating her on likability. Bárbara scored particularly well in awareness, perhaps due to the current popularity of regional Mexican music. She over-indexes with Millennial, Gen X and even Gen Z consumers, and fan devotion is particularly strong. Those audiences are more likely than most to use social media apps, including TikTok and Instagram.
Wilson falls in the middle of a pack of superstars that includes Stevie Nicks and Kelly Clarkson, who both rank slightly ahead of Wilson on awareness. However, Clarkson ranks high on awareness and public perception but in the average range for fan engagement metrics. Wilson ranked among the highest for likability and purchase likelihood.
Wilson’s fans also tend to have higher-than-average income, with 38% earning more than $75,000 a year, compared to the general population, and more than three-quarters of the banking and financial product consumers surveyed said they would be more likely to buy a product she endorsed, the report found.
“Recognizable, out-of-the-limelight performers such as Bebe Rexha can still shine through in the data,” Luminate’s report found. The Brooklyn born “Meant To Be” singer has had four top 10 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, and her audience tends to skew young, with roughly two-thirds being from the Gen Z and Millennial generations. This audience is more likely than the general audience to use a streaming service like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix or HBO Max at least weekly, and 60% reported they would use a telecom product if she endorsed it. Among the general population, 42% said they would try a telecom product Rexha endorsed.
The Jamaican dancehall singer/rapper is among the best artists to market to a mobile app like Seamless, Uber or Airbnb, Luminate found. While Leon Thomas and Adele ranked slightly higher on likability scores among mobile app super-consumers — defined as people who use two or more mobile apps for services, such as food delivery or ride-hailing — 78% of those consumers who are aware of Shenseea said they would try an app if she endorsed it. That group tends to be more racially diverse, come from the Millennial and Gen X generations and they’re active across social media platforms, the report found.
The South African-born British electronic music singer Kenya Grace ranked is less well-known than Shenseea, Lola Young or Riley Green, but Luminate found that her U.S. audience looks a lot like the people travel companies want to target. Their annual incomes are more likely than most to be middle-to-high, with 61% making more than $50,000 annually, compared to less than half of the general population, and Grace’s audience frequently uses video streaming services like Disney+ or YouTube –appealing places for travel companies to advertise.
