Recording Industry students take on Pandora Challenge

Associate Professor Amy Macy (center) leads a group session during the Pandora Challenge.

MTSU’s Department of Recording Industry was one of only five departments in the U.S. chosen to participate in the Pandora Challenge: Music & Social Impact program on Oct. 9. Music business students created a national artist marketing campaign for the indie-rock group Manchester Orchestra and worked to bring awareness to Ewing’s Sarcoma via the 1 Million 4 Anna Foundation.

Group sessions were held in the morning and mid-afternoon, where student participants were given access to Pandora’s Artist Marketing Platform (AMP), Next Big Sound and Pandora’s 76 million monthly active listeners. The students worked to leverage AMP and data from Next Big Sound to engage Pandora’s listeners.

Real Industry, an organization that works to bring universities together with the music industry, conducted the workshop.

“I am honored that Real Industry chose MTSU students to participate in this program. It provided our students with real-world experience and exposure to data and best practices that they might not otherwise receive,” said Beverly Keel, MTSU Recording Industry department chair. “In addition, this day will be special because Manchester Orchestra is managed by Nashville’s Vector Management. One of our alums and former adjunct professor, Jon Romero, serves as Vector’s head of Digital Marketing and Strategy.”

The Pandora Challenge’s goal is to use music, data, technology and marketing to engage the next generation of leaders in music business and marketing to achieve social impact. Other colleges involved are the University of Southern California, New York University, the University of Massachusetts Lowell and Stanford University.

Click here for the Billboard article mentioning MTSU’s participation in the challenge.