This international attention attracted investments that boosted funding across the industry. With more money came more artists, all servicing the same platforms and competing for the same demographic.
Marketing soon became a matter of who could spend the most money to create the biggest buzz. While creativity remains important, the chase for instant virality has often replaced careful, deliberate planning.
Today, huge funds are funneled into social media campaigns, with influencers commanding record fees. Radio and TV amplification is also costly, and music videos now exceed 20 million naira.
Yet results rarely match the investment. Audiences are showing apathy, while artists increasingly resort to controversy on social media as a shortcut to attention.
Why is music marketing becoming more expensive yet yielding little return?
Saturation and Consumer Fatigue
Saturation is a major factor. A growing list of artists compete for the same audience, overwhelming listeners with endless content.
“Musicians, brands, influencers, and businesses are all competing for the same level of attention. Considering there’s a lot of music coming out daily, the market is saturated, and materials get lost in the noise,” says Dunsin Bankole, Head of Operations for the 360 creative company We Talk Sound.
Social media has created a ubiquity that sometimes doesn’t translate to impact and connection, especially since resources often determine reach.
So we have songs that people can’t escape on TikTok yet won’t even bother to press play on streaming platforms.
“Consumers are spoilt for choice. There’s just too much music and too many artists to choose from, so many consumers are overwhelmed,” Music and Marketing Executive Honour Aghedo shares.
The market isn’t expanding fast enough to match the growing supply, creating fatigue and disinterest even in heavily marketed songs.
There are lot of songs I can sing word for word (viral part) and I’ve never played them on my own because I could barely scroll through my TL without the song popping up. However, if you play other parts of the same songs, I will struggle to identify the song. https://t.co/mE2yc4x2cc
Linear approach to marketing: The trend of cutting corners
Today, artists are getting the audience’s attention faster through rage-baiting posts and controversial content. The instant impact of controversy in sparking conversation has made it a part of music marketing, and for some artists, a central part of their plan.
Culture Journalist with Zikoko Marv Tomide, shares that Nigerian artists are infatuated with online controversy, which births viral moments, and this has created a market where more creative and deliberate marketing ideas have been suppressed.
“This is not the problem of professionals who will execute, but largely the artists themselves failing to aspire to certain levels of ideas. The infatuation with controversy, social wins, and viral moments still trumps organic, albeit slow but steady and effective, methods.”
PR Executive David Adeyemi describes the linear marketing approach to the Nigerian music industry as a complex one-room apartment.
“The Nigerian music industry is a complex one-room apartment where, as a marketer, you’re working on several campaigns simultaneously, but you’re having to engage with the same set of people. I find that exhausting, boring, and too linear.”
Honour Aghedo thinks that deploying similar platforms isn’t the issue, but rather the approach being used in marketing the product.
The use of a similar strategy in marketing has also created what Dunsin Bankole refers to as a declining trust in influencer marketing.
“The audience can now tell when an influencer is paid to post, and it’s affecting how marketing campaigns convert.”
With the formula being replicated for quick wins, consumers are becoming more resistant to these marketing strategies that are expensive yet unproductive.
A market of numbers rather than compelling stories
Paying an influencer to share a controversial post, curate viral content, or dance to a song can offer quick returns with huge engagement numbers to back it up.
However, this doesn’t convert to success for the artists and their works, both in the mid and long term.
