Ever since Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion, messenger apps have led the tech conversation. In helming One Direction‘s Midnight Memories release in partnership with Kik (95 million users) and Ariana Grande‘s My Everything album promotion through Line (480 million users), Block Party founder Eytan Oren, 36, was among the first to realize such revenue potential. “With these platforms, you can build a huge audience for way less money than a Facebook ad campaign.”
How did you get into this area?
For years my job was to help brands understand how the tech space can be useful for marketing campaigns, and I thought, “No one’s done this yet with music.” I met with some messenger app companies and said, “You have so many teenagers on your platform — are they excited about music?” And Kik said One Direction was their most-shared, most-talked-about topic.
Did One Direction’s label, Columbia, require convincing to partner with Kik?
They got it right off the bat. The beauty of messaging apps is it’s one-to-one conversations with people they care most about. A lot of kids like being on platforms without their mom or their sister seeing what they’re doing.
Is it harder for more older, established artists to get into the field?
Paul McCartney killed it with his [digital] stickers for Line. He has 10 million followers. It might play out better for some artists than others, but that’s where bands get creative figuring out how fans would enjoy engaging with content on those apps.