Influencer Marketing Is Integral To Music Industry: Shahir Muneer, Divo

Warner Music India has recently signed a deal to acquire a majority stake in Divo. This investment will help deliver Warner Music India’s strategy of having a leading presence in the entertainment sector across the whole country.

This move is expected to strengthen the presence of Warner Music in the southern regions of the country and enable a strong pan-India presence. For Divo, it likely tol enhance the entire artist-influencer ecosystem and overall entertainment footprint.

In a conversation with BW Marketing World, Shahir Muneer, Founder and Director, Divo and Vishu Ramaswamy, Director Divo, share interesting facts on the music and influencer marketing industry.

Here are the excerpts from the Interview:

What is the basic idea behind the recent acquisition?

As a music and digital media company, it’s been almost a decade since we are in the market. We have certain strengths we achieved during this period, and we see this acquisition to be part of a global company only to help us grow further and faster. Plus, WMG has growth plans aligned with us and there is great synergy.

How will the acquisition affect both Divo and Warner Music India?

Having Warner Music is only going to help us propel having access to a global network and implement it for our partners. We see large opportunities coming up, and we also see Divo also being able to complement Warner music's expansion plans.

How has the growth of the Indian music industry been impacted by the rise of influencer marketing?

Definitely, hand in glove as short format content's massive growth is fuelled by the underlying use of music, plus the discovery of music happening because of the short format content. Hence, there is a great correlation for both to mutually exist and service each other.

We are fortunate to have a strong presence in both and are able to utilise it. With the acquisition, we expect to see access to other markets and growth happen even more.

What are the opportunities in the music streaming space for influencer marketing?

We have seen time and again music content being discovered using influencer marketing, and if the song has the right elements to pull an audience, influencer marketing is a very strong tool.

Q. Share some insights about your Influencer marketing vertical.

This has been our fastest-growing vertical, especially in the last 2 years. From where I see the marketplace every agency brings a different USP, and it is up to the brand to decide what fits them. Our USPs have been our strong presence in South and East India, along with our robust delivery of service and brand solutions. Using this base, we have market expansion plans across markets and advertisers.

Q. How has been the rise of Influencer marketing in the music space and its impact?

Influencer marketing is integral today to music marketing, as short-format content is one of the leading discoverability tools for music labels and artists. We have seen the recent example of Tum Tum which was already viral in South India a year back, has resurfaced again and is now popular in the Hindi-speaking markets and giving the song a second wind in the spike of streams.

Q. What are the near future plans of the brand?

We will continue our presence across music, video content and brands. We have certain objectives across brands, creator economy and influencer marketing to have the ability to cater to pan India. Along with this, we will also strengthen our music presence in our existing markets.