Read more here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061402241.html

“Perhaps more disturbing to the country music industry is the news that 42 percent of those ardent fans who do not have home Internet access have no desire to remedy the situation.”

What’s that?  You want to see it now?  We got you super excited now and you probably won’t remember it or be as excited in 5 months?  Well too bad because ITS COMING!

How many times have you been in a movie theatre and a movie trailer like this comes crashing onto the screen?  The “hurry up and wait” approach has been the movie industry’s #1 marketing gimmick for 30 years.  The “wait” portion can vary, sometimes 2 months, sometimes 12 months.  This strategy has been successful, which is why they continue to use it.

However, it is NOT a strategy that should be applied to any and every form of  entertainment and media.  In fact, I will argue it actually hinders sales.

Take music.

You hear a song on the radio for the first time.  You like this song.  You think to yourself  “this song is fantastic – I want to own it now so I can listen to it multiple times.”  You venture online and fire up iTunes only to find its not there.  You go over to Amazon and find its not their either.  After hours of searching you learn the single was just released to radio and won’t be available to buy for at least 3 more weeks.

Almost 100% of people faced with this situation choose one of two options: A. They go to the PirateBay or use g2p.org and find the song for free, or B. give up, move on and when the song actually does come out, don’t buy it.

In both instances, the consumer is NOT PURCHASING THE PRODUCT!  Why in God’s name wouldn’t the record label or artist have new music immediately ready to consume?  Answer – because they think the movie promo strategy is cool and that it can apply to any industry.  Clearly it can’t.  This is why almost every album is leaked before an official “release date.”

People simply don’t have the time anymore.  They don’t have the patience to be teased and baited and forced to wait.  If your content isn’t ready to consume the moment its first promoted or talked about, then you might as well give up.  You’re purposely leaving money on the table and have no business being IN business.

How about TV?

Same story.  If an episode of a TV show airs, then it should be immediately available to buy the very SECOND it has finished airing.  This goes for domestic and international TV.

Here’s a personal case in point.  I love the new series of Doctor Who.  I don’t live in the UK so I can’t see episodes when they originally air.  Because the BBC has the business sense of a goldfish, they don’t make these episodes available to buy OR to stream after they air.  So I, as a loyal fan, fire up the Pirate Bay and choose from among the many seeded torrents containing the newest episode – download it for free and enjoy it the same day everyone in London does.  I would GLADLY pay $1.oo – $3.00 an episode if I could get them immediately after they air.  I repeat, I WOULD GLADLY PAY!  Why is this option not available to me!?!  It’s so bewildering that I’m almost speachless.

People are no longer going to wait for  a lame-ass strategy of “baiting and waiting.”  There is simply too much competition.  The MOMENT your product is being talked about, it should be ready for purchase.  Not 3 weeks later.  Not 6 months later.  Make the release date the start of your marketing campaign, not the end.

You don’t get a second chance in the new economy.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the internet and the vast and exciting opportunity it has provided content creators, marketers and business people world-wide.  Strategic Blend is built off of these opportunities, so the following rant may seem a bit off-base.

I had the unique experience of “coming of age” during the great transition we’ve just experienced.  I was in middle school in the mid-90s when rock, pop and country music were all at their prime, radio stations actually served the public and music stores were a destination that you SOUGHT OUT when going to the mall.  I remember going on school bus trips and THE savvy kid would always whip out a huge binder of CDs and play “road trip DJ.”  I discovered a lot of music during this time, most of which I still greatly enjoy today.

Because of this, I have a nostalgic pang in my heart for the retail stores of old.  Living in South Dakota, a lot of our small towns had an On Cue or Sam Goody or similar outlet.  Many of our malls had 2 music stores in the same wing.  When you needed something (even cassette singles!) you could find it in these stores.  There was a certain intimacy you felt with the product when purchasing at an actual store.

THEN, on a cool Fall evening in 1999, I discovered Napster.  No longer did I have to make decisions about what I could afford to buy – I could have it ALL!  The next year in college, I was among the many who feasted on this massive buffet every day.  You could load up your Napster queue, go to class and return to a slew of new songs to enjoy.

