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Having built one of YouTube’s largest music-channel networks as a teenager, Andre Benz sold it to Create Music Group in 2022 then launched label Broke Records in 2023 with co-founder Brandon De Oliveira.
A host of Billboard-charting singles and growth to more than 50m daily streams later, Benz joined us at our Music Ally NEXT conference to discuss the evolution of labels, and the gap he saw in the market.
“The big gap essentially is that every record label executive doesn’t understand marketing, and the reason why is because they’re traditionally A&Rs or producers: people that are in the rooms, mostly, with artists. It’s really not people who have backgrounds creating social-media companies,” said Benz.
“We’re more or less a marketing company that also services artists. We’re not an independent record label that also has an extension of marketing. We really emphasise the marketing.”
Look away now, traditional A&Rs, producers and people in the room with artists, for Benz went on to talk about what Broke Records is looking for in its signings.
“The biggest one is just how engaged the artist is going to be on social media. What world and story are they telling online? Because I think that’s the biggest thing that differentiates an artist that’s interesting or nor interesting,” he said.
“Unfortunately, it’s not really due to the music any more. It used to be way more based on music 10, 15, 20 years ago, but I think now it’s really the story that you’re telling online.”
“So when we go after artists, most of it is targeting what story are they telling, what community are they building? It doesn’t matter who those people are: it’s our job to identify that, and then say hey, ow do we maximise that niche of audience as insanely as possible?”
“The business model of a digital marketing agency doesn’t align with the record label”
“The business model of a digital marketing agency doesn’t align with the record label”
While Broke Records does sign individual tracks, the company is more geared towards longer-term relationships with artists, persisting even if their growth is slow-burn rather than meteoric.
He cited one of its roster, American artist Tiffany Day, as an example. When she signed a year and a half ago, she was doing “20,000 daily streams on Spotify and her audience was okay on social media” according to Benz.
“Now she’s doing 500k-600k streams a day, so it’s working out quite well! And then her social media is just going crazy. But that took really in-depth storytelling, visually, from her side, and then us seeding it on Instagram, Twitter and all these platforms.”
[Day currently has 340,000 followers on Instagram and 173,500 on TikTok, although her growth on these and other platforms isn’t just about her follower counts: it’s about the posts and comments and activity of other people too.]
How does Broke Records, ahem, break down in terms of its structure? Benz explained that the company has 30 full-time digital marketers – out of a 50-strong team overall – meaning that it keeps all its digital campaigns in-house.
“The reason why we don’t outsource any of our digital is because the business model of a digital marketing agency doesn’t align with the record label,” he said.
“They couldn’t care less, if I pay them $10,000 how many streams my songs get. Whereas when I spend $10,000 with my marketing team I say ‘hey guys, if we’re spending $1,000 and we’re not getting a return somewhere, this campaign is a failure for the artist’. We’re very particular about how we spend money.”
“If we sign a record… we can immediately market within the next 30 minutes”
“If we sign a record… we can immediately market within the next 30 minutes”
Benz went on to talk about the nature of those campaigns, with Broke Records spending “really, really heavily on narrative seeding online… like, how do you build narratives and storylines for artists where people start to create conversation?”
That covers platforms like Instagram and X, but Broke’s work necessarily also involves tickling the TikTok algorithm – currently a hot topic in industry circles.
“How do you get a song trending on TikTok? It might not have anything to do with the artist: it could be anime edits or whatever it is, but it is driving actual organic consumption once it starts to take off in the algorithm.”
“There’s really no red tape,” he added. “Instantly, if we sign a record… we can immediately market within the next 30 minutes. It’s very, very fast, and I feel like those things make a massive difference over times of, like, 10 months for an artist.”
This desire to move quickly also applies to campaigns that aren’t working, with Benz saying the key is to stop, then swiftly move on to the next idea. How does it know? It turns out that the comments are key.
“If we’re running a TikTok campaign… let’s say we spent over $5,000 getting 100 videos and nobody is engaging with the song in the comments or asking what the song in the video is… then we’re like, okay, cool, this is not working,” he said.
“Ultimately, if you’re going to pay for content associated with music, you need people asking about the music in comments, or else it’s just not converting. So that’s a really big indicator for us, and we’re pretty quick to look at things and say ‘this isn’t working, let’s try a different niche’.”
Joint ventures are also an increasingly important part of Broke Records’ business. Isekai Records in the UK is one example and TikTok star Jillian Webber’s wbbr. another. Benz confidently suggested that these kinds of labels can punch well above their weight in the modern music industry.
“10 years ago, the proprietary value of the major label was more or less funding. That’s what separated them from independents,” he said.
“But now with so much capital and recourses coming in from private equity to the independent-music sector, I think that playing field is pretty level at this point. We’re going out and offering deals to artists very competitively, in essence, to major labels.”
But Broke is also extending that idea to startup labels with its joint ventures. “If we give them money, and we give them incredible marketing infrastructure, distribution, accounting, financing, all those different things, we can allow them to run a two, three-person team and compete with these 15, 20, 30-person outdated labels – and most of the time beat them on these deals.”
“Partnerships is the number one most-valuable asset that we’ve been prioritising as a company. Where we’ve seen some really exponential growth is through these unique partnerships,” he added.
“I’m on TikTok for easily three, four hours a day. Which sounds miserable! But it’s just the reality…”
“I’m on TikTok for easily three, four hours a day. Which sounds miserable! But it’s just the reality…”
Benz wasn’t done with the industry-feather-ruffling just yet, turning his attention to the other options these fledgling labels might have for joint-ventures: distributors.
“Digital marketing services is the biggest thing. If you go to The Orchard or Believe, sure, they can give you a cheque. If you guys are here, congrats,” he said.
“But I think ultimately they’re not going to service the companies, the entrepreneurs, when it comes to doing intuitive digital marketing, and how to service, blow up and break an artist. You’re just not going to get that at a distribution level. Why would they give you that at 20% or whatever it is?” he continued.
“With us, all our partnerships are joint ventures, and the way that we look at it is: hey, if we’re going to go to somebody and invest capital into this person, they’re going to be able to access the world’s best digital marketing team, and also access individuals of the company that understand how to work these artists effectively.”
“Like, new artists, not artists from 20, 30 years ago. The new artists that are breaking now.”
Benz was also asked for his advice to other budding label entrepreneurs about how to stay on top of the digital marketing landscape and its key platforms.
“Stay on TikTok four hours a day. I’m not gonna lie: I’m on TikTok for easily three, four hours a day. Which sounds miserable! But it’s just the reality: if you want to stay relevant in the industry, you have to be on social media every single day for a lot of time. That’s just how you stay current.”
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