Streaming Services, Spotify
Order Instructions:
Streaming Services, Spotify
• Report style 1,500 – 2,000 words please do 1650 words please
• Use accurate and frequent Harvard style in text referencing, double line spacing
• Deep research will be evidenced by a substantive bibliography (2-3 pages)
• Use of relevant marketing literature, industry sources and original and customized illustrations are expected
Expectation
• Deep research using academic, media and company sources is expected
• You should be demonstrating a strong understanding of marketing learnt during this terms lectures, seminars and beyond class personal consolidation and wider reading
• This is hard & requires time
Your Task
• From the industry you selected for the first assignment, identify a real company, product or brand of your choosing
• Ideally your choice will be in trouble or experiencing a period of change
• Develop a marketing plan
• Wide use of relevant theory and company examples is required
Report format paper
• Cover student ID only (not name);
• An accurate word count
• A short introduction/executive summary
• Unusually, a conclusion is NOT required
Have I picked a good company ?
• Dealing with ambiguity is a skill that can develop with experience (good and bad !)
• There are no good/better/best options
• You should pick a company/product/brand that is researchable in English
• Choosing an interesting option will help fuel efforts and boost your motivation to work hard
Analysis (CRUCIAL)
• Review guidance on analysis
• Use expert opinion and data as evidence
• Include some evaluation of different stakeholder perspectives
• Academic writing style
Summarise Industry Analysis
• You MUST not borrow/copy industry analysis from the first assignment. It would be duplication or plagiarism.
• You should instead develop an augmented, original summary industry analysis. This should be presented in a graphical/visual format.
Show knowledge of a range of marketing plan formats
• A key task is identifying and synthesizing an integrated marketing plan framework. Please do not ask for headings, you need to establish these.
Company not industry
• This assignment invites consideration of ONE company. How does this business compare with the industry you now have a solid understanding of ?
• Is the business model canvass useful here ? What other analytical frameworks might you use ?
Main body
In researching a relevant structure for the marketing plan you will discover there is no single model.
Through research of the variations that exist and consideration of the challenge you have been set you will be able to identify a suitable framework for your paper.
Use graphical analysis
• Identify your source (don’t just cut and paste a range of graphs, create your own blending relevant data/ideas)
• Include in text references
• Please use the word count effectively.
• Quality, not quantity
3 key assignment challenges
1. Show that you can research what a marketing plan is
2. Demonstrate your marketing learning (lectures and wider reading)
3. Undertake ANALYSIS
What would a company representative say about your analysis ?
I want to HIRE this person…..
Or alternatively
Superficial, weak, insubstantial, does not get under the surface
Do not be afraid to utilise learnings from other modules e.g. HR, finance, international business….
Measurement and evaluation
• Those who attend ALL the lectures noted several key elements, whilst others missed them entirely. Big mistake. 100% lecture attendance.
• ROI, other metrics – justify budget, employment & achievement of corporate objectives ? SMART ?
• This assignment represents 70% of the module grade, relying on your own personal effort.
• Deep and wide research is expected and this will be evident from the content.
• It is possible to populate headings with superficial content quite easily, however it is very easy for the marking team to identify poorly considered submissions.
You can write a marketing plan in an hour, a day, a week or a month.
Please adopt the weeks to month approach. It really shows.
Of course, it is not about luck….
• Work Hard & learn lots
• Produce your BEST work
• No Regrets,
– leave no stone unturned
Assignment 2 Marking Guidelines
Assignment 2 Individual company marketing plan content expectation
% Weighting
Concise executive summary of key content and the plans anticipated impact on the business.
10
A coherent marketing plan framework is identified explicitly from engagement with a range of authoritative sources.
10
Using a light touch, demonstrate further original development by way of highly visual summary representations of augmented industry analysis from assignment 1. DO NOT DUPLICATE any elements of assignment 1 here.
10
Evidence of effective utilisation of marketing learning from lectures and crucially beyond class wider reading to offer analytical insights and credible proposals for the various elements expected in a marketing plan. Assumptions are clearly stated.
30
Careful consideration is given to measurement, control and evaluation metrics, utilising SMART objectives.
