Music Ally Sandbox Guide: Southeast Asian Trigger Cities

I’ve had the pleasure of working with the Music Ally team over the past few months, as the author of their Sandbox Guides. Sandbox Guides are monthly features exploring a specific area of music marketing, and over the past months, I’ve had the chance to dig deep into subjects including artist activations on Roblox, community management on Discord, Country Music marketing, Sonic Branding, and much more.

This latest guide will be my final contribution of 2023, and explores marketing opportunities in Southeast Asian Trigger Cities, with input from Spotify, Stellar Trigger Marketing, Chartmetric and Downtown.

Thanks to everyone that took the time to share their expertise, and I look forward to getting stuck into new topics and guides in 2024. Read the latest Sandbox Guide to Southeast Asia Trigger Cities on the Music Ally website.

When looking at the success of viral tracks, you’d be hard pressed to find a song achieving traction on a global scale that doesn’t have Quezon City, Surabaya or other major Southeast Asian destinations listed amongst its top streaming locations. The likes of Troye Sivan, HONNE and an ever increasing number of local Southeast Asian artists such as Lola Amour boast huge streaming audiences within these ‘Trigger Cities’, with campaigns targeted towards the region producing powerful streaming results on a global scale.

Trigger City campaigns are now frequently slotted into marketing strategies, targeting densely populated, digitally engaged cities to kick-start artist campaigns, and to reignite interest in catalogue - and Southeast Asia has long been a destination which brings in big numbers. With local repertoire now growing to occupy more space than ever before in many of Southeast Asia’s most active streaming markets, we take a closer look at how international marketers are continuing to activate impactful streaming and social campaigns in key Trigger Cities, as well as exploring the knowledge needed to access these rapidly expanding and evolving markets.