The soundtrack of brands. Curation criteria for brand playlist activity as a strategic element of attention economy
Abstract
This study focuses on the phenomenon of activity brand playlists. These musical playlists are designed to be listened to while performing activities related to the products or services the brand represents. The strategy allows the brand to capture the audience's attention and share time with them. From the perspective of the attention economy, the objective is to determine the curation criteria for the selection and grouping of the songs and to verify whether they adequately respond to the brand's purpose or if they result from arbitrary work. To this end, 50 activity brand playlists from 7 brands were analyzed. The qualitative and quantitative analysis was conducted based on variables extracted from specialized literature, which determine the characteristics of the musical selection and grouping: context, musical genre, emotional valence, duration, language, semantics, and notoriety, constituting an original and unprecedented analysis model for this category of playlists. From the discussion of the results, it is possible to conclude that brand playlists correspond to a type of non-intrusive content that conveys brand values and personality through music, adopting the editorial appearance of the platform. Thus, they straddle branded content and native advertising. Additionally, within the attention economy, they would fall into the category of content that enhances the consumption experience, being the result of a musical selection and grouping that adheres to appropriate and non-arbitrary criteria.
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