The promotion of pop music in France : the use of social media
Authors
Archambeaud, Adele
Issue Date
2015
Degree
MSc in Marketing
Publisher
Dublin Business School
Rights holder
Rights
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Abstract
The problem: the aim of this research was to discover if social media were the new way to promote pop music in France. In order to examine this, this research tended to highlight the main changes that occurred in certain elements of the marketing mix of the pop music industry in France, but also to show what were the impacts of social media in the pop music industry, to explore how social media were used by music marketers, musicians and the audience to promote and discover pop music in France, and finally, to show if social media were the only way to promote pop music in France. Methodology: This dissertation was an exploratory study, which had a grounded theory strategy and which employed a mixed-method choice of research using both quantitative and qualitative data. This research studied a particular phenomenon at a particular time so it was a cross-sectional research. The data have been gathered within an interpretivist research philosophy and used an inductive approach. The quantitative data have been collected through a questionnaire and the qualitative data via semi-structured interviews. The population of the quantitative research was composed of 120 students from ISEG Bordeaux and the population of the qualitative research was composed of 4 people who worked in the music industry in France: a music programmer and communications manager of a concert hall in Bordeaux, a director of an independent label in Bordeaux, a project manager of an online platform that help musicians in their digital practices and, finally, a music band from Limoges. Conclusions: The Internet has drastically changed the pop music industry, all the marketing mix elements are touched and the promotion part is the one that is the most affected. Plus, the intensive use of social media has changed the way in which the music is diffused and promoted because people discover, listen, consume and share music through those networks. Thus, social media are now mainly used by French music marketers, musicians and the audience to promote or discover pop music, and the part of traditional media has decreased. But there are still limits in conducting music promotion on social media and traditional media are still used for music promotion in France. Author keywords: Music promotion, pop music, France, social media, marketing mix