How Music Curation Services for Brands Can Save Time and Money
Whether you're a scrappy startup or a global enterprise, you've more than likely invested plenty of time (and money) building an unforgettable brand. From unique logos and curated color palettes, you've got the design elements down.
Sonic branding is quickly becoming just as valuable. Top companies are using it as a strategic asset to breathe new life into their brands and campaigns. And they're using music curation services like Continuum™ to make it quick, easy, and cost-effective.
We're breaking down the biggest challenges brands face with music curation and how the right partner or service can help you overcome them while saving you time and money.
What are Music Curation Services?
Enterprise music curation services for brands involve partnering with brands to understand their identity before carefully curating music to align with their brand and ideal audience. This could include creating playlists, suggesting musical artists or genres, helping with licensing popular tracks, or even consulting on how best to implement your music strategy.
The right music curation service partners do more than simply find songs. They help you develop memorable sonic experiences with on-brand, hand-picked music that reinforces their brand mission, personality, and values.
Why Music Curation is No Longer a Nice-to-Have
What comes to mind when we mention the double golden arches? Or the sneaker brand with the swoosh? Based on these descriptions, you likely know exactly which brands we're talking about.
Why? Because they've already mastered the art of visual branding. McDonald's, Nike, and others have created such strong visual identities that you can't help but associate colors, logos, and designs with a specific brand. For brand marketers, visual identity became the standard.
Sonic branding is the next evolution of brand identity. In the age of audio-first platforms like TikTok, streaming, and podcasts, it’s an essential part of a modern brand’s toolkit. Brands with sonic identities leverage the power of music to:
Connect deeply with their audiences
Shape brand perception
Boost brand recognition and awareness
Evoke emotional responses that drive connection and conversions
Create unforgettable content, ads, and campaigns
“Brands with strong brand assets (including sonic assets) achieve 76% higher brand power and 138% higher advertising strength perceptions. ”
But without a clear strategy, you could end up with a mish-mash of off-brand music based on personal taste or trending sounds that don't necessarily align with your brand.
Music curation services for brands help you avoid that. They support your sonic identity by curating signature music and sounds that amplify the emotional value of your ads, commercials, and even background music at your retail shop—all while sounding unmistakably like you.
And when your customers feel emotionally connected, the payoff is tremendous:
“Customers who feel emotionally connected to your brand spend up to twice as much and have an average 306% higher lifetime value.”
Source: TotalRetail
But finding the right song, let alone full tracks, can be challenging and time-consuming. Take a look at some of the common hurdles brands face when they try to do music curation on their own.
The Top 4 Challenges Brands Face with Music Curation
Music curation isn't for the faint of heart — it's a labor of love that requires deep expertise. So before you try doing it on your own, make sure you're aware of the potential challenges and risks.
1. Music Curation is Time-Consuming
Think about your Spotify playlist — you probably don't spend a single day adding songs and then never update it. The same goes for music curation.
Music curation services for brands require more than a one-off effort. It's a continual process that includes:
Doing deep audience research to understand what your audience likes and aligns with your sonic identity
Understanding what playlists will resonate with your audience
Staying on top of trends and emerging artists, and constantly updating your playlists so they're always fresh and relevant
Analyzing playlist data regularly to understand what's working and what isn't, so you can optimize your music strategy
Chasing down song approvals internally and music licenses externally
Music curation can quickly become a timesuck that drains productivity and takes time away from other high-value brand activities. The good news? Music curation platforms like Continuum can do all of the above — and fast — so you can focus on the other elements of your next campaign.
“A creative director at a national grocery chain explained that “services like Continuum remove friction and reduce admin time spent on curation through intentional platform and library design. Features like its AI-powered SoundMatch and enhanced metadata tagging save us time on what can take 2-3 hours of work.””
2. You Might Get Off-Brand Music
If you're a sassy, funky brand, "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars could be perfect for your next campaign. But if you're more of a buttoned-up brand? Not so much.
That's one of the biggest challenges with doing music curation on your own. We all have unique personal preferences, and often, they don't align with the brand vibe.
And when you have social media managers, editors, influencers, and campaign leads curating your music, you just might end up with music that reflects their tastes, not what's right for the brand.
It's not entirely their fault either. Without a dedicated music curator, curation services, or sonic guidelines, they have to guess at what sounds like your brand.
3. Music Licensing and Compliance Might Be an Issue
Want to play music in a public place? You'll need a license for that. Need to sync it with video or images? You'll need a different license for that. Music licensing is complex — and getting it wrong can cost you big:
Up to $150,000 per infringement of copyrighted music
Public lawsuits and hefty fees for damages
Reputational damage and fallout
It's not enough to apologize and say you didn't know which licenses you needed. Performing rights organizations (PROs) and record labels don't care, and if you don't obtain the right licenses, you can expect a lawsuit.
