About this episode

The episode reveals how marketers Jesse Coren and Andrew Spelman manipulate music tastes to make indie bands mainstream.

In a fairly inconspicuous SXSW podcast, two marketers shook the music industry. Jesse Coren and Andrew Spelman, two co-founders at Chaotic Good, explained how they make bands go viral. Their methods shocked people. Today on Nudge, I reveal how these two marketers use psychological hacks to manipulate the masses and make 'indie' bands mainstream. --- Become an FSB member: https://get.fsb.org.uk/nudge/ Listen to the Billboard podcast: https://youtu.be/v1rP3cpilkM?si=iF2B9zzMQEZ5tSVb Listen to the Guardian podcast: https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2026/may/05/fake-fans-fake-buzz-how-your-favourite-band-got-big-podcast Unlock the Nudge Vaults: ⁠https://www.nudgepodcast.com/vaults⁠ Join 11,931 readers of my newsletter: ⁠https://www.nudgepodcast.com/mailing-list Connect on LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/phill-agnew/⁠ --- Today’s sources: Mallinson, D. J., & Hatemi, P. K. (2018). The effects of information and social conformity on opinion change. PLOS ONE, 13(5), e0196600. Muchnik, L., Aral, S., & Taylor, S. J. (2013). Social influence bias: A randomized experiment. Science, 341(6146), 647–651. Salganik, M.Salganik, M. J., Dodds, P. S., & Watts, D. J. (2006). Experimental…

People in this episode

Host: Phill Agnew

Guests: Jesse Coren, Andrew Spelman

Topics covered

• music marketing
• psychological hacks
• viral marketing
• indie bands
• SXSW

Keywords

• music industry
• viral marketing
• psychological manipulation
• SXSW
• indie bands

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Chaotic Good

Books & works: Nudge, Billboard podcast, Guardian podcast

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