10
Effective use of a range of pertinent industry data, particularly sources such as Euromonitor. http://libguides.rhul.ac.uk/content.php?pid=491134&sid=4031078
10
Competent use of a range of academic sources, particularly text books and academic journals such as Emerald, Business source complete, Scopus, Nexis UK ABI Inform and Science Direct. http://libguides.rhul.ac.uk/content.php?pid=491134&sid=4031078
10
Frequent, accurate Harvard in text referencing (every idea) with 3+ pages of double spaced bibliographic references.
10
Penalties
Word count falls outside the permitted range Minus 10 points
Poor grammatical and spelling accuracy Minus 10 points
SAMPLE ANSWER
Executive Summary
Spotify is a music streaming service that provides numerous songs in different genres to the users (Alasaad, Gopalakrishnan & Leung 2015). The streamlining service allows users to listen to favorite artists, songs, albums while discovering new releases. With mobile tools, users can listen to not only artists but also playlists on a shuffle mode; however, they are not in a position to play songs offline or even on-demand. In addition, users are restricted to a given songs skips and music is disrupted by an advert after three songs. For computer or tablet users, they can easily choose songs on-demand, but they should listen to the ads (Anton, Munoz & Koshutanski 2015). Spotify generates revenue from two tiers including premium subscription and adverts. Promoters pay Spotify for exposing their ads to users on the free tier and fund royalties the firm pay artists. The premium tier costs about USD 9.99 per month, offering users unlimited music on all devices (Polat & Akgün 2015). Again, users can momentarily download music and play them without being shown ads. Spotify is purposing to increase its income in the music sector that has significantly reduced following piracy as well as YouTube streaming services. Spotify can enhance artists profits by paying them from premium subscription and adverts. Again, Spotify aims at minimising piracy eliminating piracy by moving users that listen to free and unlawful music to Spotify’s legal and free music when it comes to increasing profit, Spotify seeks to switch users to free tier where they will pay premium subscription, however, the firm is still searching for any effective strategy to achieve this (Tian 2014).
Situation Analysis
The situation analysis involves market analysis- segmentation and customer details; SWOT analysis; and competitive analysis.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Spotify provides more than thirty million songs as well as1.5 billion playlists. Moreover, the search and select feature allow playing any song on the personal computer of the tablet. The service is also popularly known for social features to compile and share playlists on social media platforms. The service protects artists’ revenue by eliminating piracy. The use of ads after every 3 songs attracts promoters (Holliman & Rowley
Weaknesses
Spotify service has limited offline streaming services. Again, it has limited song availability due to label, artists to have music on the company’s site. The intricate that involve getting a complete album and the inadequate promotion of the benefits of premium subscription are the company’s worst undoing.
Opportunities
Spotify has ensured that it meets its user’s needs due to organized music and sharing. Moreover, it offers discounts on the premium tier to increase popularity among the young generation. It has also partnered with concern promoters to market Spotify. iTunes provides more than 43 million songs, complete albums, offline streaming services significantly affect Spotify’s revenue (Bradshaw 2010).
Threats
The company’s worst threat stems from unlawful music downloads affect its sales. For instance, Pandora’s free and USD4.99/ per month advert fee also affects Spotify’s revenue. In the end, the increased availability of artists and music is unpopular genres
Competitive Analysis
The music sector is facing changes from owning songs to purchased downloads at low-cost streaming. In 2013, the physical music sales reduced by about 13%, while digital music sales volume declined by 6%, however, the use of streaming music rose by 32% (Mitchell, Madill & Chreim 2015). Additionally, rising number of the premium subscriptions from online streaming websites like Spotify, Pandora, and Sound have brought about spirited competition. Currently, streaming services have more than 28 million users’ premium subscribers and million free users (Dörr et al. 2013). Spotify’s main business rivals include Pandora, SoundCoud and iTunes radio as demonstrated in the table below.
| Available songs | Subscription fee per month | Users | |
| Spotify | More than 30 million | 9.99 | 15 million per 60 million subscribers |
| Pandora | 1 million | 4.99 | 3 million per 250 million subscribers |
| SoundCloud | Millions | 6 | 175 million |
| iTunes | 43 million | 1,29, 0.99 or 0.69/song | 500 million |
Market Analysis
Customer Analysis:
Since streaming services are popular, users’ needs are increasing too and sensitive to not only pricing but also functionalities (Pham 2012). Users prefer complete albums and a variety of songs based on their preferences, suitable for their mood and connected to their favorite artists. The majority of music streaming services offer songs in accordance with songs, favorite artists, and preferences (Peoples 2012). Irrespective, majority of users are not contented with song selection procedure used by streaming services. Users do not prefer listening to songs and get impatient especially when they are unable to skip songs as a result of adverts and limited skipping time. Moreover, users are migrating from streaming radio to selective songs on Spotify. Users also prefer to not just play songs but also search and compile into their playlists rather than streaming (Kiryanov, Lyakhov & Khorov 2014). Again, users prefer simple organization of music selections in their music libraries. Additionally, users want easy-to-use systems to share as well as create playlists for each occasion. Basically, users prefer to connect with their favorite artists to discover the latest music directly. That is, users prefer to make music streaming an emotional aspect of supporting or connecting with artists.