When the risks of using unlicensed music are so high, you need a partner or service to help you get it right. The last thing you want is to have to pull your ads mid-campaign because you got a cease and desist letter and a lawsuit from a PRO or record label.
4. Music Curation Isn’t Scalable
Music curation for a single brand that only operates and launches campaigns in one country is already time- and resource-intensive.
But imagine curating tracks and playlists for multiple banner brands under the same parent company. And hand-picking songs that perfectly align with the tastes of your target audience. Or trying to ensure licensing compliance for a multi-national ad campaign where licensing requirements can vary wildly.
The amount of time alone required for such campaigns simply isn't scalable. Here are just a few reasons why:
Music curation is time-intensive, and music curators have a finite number of hours they can work each day.
Global campaigns have unique nuances that have serious implications if your music curator doesn't fully understand music licensing.
Humans simply can't compete with AI when it comes to speed — what might take a music curator 10 hours could take AI seconds (the best approach is AI and the human touch).
A song that might resonate perfectly with your US audience might be a huge turn-off for the same demographic in another geography, requiring the curator to do further research.
Your audience's tastes often change as quickly as trending songs, and music curators might not be able to keep up with these changes in one country, let alone globally.
There are millions—maybe even billions — of songs out there. A music curator just can't go through it all.
This is why companies are increasingly turning to music curation services for brands. Like Continuum, which includes an AI-powered search feature, SoundMatch, to scale music curation.
Why Should You Hire a Music Curation Partner?
Still not convinced that you should hire a music curation partner? We've rounded up five reasons to use music curation services for brands.
1. Strategic Music Recommendations
A curation service can help you develop a music strategy and suggest tracks, genres, and playlists that align with your overarching goals—like boosting sales or improving the customer experience.
A music curation service can use that strategy to find music that conveys your brand vibe and appeals to your target audience. And you can refresh your playlists based on seasons or campaigns, so it's always fresh and new.
2. Music that Stands Out
Whether you're playing music in your retail shop, in a campaign, or at the start of your company podcast, you need to be memorable. You do that by playing music that stands out from the sea of sameness.
Music curation services hand-pick tracks and curate playlists that are both on-brand and differentiate you from competitors. No more jumping on the hottest song just for the sake of it—just thoughtfully curated and unforgettable sounds.
3. Global Licensing Support and Compliance
Some music curation services offer licensing support on a global scale, supporting compliance no matter where your campaigns run or where you play your tracks.
And if you use Continuum, you'll also get guidelines that outline how to use your sonic assets the right way, where to use them, and more—helping you stay legally compliant.
4. Saved Time and Resources
Music curation services for brands save you time and money by integrating tools like AI-powered search and tagging. Instead of spending hours or even days finding the perfect playlists, platforms like Continuum do it in seconds.
And with blanket licenses, you don't have to pay for each track per campaign—just a single blanket license for use of multiple tracks under a set agreement.
5. Cross-Channel Brand Alignment
Another reason to use a music curation service? It helps you create a consistent brand experience across all channels, from social to retail shops to TV ads, by providing on-brand assets.
Music curation services also provide clear guidance on how and where you can use your sonic assets and when they expire, so you're also legally compliant while creating a cohesive customer experience.
Continuum: Music Curation for Brand-Forward Teams
Continuum is a centralized software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that helps brands find tracks and playlists that perfectly reflect their brands while prioritizing compliance.
But as a sonic branding agency, we wanted to build something that offered more, so we intentionally designed powerful features to address sonic branding on a more holistic level.
Once onboarded, you can use Continuum and take full advantage of the platform:
Access 60,0000+ licensed and on-brand sonic assets, all in a searchable platform. You can even work with Made Music Studio to create custom tracks.
Create playlists and organize tracks by campaign or project in easily searchable folders. You can securely share assets with your team, making workflows across the entire enterprise intuitive and quick.
Find the right music fast with our AI-powered SoundMatch search feature, which lets you search for music that sounds like a specific artist or song. There's also traditional search functionality, so you can find songs based on genre, instruments, and more.
Access custom brand guidelines that tell you exactly how to use your sonic assets, where to use them, best practices, and examples.
Get time back. Be compliant. Reduce risk. And be undeniably on-brand every time with Continuum.
Continuum: Music Curation Services for Brands
Top brands have adopted sonic branding, leveraging their sonic identities to stand out from the competition, build deeper connections with their audiences, and achieve business objectives.
And the best ones are using music curation services for brands, like Continuum, to save time and money without sacrificing brand consistency. With blanket licenses, a robust library of pre-cleared tracks, and a powerful search function, Continuum is the top choice for companies looking to amplify their brand identity.
Want to learn more about Continuum? Get in touch.