After Napster shut down, I spent a lot of time in used CD stores, specifically the Great Escape in Nashville, TN.  They had a tremendous selection and I could still consume as much for a very minimal price.  Every weekend I would go down and get 20 CDs for 12-20 bucks.  It was fantastic, and it brought back that intimacy to the product I had been missing.

But then……..iTunes was available for the PC.  No longer did I HAVE to buy new or used CD’s just for one song, when I could get it instantly on iTunes.  Over the course of 2003, I all but abandoned going to an actual retail store and acquired all my music online.

While I was enjoying this new found accessibility, all of the old stores, the On Cues, the Musiclands, the Sam Goodies and Towers and Virgin stores all vanished.  Their spaces now sit empty or occupied by something else un-related to music or entertainment.  Even Borders has completely reduced it’s in-store  music footprint.

And something else unexpected happened….

Because I assembled a massive library of music, the time I spent with a particular song or album shrank.  Where as before I could only afford 2-3 CD’s a month and spent an entire month if not more with that music.  Now I get an album in a day and 2 days later am already on to something else.  I may like that album, but the previous intimacy I experiecned is gone.  I didn’t have to put any thought into whether or not I should buy it – I just got it, consumed it, and moved on to the next.  Like a Viking in the old days, conquering town after town, never really stoping to enjoy the scenery.

This actually makes me sad.  Sad because I have lost that “perception of the product” I used to have, and sad because these once ubiquitous retail outlets are totally gone.  I COMPLETELY understand the economics that drove them away, and I understand all businesses change in time.  However the music business of old, in all it’s facets, was kind of magical in a way.  It was a business that offered many real-world, tangible experiences.  Most of those experiences are gone now, replaced by all online, all digital.  The live show is about the only way left to physically interact with most of the “music experience,” and most live shows are too expensive to attend.

I think many in my generation took this for granted.  We grew up with it, then were easily seduced and energized by new technology…it got the better of us I think.  We didn’t really know what was going on, and now it’s too late.  Granted anyone under the age of 20 will likely not care – they only really know THIS side of the shift.

However there’s a bunch of us, age 25 and older who still long for some semblance of a retail experience again.  Best Buy, Walmart and Target do NOT count – that’s not the same thing.  Certainly there’s an entire demographic of former music fans who don’t participate online and never will, yet still want to be music fans.  How can they enjoy new and old artists when there isn’t that same “magic” that previously existed, luring them in.

We can’t go back in time, and we can’t change the raw power of economics and capitalism.  But these are certainly issues that won’t go away – issues from which any number of new opportunities can and should flow.

By utilizing internet radio algorithms, your music can be discovered by a multitude of potential new fans. Join as many social networks as you can find, use these networks as a net to capture attention back to your “homebase”. In most cases, a homebase is a low cost website should be set up to tell the greater story of your music. Engage your audience, there is more to your brand than JUST the music.

Once you’ve got the information out there, collect and cultivate as much data on your website traffic as possible. Gather email addresses and as much demographic and geographic information as possible. All of this is possible through a few easy plug-ins to your website.

Now you’ve got a wheel with many spokes (the social networks, and the story of yourself being told out on the internet) and you’ve got a hub (a website that stays current, and gives users a reason to return). With this mechanism, you now have the ability to decipher if you’re “winning”… are you doing better than you were a month ago… a week… an hour. Have you gained momentum?

If this is all clear as mud…. Stay tuned, we’ll give you the tools to start your journey.

The author, who appears to be anonymous with no noticeable credit given anywhere on the site, first gives us this little gem:

“If AC/DC’s Black Ice performs, it could have serious long-term consequences for the pre-eminent position of iTunes as a music retailer.”

This is a stretch of the imagination. iTunes has pushed 5 billion tracks since 2003, without the help of many top selling artists or must have albums. The impact of AC/DC’s new album on the service will be negligible.

The article continues:

“Because iTunes steadfastly refuses to “lock” any album..”

