Music Inc the first music business venture of Loudest.in and Exchange4media’s started with a bang. It was a two-day conference and in its first year, it has managed to garner much attention from the music industries and brands. The conversations and panel discussions were designed to throw light on the confluence of Music, Brands, Technology, and Marketers. The event got to see a huge audience of over 500 people. The conference also brought renowned music and media industry stalwarts together. Among the various enlightening sessions, it started with a cheering welcome note by Mr. Anurag Batra.
They had an interesting line up of key note speakers and panelists like Ellis Rich, ex chairman of PRS and Yvan Boudillet ex Warner Music France.
The line-up included many other big names from corporate brands that had integrated music in their philosophy such as Llyod Mathias who worked previously with Tata Docomo and Motorola, Samar Singh Shekhawat from United Breweries Limited. The panel has diversified to incorporate professionals from various industries which include the likes of Ashish Bhasin-the Chairman and CEO South Asia Dentsu Aegis Network, Sabbas Joseph from Wizcraft Entertainment, Tarun Katyal- the CEO of Zee5, BigFM, Saurabh Sharma- the Country Head of Smule, Shailendra Singh- the Former Joint MD at Percept Ltd & Inceptor of Sunburn and Rohit Pillai- the Associate Director Events & Partnerships, Bira 91, Priyanka Khimani from Anand & Anand & Khimani who was also the first Indian to speak at Grammys Week this year.
There were various interesting topics discussed at the forum like the history of music, the journey of music and how after over a decade music companies are making money from subscriptions. There were some eminent personalities like Armaan Malik who spoke about independent music, Fan Engagement & Direct-2-Consumers Strategies, Salim Merchant who spoke about Advertise Yourself Best with Music Marketing and Shibani Kashyap who spoke about bringing changes in the society through music. There also were young talent likes Azeem Dayani who is a music supervisor, and who spoke about new divisions in the music space.
The highlight of the event was Badshah who spoke about entrepreneurship. He candidly shared "I haven’t attended any business school. My biggest strength is my music. Until I make music I will be relevant. But at one point in my life, I realized that if I won't’ do music then there would be no brand Badshah. Hence, I took a break and started hiring more people, people with certain skills, who could handle my work as I'm not a businessman. I started watching their work and that’s how I learned about business.”
Amar Tidke, Chief Programming Officer of 9X Media shed light on the growth of regional music industry and tapping those markets while Rabindra Narayan, M.D of PTC Network spoke about the ever-growing Punjabi music industry, in a panel discussion skillfully moderated by Kailashnath Adhikari of the SAB group.
The conference was also graced by Bhushan Kumar- the Chairman and M.D of T-series, who shared his valuable inputs about- How the right music drives Bollywood, box office audience, and sales. He candidly shared “my father used to promote independent artists. It was my father's dream, his passion for music, which I'm taking forward. A person must have an ear for music. I got it from my father. We don't make videos for profit”. Raj Nayak, COO of Viacom18 craftily engaged Bhushan Kumar in a never seen before candid interview where the two expressed a desire to show more support to upcoming and talented independent artists.
Aparajita Misra, Editorial Lead, and Founding member, Loudest.in shares “ First time we have had CEOs & CMOs from top industries attending the Conference as audiences! 85 Speakers, 2 Days, 32 deep dive topics! The content of the conference was created with extreme detailing, and I think that was our win! It was incredible how the entire industry came together to initiate conversations around growth hacking, how brands and tech can deeply be integrated with music. Loudest.in aims to go one step further from here, one stop for all the music business solutions. Stay engaged & look forward to music inc. 2.0!”
The Music Inc Conference, true to its motto ventured into discussions surrounding the growth of the music industry and its potentials. The two-day conference concluded with some of the most successful stories and networking with various experts and eminent personalities from the music and entertainment space. Music Inc was truly an integration of music, cover, technology, advertisement, media & brands.