As Kacey Musgraves sings in “Follow Your Arrow,” “Just ’cause you can’t beat ’em don’t mean you should join ’em.”
Although most music services prioritize subscriptions over advertising, only around 10% of the global population can afford to pay for music subscriptions, according to Gary Mekikian, CEO and co-founder of Trebel Music, a free, ad-supported service that allows users to download music and play it offline.
Many people also live in areas with a level of internet connectivity that isn’t reliable enough for streaming.
Trebel positions itself as an alternative to streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube and targets the “other 90% of the market,” Mekikian said.
Earlier this week, Trebel released a ChatGPT-powered product called Trebel AI, which instantly generates personalized playlists in response to natural language queries, such as “marathon training playlist,” “background music for working” or “25th birthday party playlist in Spanish.”
Trebel AI is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Bahasa Indonesia.
The power of intent
In the US, Trebel’s addressable market is roughly 100 million people, with a focus on Hispanic consumers because, per capita, they overindex for media consumption, Mekikian said.
But Trebel doesn’t allow advertisers to target any of its users based on personal information.
“We’re not going to guess what you want because of your age, gender, location, ethnicity and so on,” Mekikian said. “We target you based on what you tell us.”
Advertisers on Trebel AI can target users in the moment based on their intent.
For instance, Trebel observed that test users of the Trebel AI app in Mexico were asking for quinceañera song recommendations. That request is also a signal that advertisers can tap into to target those listeners with ads for cakes, dresses and other celebratory supplies. The same goes for wedding playlists and other occasions, from a beach party to date night. Running and cycling playlist aficionados could get shoe, clothing, equipment and personal trainer ads.
And if a consumer asks for song recommendations for their dog – it’s a thing – that’s music to the ears of marketers in the pet industry, Mekikian said. Pet products are projected to generate $143.6 billion in 2023, according to the American Pet Products Association.
Even questions with less obvious answers can be valuable to advertisers, like “What is God?” — which is a real question that’s been asked of Trebel AI as the basis for generating a playlist.
That’s relevant information for a company that sells meditation services, spiritual products or counseling services, Mekikian said.
“Music is omnipresent in our lives,” he said, “and there’s consumer intent to extract from every music search.
Staying in tune with advertisers
Trebel Music works with a wide range of advertisers across multiple verticals and sees programmatic demand from big brands, including The Home Depot, OXO, Amazon, Coca-Cola, Citi and P&G.
The new offering, Trebel AI, has partnerships with an agency and three big brands that Mekikian declined to disclose. The ambition is to work with travel brands and more CPG companies.
The personalization capabilities within Trebel AI are an opportunity to charge a higher rate for inventory than on Trebel Music, where advertisers already pay “double-digit CPMs,” Mekikian said.
In addition to Trebel AI, the majority of Trebel Music’s product pipeline is related to AI-based personalization and AI-enabled advertising products, according to Mekikian. The company, which currently has about 65 employees, is hiring in technical areas, product management and content curation as it invests heavily in AI.
Trebel is also getting into gamification with products like Songtastic, which tests musical knowledge, and plans to run biweekly sponsored Name That Tune competitions in different parts of the world with the chance for players to win prizes.
Music history
Mekikian started Trebel Music with his daughters when they were 14 and 16 after an incident at his younger daughter’s school.
A classmate had illegally downloaded a song from a piracy site and was bombarded by unsafe content.
His daughters – one is now a banker and the other is an industrial designer – still own a large amount of stock in Trebel and serve as what Mekikian call his “kitchen cabinet,” guiding and advising him on product features, including Trebel AI.
Trebel’s corporate investors include TelevisaUnivision, which Mekikian said “owns a significant chunk” of the company,” and VC fund Connecticut Innovations, which led Trebel Music’s approximately $20 million Series A funding round in 2017. Last year, Trebel raised $25 million in Series B funding, led by Indonesian media company MNC Group with participation from Colombian singer-songwriter Maluma, fashion billionaire Christopher Burch and Mexican soccer star Memo Ochoa.
Trebel partners with major music labels, including Sony Music, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group, as well as with digital music licensing organization Merlin and local labels, such as Musica in Indonesia. Labels and artists both earn royalties when Trebel consumers download their songs.
“Globally, our music catalog is close to 85 million,” Mekikian said. “Add the local labels and it can go up to 100 million,” although the company doesn’t keep an exact count.
Trebel also partners with YouTube to make YouTube videos available on its platform.
Ahoy! Avast! Calling all music pirates
It took Mekikian several years to strike licensing deals and establish content relationships. The company was founded in 2014, but it didn’t launch until 2019.
Mekikian frames Trebel as a win-win-win solution for labels, artists and users in an industry still beset by piracy.
Part of Trebel’s appeal to the music industry is that it provides a free – and legal – alternative to music piracy. Somewhere between 90% and 95% of Trebel users are former pirates, according to Mekikian.
Trebel does offer an ad-free tier that consumers can purchase one month at a time, but subscriptions aren’t a priority. The company’s purpose is to provide free music access to the masses.
“Access is the key word that we focus on,” Mekikian said. “Music is not an optional product. People cannot live without music.”