False. iTunes has consistently made deals with movie studios and other entities to lock soundtracks. These deals seem to fluctuate with certain albums locking then unlocking, but you can see a current example for yourself by examining the album: Deadwood – Music from the HBO Original Series or the Moulin Rouge Soundtrack. If the author had bothered to do minimal research they would have discovered the same. However, this isn’t the most glaring error. The author then goes on to state:

“Though the Beatles’ back catalogue is still not available on iTunes, this will be the first time in the music store’s short history that it will be deprived of a major current release.”

WRONG! The Eagles Long Road Out Of Eden, one of last year’s most anticipated and biggest selling albums, was sold as a Walmart exclusive and denied iTunes placement. There have been further examples from this year including Kid Rock’s Rock’n'Roll Jesus.

The article meanders on with another one of these

“The release of Black Ice will be a major blow for iTunes’ claim to be the world’s biggest music retailer..”

Which we’ve already covered, but then we learn

“a more significant threat to the company takes place when the mobile phone company Nokia begin to sell their new “Comes With Music” phone in UK stores.”

Instead of rehashing why this is an ignorant, pandering comment, I’ll leave it to the good folks at ArsTechnica who walked through Nokia’s service in a recent column.

So there you have it – another ridiculous article from the Telegraph lacking any true substance and packed with hyperbole and blatantly wrong information.. The lesson here? We could all stand to be a lot pickier about what we read each day, and a lot more critical. The time of hype and spin is over for the music industry – anyone who wants to succeed needs to cut through to the meat of the issues and make good, intelligent decisions based on the data.

Links
The Telegraph Article
Nokia’s Comes With Music won’t worry Apple… yet

From ticketing and touring to production and distribution the “powers that be” in the recorded music industry are teetering on implosion.

Music sales continue to drastically decline, and ~40% of internet traffic is P2P. The most profitable artists market to small niches, have low overhead, and cater to the direct needs of their followers. This is the antithesis of the methodology of major music industry players. They do it their way, get a huge marketing engine behind them, and hope to ram it down your throat with shelf space, promotions, and advertising. Are they really thinking exclusives or better placement in “big box” retail spaces is going to solve the problem?

…The graph says you haven’t moved the dial…. Not this year, and certainly not in the last 5…

Of course, the Titanic can’t turn on a dime and getting the major labels on the same page is about as easy as turning back the hands of time.

As “propped up dinosaurs” and mega country bundles continue to rule the shed’s at $100 a ticket, the industry must prepare for the future… The current average age for concert-goers is approaching 50. I mean, how many times can we keep rolling these folks out and charging exorbitant prices. What’s the saturation point? What happens when they retire? Who are we cultivating as new major touring artists of the future? Who is the BREAKOUT artist of 2008?

Could it be that major labels and concert promoters are one big catastrophe away from a financial tailspin from which they can’t pull out? Multimillion dollar rights deals aren’t yet bonafide, and a few more years of hits to the bottom line of these mammoth companies can’t please investors… these companies aren’t Google of the early 00′s, shareholders need to see returns and a BLACK number at the bottom of financial statements.

I’ll end my rant, perhaps it’s my penchant to fight against authority, or my disdain for the huge organizations, red tape, and aristocracy, but I can’t help but see an opportunity for smaller organizations.

Find the cracks in the mold and exploit them, maximize your piece of the pie by looking where others aren’t.

Perhaps I woke up on the wrong side of the couch this morning. Maybe my coffee is too strong. Or maybe SonyBMG is so stupid about their online marketing efforts that they deserve to be ridiculed first thing the morning… every morning, until they stop damaging their own artist brands.

Case in point:

I’m a new superfan of a band called Low vs. Diamond. They played ‘The Tonight Show with Jay Leno’ last week and just plain knocked me out. (This is why God invented TIVO, by the way.) They have a decidedly English vibe about them a la The Verve and/or The Kooks, but hail from the good ole US of A.

But to my point- I became a fan, wanted to learn and hear more, and made the mistake of visiting their official website to do so.

