Sustainable success in the music industry: Empirical analysis of music preferences

Sustainability is not just a trend, but an important part of our everyday life including the satisfaction of human needs and preservation of a healthy business environment for present and future generations. The objective of this study is to provide an empirical approach for how to achieve the sustainable success in the music industry. As consumers’ utility toward a certain music product can be shifted up or down depending on the elements that constitute the music, we investigate the effect of musical elements on the consumer’s choice of music. We quantitatively measure the effects using hierarchical Bayesian logit choice model allowing for the individual heterogeneity. Based on the results, we find that utilizing musical components plays critical roles in understanding and predicting consumer choice. In addition, our findings suggest how music marketers can come up with a desirable configuration for music products. Sustainability in the music industry can be justified by whether musical components are well aligned, consistent with consumers’ preference.