Ashleigh Millar

Ash's key areas of interest are social media and entertainment, short-form video, and online marketing.

BE THE CHANGE
Gender equity in music

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Hanna Kahlert, Tatiana Cirisano, Sophia Oleksiyenko, Ashleigh Millar, Samuel Griffin and Kazia Rothwell
Free Report
Business Strategy
Audience Insight
In many ways, women ruled the music industry in 2023. Women swept the 2024 Grammy Awards, winning all the “big four” categories. Taylor Swift and Beyoncé completed record-breaking tours and, according to the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, the share of women artists on Billboard’s US Hot 100 year-end chart reached a 12-year high of 35%.
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MIDiA’s 2024 predictions report
The algorithm is not listening

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Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan, Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert, Kriss Thakrar, Ashleigh Millar, Tatiana Cirisano, Perry Gresham, Kazia Rothwell and Ben Woods
Business Strategy
2023 was another year of change and disruption. 2024 will be even more defined by change than the years that preceded it. But much of this change will be defined by reaction more than action. The unintended consequences of years of innovation have resulted in environments where many consumers are getting further away from their wants and needs, not closer.
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Gig tickets: artist discovery versus consumer satisfaction

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Ashleigh Millar
Music
Media and Marketing
Marketing Strategy
Since the return to normal, superstars and up-and-coming artists alike are creating new ways to adapt to the attention economy – and live performances are no exception. In a world accustomed to on-demand content, where trends and interests are fleeting, and the music market is hugely oversaturated thanks to the growing creator tools economy, creators need to find ways to entice fans to come to their live gigs.
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Swift and Healy set the tone for live music in the 2020s

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Ashleigh Millar
Taylor Swift
the 1975
Marketing
When P!nk released her Greatest Hits…So Far! album back in 2010, radio show presenters were quick to respond by discussing what they believed would become the death of her career. According to them, greatest hits albums were essentially the nail in the coffin for music artists; a struggling attempt to stay relevant, unlikely to escape the ‘grand finale’ effect of the project.
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Snapchat and TikTok: The hAIghs and the lows of AI in social

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Ashleigh Millar
Snapchat
Media and Marketing
Marketing Strategy
Thanks to the record-breaking success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, all eyes are on artificial intelligence. From generative AI to social media filters, consumers have a growing expectation from entertainment, considering the quality of output from tech that they have at their disposal – not to mention the constant exposure to content using AI.
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Authenticity in the West versus artificiality in the East

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Ashleigh Millar
AI
artificial intelligence
virtual reality
You might have heard the term “deinfluencing” floating around the internet recently. For context, earlier this year, a popular American TikTok beauty influencer, Mikayla Nogueira, took to the app to promote L’Oréal’s new ‘Telescopic Lift’ mascara , a brand with which she is a paid partner (although this detail was conveniently placed in a hard-to-read area of the video).
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Year of change
Themes that will shape entertainment in 2023

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Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan, Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert, Kriss Thakrar, Ashleigh Millar, Tatiana Cirisano, Annie Langston, Perry Gresham, Samuel Griffin, Ben Woods and Srishti Das
Spotify
YouTube
Amazon
This report deep dives into the themes identified in MIDiA’s 2023 predictions report. These themes will drive innovation in the digital entertainment landscape in 2023 across music, video, games, audio, cultural trends, and the creator economy. Expect 2023 to be a of period significant disruption and innovation forced upon the digital entertainment industry, as nearly two decades of uninterrupted growth makes way for consumer-led disruption that is driven by a reduction in discretionary spending, attention, and willingness to make do with tired old formats.
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Social 2.0
Social media’s survival of the fittest, and how marketers fit in

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Ashleigh Millar
YouTube
Netflix
Facebook
The history of social media has long been defined by continual evolution and iteration, but now shifts across the value chain are becoming more substantive, heralding a new era. Social platforms themselves are changing, and so too are the attitudes, expectations, and behaviours of their users, with audiences’ appetites for carefully curated, heavily edited posts turning sour, and their thirst for authentic, participatory content growing stronger.
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