Every year US labels and artists spend hundreds of millions of dollars just on creating music videos to reach their audience. With Taillight's 2018 CMA Video of the Year win for Thomas Rhett’s Marry Me, we wanted to celebrate the impact a video can have on an artist’s awareness and reach as well as explore what the success of a music video may mean for your brand.
Taillight has been in the music video production business since before YouTube, when you could only watch a music video on MTV, VH1 or CMT. When the majority of the industry thought music videos were dead 10 years ago, we knew that there was no way this marketing tool was over. And today with YouTube, social media and streaming platforms, videos are now in the hands of consumers, therefore they are more popular than ever and are Artist’s most prevalent marketing tool.
In 2017, there were 8.3 BILLION video streams in Country Music across all platforms. And a whopping 217 BILLION streams for all music according to Nielsen Music Connect.
Why are music videos important and what can they do for an artist and those associated with that artist?
Taillight's very own TK McKamy, Director of the 2018 CMA Video of the Year explains,
"A music video is a chance for an artist to emotionally connect to their fans and expand their sphere of influence. So as a director it is important to capture who the artist is and how they want to be portrayed publicly.”
Directors like McKamy not only bring a song to life visually, they also have a key role in helping define the visual branding for an artist. At its core, a music video is just that, pure visual branding.
Taillight knows what it takes to produce award winning music videos.
It takes a great team, a great idea and a great song.
That was the exact recipe for the Marry Me music video, which is why the video’s success and over 144 million views comes as no surprise. With almost double the amount of views of all the other nominated videos combined, the popularity is a true testament to what well-rounded and proper storytelling can do for a song and artist. It speaks directly to the tsunami potential of what a music video can do to build an artist’s brand and expand their loyal fan base into corners you often don’t think would be associated with country music.
These Taillight produced music videos show the sheer amount of reach a video can have.
Thomas Rhett’s, Marry Me with 144 million views
Florida Georgia Line’s, H.O.L.Y. with 262 million views
Darius Rucker’s, Wagon Wheel with 173 million views
Thomas Rhett’s, Die A Happy Man with 164 million views
Brantley Gilbert’s, Bottoms Up with 152 million views
Every year Taillight works with the superstar artists on over 30 video projects. With these 5 videos alone, the artists were able to influence and impact 893 million viewers, that’s almost one billion times that people opted to listen to what country music artists have to say.
What does 100+ million views do for an artist and their music? The more views, the greater the artist’s impact and the more reach and influence they have.
TK takes that responsibility seriously,"Ultimately it is my job to sell music and an artist’s image. To sell music you have to sell emotion and to sell emotion, you have to know how to connect with people in under 3 min. Music videos are all about the art of connecting songs with visually authentic emotions.”
Alright so what does this mean to your brand? These numbers point to the edge of a new trend, an exploding potential for connecting with an audience that defies expectations about demographic, geography, and taste. Country music and country music artists are reaching and influencing a younger audience in brand new ways and in parts of the country (like the East and West Coast metro areas) that you would least expect. In the right hands, their brands have expanded quickly, and Taillight has been right at that center of helping build those brands. Imagine your brand’s message in front of a potentially huge new set of customers, in the right hands, with the right content, and with Taillight as the right creative partner.
We have helped these artists. We can help you, too.
