NEW YORK: The ability of brands to incorporate music into marketing strategies is set to take another step forward with the development of a customisable internet radio program that will enable them to have their own music app.

Digital music service Gracenote, best known for its audio fingerprinting technology that can recognise the songs being played on digital platforms and then supply related metadata, announced it would be working with Next Big Sound, which specialises in social media chatter around music, to refine its analysis of listening habits and listening recommendations.

"This is all about understanding what consumers are doing," Stephen White, the president of Gracenote, told the New York Times.

He said that Gracenote had good information about some of this, "but with streaming becoming more popular, and the rise of social networks, Next Big Sound will pull together additional types of signals to help understand what's trending".

White added that while many internet radio solutions relied heavily on auto-generated content, Gracenote offered a "unique mix of music experts and machine processes" in building its service.

He explained that companies could use the system being developed, known simply as Rhythm, to create a radio service tied to brands or websites on a global basis. He suggested that car companies would be especially interested as the system could sidestep various licensing restrictions and be used in all vehicles worldwide.

Auto brands have already experimented with music and social media, as was highlighted in a Warc Trends Snapshot (Listen to the Data: Why the music sector holds new opportunities for brands) which suggested that analysis of music data will increasingly be used as a source of consumer insight and engagement.

Skoda invited Swedish singles to share their Facebook and Spotify profiles, before matching people who shared musical tastes and offering them a shared test drive as a 'date'.

Data sourced from New York Times; additional content by Warc staff