A Music Platform for Marketing Teams: The Tool You Never Knew You Needed
After months of campaign planning — from concepting and identifying influencers to creative development — you're just about ready to launch your national ad campaign.
But a few days before go-live, one of your influencers sends over TikTok content for approval. You quickly notice they used the unlicensed sonic assets from an old link.
Chaos ensues. You rush to send over new audio files, partner with legal to sort out approvals, and hope there's enough time for a second round of reviews.
These situations happen all the time, and it's not because your team's disorganized. Your sonic assets are either outdated, hard to manage, or scattered across email threads, Dropbox links, or Slack messages.
And that’s why top brand teams turn to enterprise music platforms designed for speed, governance, and on-brand creativity. We're breaking down common music selection challenges and how a music platform for marketing teams helps you avoid them.
5 Music Selection Challenges Brand Marketing Teams Face
Trending sounds, short-lived cultural moments, the fast-paced nature of marketing — they all require creative and brand teams to move at what feels like warp speed.
But when you move too fast, you often overlook crucial considerations that can be costly, from financial losses and lawsuits to jeopardizing your brand. Here are five of the biggest challenges brand teams face with music selection (especially when you move too fast).
1. Navigating complex legal and licensing requirements
You need proper licenses for every track you use. But it gets complicated when there are numerous rights holders or you want to use music across channels—like social, television, and digital—that require multiple or different licenses.
That’s why one of the most consequential music platform selection criteria for marketing agencies is built-in licensing clarity—so you don’t waste time chasing down approvals or risk costly mistakes, like:
Heading to court for copyright infringement (which can cost you up to $150K per infringement)
Reputational damage your brand might suffer from using unlicensed music
Diminished campaign ROI or long-term revenue loss from costly lawsuits or lost customer trust
Pro tip: Use a music platform that includes blanket licenses to streamline approvals and reduce legal risk.
2. Balancing speed with branding perfection
Without a music platform for marketing teams, even internal creative teams struggle to find on-brand music quickly. You might spend hours or even days trying to find something that both aligns with your sonic branding and appeals to your target audience.
You need music that'll resonate and evoke the emotion needed to inspire action — like buying what you're selling. But when you want to jump on a hot pop culture moment or trend, speed matters.
You don't have days to find on-brand music — but you risk sonic inconsistency and being inauthentic when you use music that doesn't align with your unique brand.
And when external agencies or influencers are simply guessing at what music aligns with your brand, there's a high chance your campaign will feel mismatched or random.
Pro tip: Ditch stock libraries and opt for a music platform for marketing teams—one intentionally curated with on-brand music based on your sonic identity.
3. Finding record-credible music within budget
With the rise of AI-generated music flooding the market and stock music libraries making the same sounds accessible to everyone, finding high-quality, affordable music is harder than ever.
Made Music Studio was born from entertainment, where standards for music excellence are high — we deliver record-credible, strategically crafted music and sound the world's top brands trust.
Licensing costs can drive up budgets quickly. But the alternative is either uninspired, generic music every other brand uses or low-quality sounds that aren't fit for national ad, TV or social campaigns.
Instead of standing out amongst competitors, you sound exactly the same. Boring, unextraordinary, and worst of all — totally unforgettable.
Pro tip: Partner with a sonic branding agency or use a custom, record-credible music library to get high-quality, stand-out tracks at your fingertips.
4. Spending too much time trying to find the right track
No sonic identity? That makes it more difficult to find the right track for organic social posts, TV commercials, or even customer hold music.
Unless you know exactly what you're looking for, you—or your creative agencies or influencers—will waste precious time going through hundreds of songs, carefully listening to each track.
Productivity stalls, and you often end up with a mish-mash of off-brand music that doesn't resonate with your audience or align with your use case. Plus, you're stuck in limbo—waiting for legal to approve tracks and brand managers to give the thumbs-up that the music reflects your brand’s vibe.
Pro tip: Get a music platform for marketing teams that includes on-brand tracks, robust filters, and AI-powered search features that boost productivity and speed up music selection.
