Mainstream…in the New Communications Economy

Were you one of the lucky ones in the UK that bagged yourself an Oasis ticket?

Despite all the hype, this reunion will pass most people by. As what was once big in culture is now small, and what once was small is now big.

2025 will see the long-awaited return of the Gallagher brothers as a once in a lifetime reunion with 1.4 million tickets snapped up dynamically in a matter of hours.

Yet the cultural impact will be niche, not mainstream.

Let’s start with a direct comparison: 2024 saw Taylor Swift’s global ‘Eras’ tour ended with the most tickets sold in history (10 million). She may be today’s pop princess, but her relative reach is still smaller to yesteryear superstars. When streams and sales are combined, her biggest album, ‘1989’ has only reached 2% of the US population, while releases from Madonna, Whitney and “The Boss” (Bruce Springsteen) reached x2-3 times her impact.

Conversely, what was niche is now also mainstream. For instance, Chappell Roan was last year’s sleeper hit, but through viral performances the drag-queen influenced artist saw her festival sets upgraded and her album slowly climbed from outside the top 200 to the top 10.  Similarly, the previously under the mainstream radar Charli XCX would go on to make Brat the Collins dictionary word of the year.

This rebalancing of big and small is playing out in all corners of culture.

The most watched Netflix series last year, Bridgerton Series 3, saw 106 million viewers tune in globally, but this is still 7.3m less than the first series which aired 4 years ago in 2020. Over this same period of time, the unknown TikTok talent, Khaby Lame, would post his first ever video to limited followers and today has 163 million – and is now the most followed creator on the platform.

The highest grossing film of 2024 and 8th of all time, Inside Out 2, still achieved $1.2bn less than the all-time number 1, Avatar, which premiered 15 years ago. However, today’s major film genres would have been previously considered minor, such as musicals (Wicked) and horror (Smile 2).   

In gaming, Xbox 360 has sold over 86m units worldwide since its launch over two decades ago, but each hardware release since has failed to live up to expectations: Xbox One launched in 2013 with 56m sales (-37%), while the recent X and S series from 2020 have only sold 29m units (-66%). Interestingly, the global phenomenon that is Fortnite started life as an experimental title in a very different sub-genre: player vs environment survival construction.

As media continues to expand, fragment and atomise; mainstream and niche culture have never been closer.

Why does this matter to advertisers?

Brands have always wanted to breakthrough into culture, as it helps them be famous, understood and experienced. Just as culture no longer appeals to everyone universally, brands too will have to appeal to more groups of people to be universal.

2025 will be Oasis’ year, but it will also be the year that Britpop moves from mainstream to niche. But Noel, Liam and the industry will just have to roll with it.