Market Segmentation:
The target market for Spotify includes people who own or stream music, playlists or music. In addition, its target consumers are people of all age groups, income and demographic. Owing to the fact that most of the streaming is done on personal computers, laptops, and tablets, a significant percentage of Spotify customers spend much time online. These users listen to roughly 146 minutes per day (Constantinescu 2014). Due to the popular use of tablets, Spotify can segment its markets based on the demographic patterns- students aged between 15 to 23 and older employed business experts. Currently, Spotify offers a discount to college students on premium subscription services, however giving high school learners a discount can significantly enhance premium subscribers in this market segment (Meiseberg 2014). Since college and high school learners are sensitive to price, hence providing discounted subscription services is effective in targeting them. Giving discounts to high school learners would make them feel that Spotify is offering them a good deal. High school and college learners spent roughly seven and a half hours per day online. Therefore, this segment presents Spotify a large market. Spotify can target business professionals who use laptops for the better part of the day. Since business professionals are value based, Spotify could promote the benefits of a premium subscription to them. This way Spotify can increase the number of premium subscribers as they can afford the USD 9.99 (Kiryanov, Lyakhov & Khorov 2014). The two segments can be measured by tracking discount offers. In other words, Spotify can use zip code details collected during registration on Spotify, and a number of registered users, age and the number of discounts utilized.
Market strategy
The market strategy comprises of the mission, marketing objectives, target strategy and product positioning.
Target strategy
Spotify must concentrate on a multi-segment strategy while focusing on two major customers; high school learners and business professional (Osterwalder 2010). Therefore, this requires that Spotify modifies its marketing mix because these groups have unique psychological and functional requirements high school learners and middle-aged business professionals are associated with active preference for music and spend much time daily online (Li & Lee 2015). These two groups have a potential to considerably increase premium paid if suitable strategies are adopted.
Product Positioning
High School Student
Youths want to experience trends as well as popular. In high school students are trying to look for identity. Some are trendsetters while others are followers. In that case, Spotify should concentrate on attracting trendsetters convince them to choose its streaming services and followers will follow suit. Moreover, high school students are continuously looking from platforms to express themselves. Some of these platforms include Pinterest, Facebook, twitter, Instagram, Snapchat among others (Simba & Ndlovu 2015). Therefore, Spotify focus on high school learners’ desire, that is, an up-and-coming, “cool” music and trendy than what it rivals does. Basically, the positioning statement for this segment can be something like “Spotify provides fun and social approach of musical expression”. This gives students the ability to create playlists based on genre or mood and shares with others. The important message to pass across is that Spotify is suitable music streaming service for learners since it is trendy, fun and allowing them to express themselves (Weijters, Goedertier & Verstreken 2014). Spotify can also advertise on sites that promote concerns where students visit to buy tickets.
Business professionals
This market segment is always busy throughout the day. They are goal oriented and when buying products they look for value. For this segment, Spotify aims at having a user-friendly and convenient awareness. Unlike, its rivals, Spotify should offer suitable services. For this segment, the positioning statement can be like “Spotify is convenient and best streaming services allowing them to access and listen to their favorite music and its value the cost” (Simba & Ndlovu 2015). Since business professionals are analytical, their decisions are informed by benefits of the product, efficiency and convenient. Spotify creates playlists with respect to users’ preference; it is convenient for business professionals since who do not want to scroll through different genres searching for their favorites. This move would greatly convince business professionals about its music streaming services.