The first thing on the page is a banner promoting, not my new favorite band, but Epic Records. Clearly, they want me to click on the dropdown lists of artists I DIDN’T just come here to learn more about. Next is a link to “Videos.” “Low vs. Diamond videos?” you may ask. No. It’s a link to the “Videos” page on MyPlay.com, where Bow Wow, Daughtry and Alicia Keys are currently making an appearance, but not even a mention of the band I’m here to see.

Wait! There’s more!

Next up is a link to “Shop.” And you guessed it… It’s a link to the MyPlay store, where Michelle Williams is front and center. John Mayer, Neil Diamond and Billy Joel all make the list… and again, the band that sent me here is no where to be found.

Get the point? There are also links to contests, newsletters and an invitation to surf the web courtesy of Google. They make money on those searches, by the way. Sending visitors to ‘not this site’ is a very profitable business for young artists, I’m sure.

All of this and I haven’t even made it 5 centimeters down the page.

I won’t speak to the design aesthetic of the site as those things tend to be more about personal taste than “right vs. wrong.” I will note, however, that the links in the middle of the page that display news, tour dates, bio, etc, are not the same links, with the same headings, as those that appear at the bottom of the page. Those links take you back over to “MyPlay,” where the band’s bio reads, “… iTunes offers fans an opportunity to purchase the band’s upcoming self-titled album months before its release this summer.”

10 brownie points to the person that can spot what’s wrong with that statement. (Hint: the band has already released their album, summer isn’t months from now, and biographies shouldn’t contain date-relative statements if they aren’t going to be updated frequently. Obviously it’s been at least “months” since this version was posted.)

And as if all of this weren’t enough to convince labels to get their heads out of their arses, the band’s site contains banner advertising, which I guarantee doesn’t earn them enough money to justify the dilution of their brand. Kenny Chesney literally takes more screen space on their Dates page than the promo of their own album up top. (Screen shot below.) I can’t make this stuff up, folks. It’s such an insult to the artist’s own brand it should go without saying, but it doesn’t help Epic, either. How much do you think they spent on the market research that led them to believe that Low vs. Diamond fans had any interest whatsoever in Bow Wow, Alicia Keys or Kenny Chesney? I’m guessing they spent zero dollars on that research, but did pay a high six figure salary to the marketing executive that thought this label-wide strategy was a good idea.

I’m probably not doing myself any favors by railing on a company affiliated with my past and potentially future clients, but this stupidity MUST be stopped for the sake of these artists and their fans. Why bother having an “official” site at all if you’re just going to spam it up, neglect it and insult the people visiting?

And to think… they truly believe that “copyright infringement” is the reason artists have a harder time making a living in today’s world than they did just a decade ago… but that’s another can of worms.

Visit Pinky’s latest venture: http://musicmarketing.ning.com

We can all think back to some of our favorite album covers – album art and packaging that stuck with us and gave us an appreciation for the artist beyond just hearing the songs. (A good music video should do the same, but we’ll save that for another day). You know a good cover when you see one – iconic imagery, carefully crafted logo or nameplate, original illustrations or amazing photography. Yet somehow, lately, many of these components have been totally neglected. How did this happen?

A little history…
From the 50s to the mid 80s, Vinyl ruled and so did big album covers with lots of real estate to try new and interesting ideas. It was important to have a great cover and great photography because the thing was so big, it had to look good! Consumers also organized their albums based on these covers, so the packaging benefited the consumer as well as the label.

Then came the mid 80s and the popularity of CDs, and suddenly covers were a whole lot smaller. The more noticeable change, however, was that consumers were now taking CDs OUT of their cases and putting them in binders and organizers, never to use or care about the packaging again. Labels saw this behavior and decided they didn’t need to spend as much time or money on something a consumer wasn’t going to really care about in the long run. During the next 15 years, great packaging was still released, just not to the same degree as before.

Then came 1999 and Napster and digital music libraries with hundreds of thousands of songs, and album artwork became even less important to many music consumers. So labels and marketing people collectively decided to abandon any real quality in creating cover art and packaging.

