How Diplo Makes Himself the #1 Choice at a Party
You know when you’re at a party and the playlist is nearing the end, someone passes you the aux cord to queue up tracks and… you panic. The song is ending soon so you just put on Diplo.
You playing Diplo in that party moment, despite never really listening to him, your brain is doing “cued-recall”.
What is
Cued-recall?
Cued-recall is a type of long term memory recall where listeners are sparked to play a particle song or artist seemingly out of nowhere.
What is actually happening is the word being presented is related to the information being remembered. This is the reason why in that moment at a party Diplo is easier to remember than say, Adele, Alicia Keys or Ed Sheeran.
Let Me Explain:
Through continuous exposure to Diplo’s music, visuals, narrative and opinions he has been encoded in your brain to think, Diplo = turn up.
When you’re in a party situation when the mood requires you to turn up, he will be easier to remember in that moment having achieved cued-recall to the listener.
The natural next question is, as an artist, how can you encode your music in the minds of consumers?
We see this a lot in the brand world.
- When you want to pre-game, you buy White Claw.
- You want to give a gift to someone you don’t really know for the holidays, you pick up a box of Ferroro Rocher
- You want a post workout snack, you’ll stop by a bodega for an Rx bar.
Brand marketing scientist, Byron Sharp, coined the term “category entry points” saying that for brands to be thought of in this buying moment, the consumer needs to be exposed to a brand in a way that encodes that brand into memory in those moments.
For this to happen you need to:
1. Build associations between your brand and the reasons and occasions for category purchase.
2. Make your brand famous and distinctive enough for recall to happen in this moment.
Why?
This is a powerful way to build streams and followers because you’re not constantly having to remind people of your music. Instead, when they are out in the wild living their lives and come across an event, like a party, they are reminded of you and your music.
You are now part of the culture.
If you’re an artist starting out you have this great opportunity to set that strategy upfront. Pick a scenario that you want to own, where people should play your music and brand yourself for that moment.
You choose your beat and hit it over and over and over again.
Finish this sentence
“Diplo is to ‘turn up’, like I am to ___________”