Latin Music + Brands: A Cross-Cultural Added Value
Latin music has seen significant growth among U.S. audiences, with a 15.1% increase in streams from 2023 to 2024, making it the fastest-growing streaming genre. Latin music attracts diverse audiences and offers brands a powerful gateway to connect cross-culturally. This article delves into how brands can leverage this genre’s expanding influence and cultural resonance. In recent years, music has experienced remarkable growth and innovation. Several factors have contributed to this positive trend, including advancements in technology, the evolution of business models, and the impact of the pandemic. These elements combined have ushered in an extraordinary era of music discovery, allowing listeners to explore a vast array of genres and artists like ever before. Consumers are increasingly open to discovering new music, driven by accessible streaming platforms and personalized recommendations that cater to their tastes.
Spanish-language music is the second most consumed language in the U.S., accounting for 23% of overall listeners, which surpasses the Latino population percentage of 20%.
Latin music, in particular, has seen significant growth among U.S. audiences, averaging a 3.5% increase since 2021. This trend allows brands to add value beyond appealing to the Latin consumer. Notably, Spanish-language music is the second most consumed language in the U.S., accounting for 23% of overall listeners, which surpasses the Latino population percentage of 20%. Latin music ranks the fifth most popular genre in the U.S., supporting the theory that music listeners are becoming increasingly language-agnostic.
Moreover, it’s essential to consider that not all Latinos speak Spanish. Yet, they also engage in the culture through their extended family, partners, and friends, who may or may not be Latino. Those communities are also fans of Latin music and engage with other elements of the culture. These adjacent communities can potentially be additional target consumers, and music is a great way to tap into the cross-cultural value that Latin music can offer.
Music can enhance brands’ value by appealing to the sound preferences of both target audiences and adjacent groups. The key is establishing a sonic identity beyond merely aligning with a single sound or genre. Instead, it should reflect the brand’s overall identity, resonate with the target audience, and incorporate sounds that will attract them.
Utilizing music from a more nuanced perspective—beyond recognizable songs, simple chords, melodies, or beats—can be as effective as using a famous track, provided it creatively and demographically aligns with your brand’s identity. According to an Ogilvy study, 82% of individuals aged 18 to 64 want a sonic brand, and 75% feel a stronger connection to brands with a distinct audio identity.
Social media has become the most significant driver of music and brand awareness since the pandemic, with Latin music leading the way. When combined with a compelling creative strategy, a strong music synchronization partnership can enhance brand reach and awareness, potentially resulting in increased consumer engagement. TikTok recently reported that ads featuring sound significantly improve sales conversion and brand favorability, with viewers 68% more likely to remember the brand. Meanwhile, Meta found that 80% of story content that includes voiceover or music produces better results in low-funnel engagement.
Meta found that 80% of story content that includes voiceover or music produces better results in low-funnel engagement.
To effectively leverage social media as an asset for music use, it’s essential to understand the tools available on popular platforms. The three major social media platforms provide music libraries featuring pre-cleared music that can be used for business purposes. Below is an overview of these tools and current trends on these platforms.
Latin Music: How TikTok Can Help Brands Leverage the Passion
TikTok has revolutionized how music and brands interact and offers various tools to promote music for brands with an “Always On” strategy. TikTok is an excellent space to use Latin Music across brands, as 5 of the top 10 summer TikTok songs were in Spanish.
5 of the top 10 summer TikTok songs were in Spanish.
The TikTok Commercial Music Library is an excellent tool for pre-cleared music that you can use immediately without having to obtain additional approvals and at no cost. The CML is a subset of the General Library that offers music for business accounts that can be used in paid ads or “organic” content and is pre-cleared for use on the app for up to 60 seconds. This library stands out among other site tools as it offers a variety of “real” music by independent artists, music in the top music charts, and catalog music, and is a great way to jump on a trend fast. When selecting music for your ads, you can see how many creates a song has. If you want to dive deeper, you can use the TikTok Creative Center to search for a song and find basic stats such as age, most popular territories, and similar likes for users who select the song for their content.
Attaching a brand to a Latin music trend can allow a brand to tap into enhanced fan moments. Let’s look at 2 case study trends and see how value could have been added to a brand.
Commercial Music Library Trend Case studies:
“Hay Lupita” by Lomiell
200K+ Creates
50M+ views
This song was trending on the general music library in early summer 2024 and was added to the commercial music library in August resulting in a boost from 80K+ creates to over 200+ creates in 1 month. These creates gathered 45M+ views. Adding a brand to this song at peak performance has the potential to tap into a portion of those views and can increase engagement, viewership, and likes on a brand.
“Dile” by Los Inquietos del Vallenato
250+ million creates
65M+ million views
This song was a new release by a band from Colombia with a 20+ year career. The song was added to the Commercial Music Library in April of 2024 and quickly began trending as Real Madrid picked it for their Liga Championship post. Immediately after, 2 other Spanish teams used the song, and it continued to be picked up by soccer fans across Spain, Latin America, and the US, going right before Copa America becoming an unofficial soccer anthem for the 2024 summer championship season.
Notable Trends on TikTok:
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Instagram is the most active music audiovisual content app in the Meta landscape. Instagram offers a very attuned audience as users primarily see content they choose to follow, so it’s a great way for consumers to tune in to their liked artists’ music and other pages, such as music news sites that can inform them. It’s also an excellent space for up-and-coming artist music, especially when the content is available on IG reels.
Notable Trends on Instagram:
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The Meta Sound Collection is a library of pre-cleared music used in Meta ads. You can search for music by genre, mood, keywords, and other descriptive metadata. There is also a tool that lets Meta’s ad manager automatically select a song based on the content of your ad.
Latin Music: YouTube
YouTube shorts are growing fast to 31% growth among music fans in Q2 2024 with a more age-diverse audience than TikTok. Via the YouTube Audio Library, creators can add pre-cleared music to their videos. The library contains music and sound effects that genre, mood, artist, and duration can search. Some tracks are free, but others require attribution or credits in the description.
Notable Trends on YouTube
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Honorable mentions…
WhatsApp has had a stellar performance with Latin music internationally. Sharing music on the app is a testament to cross-cultural marketing and can also translate for brands attaching themselves to music trends.
Twitch is a Live Streaming Platform that supports both new and existing artists. Brand sponsorships of live streams are an important space as live performances are garnering views at greater rates than before the pandemic.
Sources
*Luminate Mid Year Report 2023
+IFPI Global Music Report
*Ogilvy 2024 Influencer Trends
Founder, LAC Music Services (Former Tik Tok, Paramount)
Leslie Arredondo-Cordero is a music executive with a strong background in commercial music policy, sync licensing, and creative strategy, specializing in cross-cultural markets. She most recently oversaw commercial music strategy for Latin America and US Latin at TikTok, where she worked closely with agencies and brands on effectively implementing music on platform campaigns. She has collaborated on hundreds of music-activated marketing and brand integration initiatives. In addition to her experience in music, Leslie is an advocate for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and served as Co-Chair for Paramount’s Latine Resource Group, SOMOS, earning an Imagen Award in 2022 for her contributions to increasing Latino narratives in media.
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