Change, of course…
The pendulum of change has swung yet again, and this time it’s returned us to a place where cover art is important. New devices like the iPod Touch have given consumers reason to recognize an album cover, and use it for organizing their collections. Amazon, iTunes and countless digital stores have positioned music product in ways that ONLY display album covers. Most important of all, the sheer glut of product that’s released into the market every single day has created thousands of identical artists with the same sound and imaging. These artists have to not only compete amongst themselves for consumer attention, but also with video games, DVDs, Harry Potter books and everything else you can find at a Best Buy or Borders.

This competition means your product has to have the most compelling marketing message possible, because 9 times out of 10 folks are NOT going to have any familiarity with who you are or what you do. 9 times out of 10 the ONLY interaction they will ever have with your brand will be through your album cover. That’s an opportunity to leave an impression – one that could result in a sale or at the very least a curiosity that could grow over time and online.

Visit any big-box retailer and you’ll see just how important product imaging has become. “Drive-by” impulse buys are becoming the new core business, and if your product can’t move, it’s replaced with something that can. This is why Walmart continues to shrink its music section and has been placing certain albums at the checkout line.

Who’s the biggest offender?
Speaking of Walmart, walk into the dwindling music section of your local and you’re bound to be greeted by an entire row of abysmal CD covers in the Country section. Sure proof that most “creative directors” at Nashville record labels need to be fired. Their idea of packaging seems to include a busy afternoon of taking “generic artist photo” and slapping “generic crappy font” on top. No color correction or creativity required! They probably fired up ‘ole Microsoft Paint to accomplish this. (In case you think I’m exaggerating, take a peak at this.….from 2005!)

Our sources have even confirmed Mike Dungan (head of Capitol Nashville) has stated “cover art doesn’t matter…fans aren’t interested in this.” Clearly this is why Dungan ended up with covers that look like this, or this.

Country covers didn’t always used to be this way. There was a time when the same high caliber photography and creativity that led to so many great pop/rock covers also benefited country. Take Kenny Roger’s The Gambler album cover for example. It draws you in, creates a story and an atmosphere that compliments the music. And it SOLD you. Granted, Kenny had the help of a huge #1 single to push units, but had he not, this cover would have still served as a powerful marketing message and advertisement. The same goes for Restless Heart’s Big Dreams In A Small Town and Wheels covers. Joe Galante (Sony/BMG Nashville head) used to care about this sort of thing. He once employed a creative dept who toiled night and day, sometimes over holidays, to arrive at packaging that truly served the product and helped push sales. No longer.

Lighting the future
Ultimately, it’s the responsibility of every artist to look after the presentation of their product and brand. By understanding the importance of an album cover, you can move one more notch ahead of the competition and build stronger fan relationships. No one marketing piece can have such a widespread, or long lasting impact. Just ask Rob Thomas, who clearly left his last album in the hands of a Phil Collins fan.

Their exceptional vocal harmonies, delivered with flawless perfection, led to a string of hits that included “Bluest Eyes in Texas,” “I’ll Still Be Loving You,” “That Rock Won’t Roll,” and “Why Does It Have to Be (Wrong or Right).” Then the early 90’s Crossover smash “When She Cries.” Disbanding the way they did, what they now simply refer to as “irreconcilable differences”, left them without closure and it was fourteen years before they reunited in the studio. Their long over-due reunion resulted in a their long over-due latest studio album, aptly titled, Still Restless.

The award-winning band, with all five original members, now sounds better than ever. In “What We Know Now,” the autobiographical final cut on their previous project, they sing “We were reckless, young and proud. We had the whole thing figured out. We never saw the writing on the wall. Even though we thought we knew it all. Oh my friend, if we knew then what we know now.” It is very clear that, with the passing of time, they have deciphered the writing on the wall and the best part is that they do know now what they didn’t know then. They haven’t lost any of the talent that took them to the top of the charts and their vocal harmonies remain so tight you wouldn’t be able to get a laser beam between them.

Today, driven by the musical force which brought them together more than a quarter of a century ago, and tempered by their combined experiences and talent, Restless Heart continues to thrill old and new fans by doing what they do best, making great music and having fun.