5. Using unapproved tracks
Whether you're a small startup or a global enterprise, you're likely partnering with external agencies or influencers to bring your brand campaigns to life.
While they can maximize the effectiveness of your marketing, they can also be a liability if you don't have governance and version control in place.
Without thorough guidelines around version control and governance, your partners could:
Use music with expired licenses or the wrong licenses for a specific channel
Use tracks from an old link with music that's no longer on-brand or was meant only for a specific campaign
Use unapproved music, like early edits or demo versions that never got official stakeholder approval
Pro tip: When choosing a solution, make governance one of the top music platform selection criteria for marketing agencies to eliminate version control and unapproved asset challenges.
Don't worry — choosing the right music platform for marketing teams can alleviate all of these challenges.
How a Custom Music Platform for Marketing Teams Solves Music Selection Challenges
A lot goes into creating a flawless campaign—from creative and distribution to all the legal requirements needed for a successful launch. That's why you need a music platform that addresses:
Music licensing to reduce legal risks
Brand alignment and using hand-picked, on-brand assets that help you stand out
Quality standards by including record-credible tracks only
Productivity and creating a quick and simple process for finding on-brand assets
Governance and version control that ensure you're using approved assets only
And it should make the entire process scalable, not a time-suck. We built Continuum™ to solve all of these challenges in a single, scalable platform:
“Platforms like Continuum are emerging to make sonic branding at scale a lot faster and easier. A one-stop shop for the sound of your brand is the key to future-proofing your sonic identity.”
Here's precisely how Continuum solves your music selection challenges.
Blanket Licenses
Continuum's pre-cleared tracks come with blanket licenses that cover web, digital, and social use. And with expert support on how to obtain other licenses, if needed, you don't have to guess whether you're meeting legal licensing requirements.
Truly custom, curated music
Hand-selected based on your sonic identity, every track in Continuum is perfectly on-brand. No more guessing on what aligns with your brand, whether it'll resonate with your audience, or if it's stale because we regularly update tracks to keep you on-trend.
Uncompromising music quality
Whether you partner with our sonic branding experts to create a fully custom sonic logo and identity or want to source your music solely through Continuum, you'll get record-credible music suited for any high-visibility campaign.
We intentionally curate music that matches your brand personality and meets our standards for high-quality music.
Robust search capabilities
With over 60,000 audio assets, we knew Continuum needed to deliver search features that sped up production workflows. Our AI-powered search tool, SoundMatch, makes music discovery easier than ever by:
Helping you search for music based on artists or songs your audience loves
Instantly analyzing and comparing the audio features of a popular track with the songs in the Continuum catalog to provide music recommendations
Expediting the often time-consuming process of sourcing on-brand music through the power of AI
Continuum also uses meta-tagging and filters that let you find what you're looking for in mere seconds. No more productivity drains or wasted time.
Built-in governance
We understand that the best work often comes from cross-departmental collaboration and external partnerships, which is why we built governance and controlled access into Continuum.
You can first work with our team to establish clear naming conventions and version control to create clarity around what's final and safe for use vs. old assets. Then, organize assets by campaign and invite collaborators to that project—that way, you know everyone's using approved, updated assets.
Continuum also includes sonic guidelines and best practices, leaving no room for confusion or errors. With everything all in one place and controlled access, you no longer have to worry about teams using unapproved assets that could harm your brand or get you in legal trouble.
Get the Best Music Platform for Marketing Teams: Continuum
Music is too critical to your advertising campaigns to get it wrong. From lawsuits and hefty fines to reputational brand damage, using the wrong music can derail your campaign, and diminish ROI.
And complicated licensing, time-consuming music discovery, low-quality tracks, governance gaps, and finding on-brand music only add to your campaign challenges. There's good news, though—a custom music platform, like Continuum, helps you overcome these challenges by combining everything into a single platform:
Licensing clarity
Curated and on-brand music
Record-credible tracks
Powerful search functionality
Governance and version control
Continuum helps you protect your brand identity while saving time and helping you execute unforgettable and effective marketing campaigns. Curious about how it can make your brand strategically sound-on? See how other leading brands are using Continuum.
