citizenbay

If you want to get involved in music, speak to the right people...

Rafael McDonnell from brand entertainment agency RED Entertainment (and the man behind mycokemusic) admitted that at times it can be a nightmare dealing with the music world. He mentioned a deal that Coca Cola was on the verge of securing with The Sugarbabes, after long conversations with their record label. With Coke packs all printed up and ready to go, the formalities of contract signing was all that was left to do. Unfortunately, according to Rafael, the band manager decided that the deal was not for them So Coke had all the marketing and pack collateral but with no artist in place, whilst the record label was left trying to explain themselves to the client

Fellow panellist Gary McClarnon of Sparklestreet and champion of band management, responded:

You were talking to the wrong people

. Ouch!

Record labels can help smooth a Brand's path to music alliances. Yet somewhere along the line, a conversation with the band manager will need to take place. Better earlier than later...

The MP-She has arrived...

Some interesting results from research that EMAP have carried out on music usage amongst their consumers. In summary, more people are consuming music than ever before, females are driving growth and music mags are here to stay (not too surprising statement from EMAP, but true nevertheless).

The most interesting one is that growth in music usage is coming from young women.

Listening to music on ipods, downloading on to their computers, young women are spending £10 per month in the UK on downloaded music. EMAP dubbed them the MP-She. Not sure if this is a brilliant name or suitably throw-away, but let's run with it for a while shall we?

This ultimately undermines the assumption by too many that music marketing has to be focused at spotty boys or their dads who haven't grown up...

Tony Wilson and the Music Concierge

Tony Wilson talked of being a

concierge to artists

whether established or unsigned.

Unsigned bands are every brands' darling right now. The list of brands (consumer and media) who are running searches for the next big thing is getting longer and longer. Even with the contribution that brands play, along with social networks as openers to new music, there is a growing dependence by consumers on someone to guide them through the maze...someone they trust...hence the rise of online record stores, such as Piccadilly Records, as guide, or music journals, such as Mojo, as helper.

Media brands, Online Brands, Consumer Brands...they will all be looking to secure this space more than ever. A time to knock heads together perhaps?

Tony Wilson: Thoughts on the Telco's

Until they are ready to re-think their financial model, the mobile operators will, according to Tony Wilson, hold back the massive opportunity for all to make significant revenues with music in the mobile space. As long as the cost of downloading a track to a phone is significantly more than online, then consumers are going to continue to reject it.

When I attended In The City conference last year, the mobile phone operators were demonised by music management and music industry alike. They were portrayed as the ones who are holding out for massive revenues whilst ignoring the market demand for a more online-comparable pricing for mobile track downloads.

You could say that that both industries have complex pricing models that encourage layer upon layer of fees/royalites et al. Yet, the simple fact is that online we are looking at 79p/99cents a track, and on-phone this can be easily multiplied by four times.

Tony Wilson is absolutely right that until this pricing issue is sorted, the ubiquity of the mobile phone will not translate into music as revenue generator for both music and mobile industries. This though will require a massive leap of faith, fresh thinking and simplicity at the core

Tony Wilson at Brands Bands & Audiences

Opening speaker at Brands, Bands & Audiences was the right honourable member for Manchester, Tony Wilson. The founder of the iconic Factory Records and also of In The City gave a great opener to the conference. Here are the highlights.

Music is counter-culture. Great Bands think they are above commerce

Which is why so many Brands are hesitant to walk into the midst of the music world for potential marketing deals. He shared an example of U2's manager Paul McGuinness putting in two years work to set up a deal with Vodaphone, only for the band to say no at the wire. Their prerogative, they have final say, but it does mean Brands need to be aware of such risks when entering into sonic marketing.

Another comment I enjoyed was:

Guys in suits love money & musicians love music. Myth. It's the other way around. Music is what (bands) do

His example here was New Order taking a big cheque from Sunkist in the U.S. They re-recorded Blue Monday (with words praising Sunkist...yes really) for a large payoff. They thought if would be a laugh, looked fun, but according to Mr Wilson, a little extra push was needed for the words to get recorded. This involved the cheque being held up to the singer (Barney) as he recorded the revised words in the studio....truth or fiction, it still conjures up a great image. After all that, Sinkist decided not to run the ad, but still paid the band!

Ad-supported P2P music service

EMI are going to make their music catalogue available to the first advertising supported peer-to-peer service, called Qtrax, as reported here.

As more of the labels work out how to embrace the technology that they shunned for so long, it will be interesting to see how brands engage with this. Do they work with the majors to secure music partnerships, the 'media owners' working within a TV-advertising model, or with the artist and fans directly? More to explore here...

Brands Bands and Audiences

Tomorrow citizensound will be speaking at the M&M Europe conference Brands, Bands and Audiences. We have helped the guys at M&M Europe pull this event together, and so we are really keen for it to go well!

The day will start with the legend that is Anthony Wilson, co-founder of In The City, and one of the men behind a favourite label of ours Factory Records. Really looking forward to that.

We have a slot to talk about how Brands and Bands are building stronger relationships. At the core of the argument will be that everyone has to benefit...the Brand, the Band and the Audience...sounds pretty obvious, but there are too many examples where this does not happen. Anyway, will see how it goes and post a summary for you. Will also provide summaries of the interesting bits from the day...

The death of radio part 26

If you are 'listening to the radio' are you listening to the bakelite box, the in-car stereo, the digital box in the kitchen or hi-fidelity tuner?

It seems the debate about the existance of radio is focused on being defined by a box of some sort. I never thought I would use it, but here is one time where a little thinking outside of the box (ouch!) could be useful.

I listen to Radio Nova and Gilles Peterson Worldwide and Radio London online while I am working, and Radio 4 on my phone...So am I listening to the radio or not?

I am confused, because the way some commentators talk, radio is dead, yet I am listening to 'the radio' more than ever.

Maybe there is a need to clarify the difference between the distribution mechanism (Bakelite Box, Laptop, phone) and the sensory elements of the content. Ear/Aural media anyone? Maybe not. Perhaps good old Sonic Media might work instead...