Marketing Objectives
The company’s major objective is to enhance the number of high school learners’ premium subscribers by giving them discounts. This is the first move Spotify can use to increase high school students on a premium tier. At the moment it provides a discount of 50% to college students on their $9.99 /per month making it $4.99 (Ko & Lau 2015). Spotify can significantly increase the number of premium subscribers by offering discounts to high school learners. Establishing a trendy presence in music sector; Spotify can market its music streaming services by partnering with concert organizers (Tanggaard, Nielsen & Jørgensen 2015). During these events, Spotify can print its logo on wristbands that organizers give to individuals attending concerts. Such efforts can considerably promote Spotify’s premium services and playlists of artists performing in those concerts (Kovachev, Cao & Klamma 2014). Individuals who attend concerts are fanatical music explorers and listeners. Additionally, they like sharing music. Spotify’s premium service has features for sharing music on social networks. Such features should be emphasized to these individuals because they are likely to register for premium service.
References
Alasaad, A., Gopalakrishnan, S., Leung, V.C. & M. 2015, “A hybrid approach for cost- effective media streaming based on prediction of demand in community networks”, Telecommunication Systems, vol. 59, no. 3, pp. 329-343.
Osterwalder, A. 2010. Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers. 1 Edition. Wiley.
Antón, P., Maña, A., Muñoz, A. & Koshutanski, H. 2015, “An immersive view approach by secure interactive multimedia proof-of-concept implementation”, Multimedia Tools and Applications, vol. 74, no. 19, pp. 8401-8420.
Bradshaw, Tim, 2010. “Spotify Hits 3m Subscribers to Improve Conversion Rate.” Tech Blog. The Financial Times, 26 Jan.
Constantinescu, E.M. 2014, “STRATEGIC MARKETING DEVELOPMENTS IN INFORMATIONAL SOCIETY”, Knowledge Horizons. Economics, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 90-95.
Dörr, J., Wagner, T., Benlian, A. & Hess, T. 2013, “Music as a Service as an Alternative to Music Piracy?” Business & Information Systems Engineering, vol. 5, no. 6, pp. 383- 396.
Holliman, G. & Rowley, J. 2014, “Business to business digital content marketing: marketers’ perceptions of best practice”, Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 269-293.
Kiryanov, A.G., Lyakhov, A.I. & Khorov, E.M. 2014, “Modeling of real-time multimedia streaming with deterministic access”, Journal of Communications Technology & Electronics, vol. 59, no. 12, pp. 1501-1511.
Ko, T.H. & Lau, H.Y.K. 2015, “A Brand Premium Pricing Model for Digital Music Market”, International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 117-124.
Kovachev, D., Cao, Y. & Klamma, R. 2014, “Building mobile multimedia services: a hybrid cloud computing approach”, Multimedia Tools and Applications, vol. 70, no. 2, pp.977-1005.
Li, M., & Lee, C. 2015. A cost-effective and real-time QoE evaluation method for multimedia streaming services. Telecommunication Systems, 59(3), 317-327. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11235-014-9938-8
MEISEBERG, B., 2014. Trust the artist versus trust the tale: performance implications of talent and self-marketing in folk music. Journal of Cultural Economics, 38(1), pp. 9- 42.
Mitchell, A., Madill, J. & Chreim, S. 2015, “Marketing and social enterprises: implications for social marketing”, Journal of Social Marketing, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 285-306.
Peoples, Glenn. 2012 “How Spotify and Radio Are Desocializing Music Streaming.” How Spotify and Radio Are De-Socializing Music Streaming. Billboard Biz, 5 Sept.
Pham, Alex. 2012, “Spotify Subscribers Grew 33% in Last Year.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 01 Aug.
Polat, V. & Akgün, A.,E. 2015, “A Conceptual Framework for Marketing Strategies in Web 3.0 Age: Adaptive Marketing Capabilities”, Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 1-12.
Simba, A. & Ndlovu, T. 2015, “The entrepreneurial marketing management and commercialization arrangements of born-global bio-enterprises: the case of UK companies”, Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 143- 170.
Tanggaard, L., Nielsen, K. & Jørgensen, C.H. 2015, “Students’ experiences of ability-based streaming in vocational education”, Education & Training, vol. 57, no. 7, pp. 723- 737.
Tian, W. 2014, “An efficient modeling and dimensioning approach for integrated streaming and elastic traffic”, Telecommunication Systems, vol. 57, no. 1, pp. 41-49.
Weijters, B., Goedertier, F. & Verstreken, S. 2014, “Online Music Consumption in Today’s Technological Context: Putting the Influence of Ethics in Perspective”, Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 124, no. 4, pp. 537-550.
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