EXPRESS: Driving Music Demand in the Age of Streaming: Understanding the Heterogeneity in Curated Playlist Effectiveness

The shift from physical music consumption to online music streaming has fundamentally transformed the market for recorded music, giving consumers access to millions of songs on demand. Because streaming platforms pay artists and labels on a per-play basis, sustained listening and effective discovery have become essential for generating meaningful revenue. With traditional marketing losing relevance for recorded music, curated collections in the form of playlists have emerged as a potentially vital tool for labels to lift streaming demand. As a result, labels have started to deploy playlist marketing by either curating their own playlists or by targeting influential playlists curated by others. However, the success factors behind the impact of playlists on song demand remain insufficiently understood. An analysis of 200,455 quasi-experiments where songs are listed on playlists and later delisted shows an average listing effect of 8.5% more global streams and a carry-over effect of 4% after delisting. Although these effects are highly heterogeneous, they can be systematically explained by playlist design characteristics, including playlist popularity, the song’s prior playlist exposure, the fit between the song and playlist, curator identity, and the curation approach. These findings empower labels to deploy more informed playlist marketing to lift streaming revenue.