2 posts tagged “ioda”
Just spent a very interesting two days at San Francisco’s Bandwidth conference.
I’ll just skip to the (many) bits & ideas that rocked my socks. All of this will take much digestion, and maybe it’s the beer talking, but there’s an absolute gold-mine in here. I’ll highlight a different point or two over the next few posts.
The Economics of Abundance or Give All Your Music Away for Free
As you may know, I’ve been intrigued by this proposition lately. At the ‘E-Merging Labels’ discussion (basically a panel about Label 2.0 ), I brought up the idea and was roundly shot down by the speakers:
- IODA’s Marketing Chief
- Real Networks/Rhapsody Indie Music head
- GM of Label Quannum Projects (Blackalicious, Lyrics Born, DJ Shadow)
- Founder of Label/Social Network, Fuzz.com
That was not the end of it the matter, though. At the final panel about “The Future of Music”, the theory raised it’s head again, although it was passed over very quickly. The panelist who raised it?
Pop Culture & Entertainment editor of Wired magazine, Nancy Miller.
The same Wired magazine who’s editor, Chris Anderson, proposed the “Long Tail” theory and is currently finalizing a book, “Free”, on the subject here at hand. And yes, he’s giving it away.
I pressed Nancy at the bar afterward, and her response was basically, you need to sell you. Sounds silly, but it’s really the Russell Simmons model. An extreme example? A locally popular New Orleans band started their own business, branding their product with their name.
CDs? Not a chance.
They’re making (and selling) Hot Sauce.
Ridiculous cross-promotion tactics aside, this raises an interesting question: For a small, unknown label, giving all music away as a "growth-of-market" tactic makes sense. But if you were Rounder (who’s got about 500 Sound Recording copyrights) or even my employer: How do you suddenly tell them that the very thing that brings value to their company, as it stands, is essentially worthless in today’s music economy?
And another thing that just hit me: What does it say that at a conference that is largely attended (and populated) by people who rely on the monetization of digital media, that this idea is largely ignored? HEY! It's MY blog and I can make a stretch once in a while, OK? ;-)
Here's more on the Economics of Free.
Coming up – The Death of Artist “Mystique”, Warner Bros. VP dodges questions about DRM/Scarcity, Celebrity Deathmatch! - Pandora’s Tim Westergren Vs. SoundExchange’s Jon Simpson at the Streaming Rates Panel, The Vinyl Boom: Here to Stay?, Collapsed Copyright, The “Science” of Online Marketing and The DEATH of DRM. Whew!
As far as digital music promotion goes, I'll stand by my long-tail principles here when I say I think this is a two step process:
1. Make it available
2. Help me find it.
Although IODA/Orchard and other digital distributors will all pitch that they have a "marketing" staff or a "licensing" dept. to justify their commissions charges, the truth is most indies are way at the bottom of the food chain. My understanding is that IODA's marketing dept. consists of TWO individuals, for a catalog that's approaching 80,000 tracks!
Now that point 1 has been put to bed by most labels and artists, let's look at point 2.
In digital music the only method of gaining extra exposure for your releases at the point of sale is editorially. Used to be that paying a store for a Co-Op would get you P.O.S. exposure, but now Editors at the various services are responsible for the albums that make it into email blasts, daily downloads, brand partnerships, iTunes Store banners and other exposure programs.
In my opinion, the only way to get the ear of editors is to form solid working relationships with your reps at the various services on a person to person basis. Work with reps, reps flag your releases for editors, editors take note and feature, more $$$ for you.
Although I'm still working with IODA, I'm beginning to believe that Digital Distributors simply muddy the waters as far as music promotion goes. Although the service is convenient, if you give up all of your responsibilities of service and promotion to a third party, you deny yourself the chance to build relationships, awareness of your label and ultimately sell more music.
