Havas Group And Universal Music Group Form Global Music Data Alliance

Innovative Partnership To Create Powerful Marketing and Revenue Opportunities For Artists, Labels, Advertisers and Brands

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Universal Music Group

Jan 05, 2015, 10:22 ET

LAS VEGAS, Jan. 5, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Havas Group, one of the world's largest global communications groups, and Universal Music Group (UMG), the world's leading music company, announced the formation of the Global Music Data Alliance (GMDA), a unique partnership that will enable the billions of data points that UMG and its artists generate through music, ticket and merchandising sales, streaming, social media and airplay to be aggregated and contextually analyzed by Havas' world-class algorithmic and data scientists. The result will provide new revenue opportunities for UMG artists and labels by creating powerful marketing and advertising opportunities for brands.

The announcement was made by Lucian Grainge, Chairman and CEO of UMG, and Yannick Bollore, Chairman and CEO of Havas Group, at the 2015 International CES.

Lucian Grainge said, "Our commitment to artist development on a global scale has resulted in the industry's best track record for identifying and breaking new stars. But our commitment to artists doesn't end there. We want to continue to find new revenue and marketing opportunities for all of our artists around the world by leveraging our industry-leading big data tools and working with forward-thinking companies such as Havas to supercharge our efforts to realize previously untapped revenues from consumer brands and other new business partners."

Yannick Bollore said, "Music transmits emotions, cultural symbols, and values like no other form of creative expression. By managing the most successful artists and largest music communities in the world, Universal Music Group is at the forefront of the industry and has already gathered unique consumer insights and databases to empower its labels, artists and fans. This first Global Music Data Alliance will allow our clients and other brands to further expand the common passion they share about music with fans and create more meaningful experiences for them."

As part of the initiative, UMG's proprietary data across multiple artists and genres will be layered with Havas' behavioral data to allow for a greater understanding of the correlation among artists, music fans and brands. This data includes not only music and video sales and streaming, but also social media and airplay, and even merchandising data from Bravado, UMG's merchandising division, and ticket sales data from Vivendi Ticketing, which provides ticketing services for select UMG artists and events. The result is a comprehensive view of music and music related consumption across a range of platforms.

New audience patterns and segments will be developed that can be applied across thousands of artists' online and mobile properties, thus offering UMG labels, artists and advertisers unprecedented consumer insights which can be used to guide marketing and advertising opportunities for brands and artists alike. With GMDA, artists will be able to monetize their fan bases more effectively by understanding the different characteristics of their fans and what specific offers and products will appeal to them.

Further, with GMDA, advertisers will be better able to identify which genres and which specific artists appeal to their consumer bases as well as the music-related opportunities that will attract those consumers. This will make the advertiser's decision to invest in music-related marketing much more accountable and will allow labels and artists the opportunity to create a broader relationship and more integrated partnerships with brands than previously seen.

The launch of GMDA follows a 14-month research program overseen by Havas' specialist sports and entertainment network, Havas Sports & Entertainment (HS&E), in collaboration with the University of Southern California's Annenberg Innovation Lab (USC).

The first part of the global research study, entitled FANS.PASSIONS.BRANDS, identified eight logics of engagement resulting in dynamic fan profiles based on a person's diverse levels of passion and how they interact with football (soccer). Wave two of this multi-methodology study will draw on and evolve these same nuances but with a specific focus on music.

Havas will leverage its group's research and analysis teams along with some of the industry's most innovative new start-ups from around the world that specialize in developing technology, to enable UMG and further GMDA partners to derive powerful insights around music and fan engagement.

About Havas Group
Havas is one of the world's largest and most forward thinking global communications groups. Headquartered in Paris, employing 16,000 people in 120 countries, Havas is committed to being the world's best company at creating meaningful connections between people and brands through creativity, media and innovation, including data and mobile. To realise this, it is organised to leverage innovation and collaboration between its core teams: Havas Creative Group and Havas Media Group. Havas Creative Group incorporates the Havas Worldwide network (havasworldwide.com), 316 offices in 75 countries, the Arnold micro-network (arn.com), 15 agencies in 12 countries, as well as several leading agencies including BETC. Havas Media Group (havasmediagroup.com) operates in over 100 countries, and incorporates 4 major commercial brands: Havas Media (havasmedia.com), Arena Media (arena-media.com), Forward Media and Havas Sports & Entertainment (havas-se.com). Further information about Havas is available on the company's website: havas.com

About Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group is the global music leader, with wholly owned operations in 60 territories. Its businesses also include Universal Music Publishing Group, one of the industry's premier music publishing operations worldwide.
Universal Music Group's labels include A&M Records, Angel, Astralwerks, Blue Note Records, Capitol Christian Music Group, Capitol Records, Capitol Records Nashville, Caroline, Decca, Def Jam Recordings, Deutsche Grammophon, Disa, Emarcy, EMI Records Nashville, Fonovisa, Geffen Records, Harvest, Interscope Records, Island Records, Machete Music, Manhattan, MCA Nashville, Mercury Nashville, Mercury Records, Motown Records, Polydor Records, Republic Records, Universal Music Latino, Verve Music Group, Virgin Records, Virgin EMI Records, as well as a multitude of record labels owned or distributed by its record company subsidiaries around the world. The Universal Music Group owns the most extensive catalogue of music in the industry, which includes the last 100 years of the world's most popular artists and their recordings. UMG's catalogue is marketed through two distinct divisions, Universal Music Enterprises (in the U.S.) and Universal Strategic Marketing (outside the U.S.). Universal Music Group also includes Global Digital Business, its new media and technologies division and Bravado, its merchandising company.
Universal Music Group is a fully owned subsidiary of Vivendi.

About Vivendi Ticketing
Vivendi Ticketing comprises the ticketing businesses See Tickets in the UK and the US, as well as Digitick Group in France. Both businesses specialize in the retail and distribution of tickets for live entertainment, sport and cultural events, in addition to providing operating platforms for venues to run their own ticketing services.
Vivendi Ticketing processes annually over 40 million tickets and counts the Eiffel Tower, the Palace of Versailles, Manchester City Football Club and Glastonbury amongst thousands of other clients.
The business also operates as an internal service provider to other Vivendi businesses notably Universal Music Group.

SOURCE Universal Music Group