October 11, 2007 – 8:44 am
Back in the day, recording artists made the bulk of their revenues from merchandising. Herbie Herbert, Journey’s burley manager, was the first person I was aware of who exploited this fact to great benefit. I was told that Journey made more money from merchandising sales and touring receipts than from their platinum albums.
I got a lengthy email survey from Live Nation, the big international touring promoter, asking my opinions about U2, from what albums I owned to how much I would pay for concert tickets at various sections of an arena.
Then, this morning, I read in the New York Times about Live Nation’s impending deal with Madonna.
Madonna is nearing an agreement with Live Nation, the concert promoter, that would pay her more than $100 million in exchange for three albums and the exclusive rights to promote her concerts and to market her merchandise in a wide-ranging partnership, according to people briefed on the talks.
So merchandising and touring has replaced record companies at the top of the music heap. Prince makes a huge deal with a London newspaper, Radiohead and Trent Renzor exit their major label deals to go it alone, Madonna signs with a concert promoter, Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell sign with Starbucks, and the Eagles go to Wal Mart. Sure signs of the music business apocalypse.
I predict U2 will be the next major act to announce a deal with Live Nation. You heard it here first.
October 11, 2007 – 8:08 am
When you want to go out in style.
See all the products here
October 8, 2007 – 1:24 pm
New Japanese (Nissan) concept car, the Pivo 2, makes reverse gear obsolete, and parallel parking perpendicular… and of course it looks like a cartoon character! What would they have to do to this car to make it viable in the U.S.?
October 4, 2007 – 7:41 am
If only it could be the DMB…
For info on how you can book your special vacation, go here
October 2, 2007 – 3:06 pm
Ever wonder why products and services are bad? Shouldn’t companies be able to make their offerings better, perhaps through market research? It may have been clear to us at Matter for years, but it looks like some other folks are finally getting it…
“Marketers generally distrust research and data,” said Greg Stuart, former CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau. That attitude helps keep the industry driven largely by gut instinct and what Mr. Stuart calls “tribal custom.” But tradition and gut are increasingly impractical given the complexities of modern marketing, he said.
He cites a relatively simple marketing plan with five elements — positioning, segmentation, TV, print and online media plans — and five choices within each element. It amounts to more than 3,000 permutations. “We’d have to be out of our minds to think we could know what to do in our gut,” he said.
Researchers’ relatively low status within companies and agencies, he said, leads to marketers ignoring their advice or never seeking it in the first place. At the same time, many marketers’ inability to understand the methodology and calculations behind data they get, Mr. Stuart said, “allows research to be abused, sometimes by researchers but also by people trying to sell things.”
“There is a general belief [among researchers] that over 50% of the research done at companies is wasted,” said Bob Barocci, CEO of the Advertising Research Federation. “They’re asked to do things that, even if the research project is perfect, won’t be useful.” He attributes much of that to research done purely for defensive purposes to support decisions already made. “It’s covering-your-butt kind of thinking,” he said.
But he also blames research departments for much of the disconnect with marketers. “Often all we do is present numbers,” Mr. Barocci said. “We don’t present insights.”
Kimberly-Clark Chief Marketing Officer Tony Palmer said survey research itself may be part of the industry’s image problem. “It’s becoming harder and harder to get people’s attention to do research,” Mr. Palmer said. “It’s becoming clearer and clearer that what people say and what they do is different. So there’s a real need to drive research to newer techniques, toward research that deploys anthropology and observation.”
Read the entire AdAge.com article here
October 1, 2007 – 1:31 pm
It was announced last week that Brooklyn has approved $2MM for a new high school dedicated to advertising and media education. Set to open in September 2008, the new school is designed to “foster a relationship between minority youth and the ad industry, allowing students to explore careers in advertising and media while helping to promote diversity in the industry.” Whose tail is wagging whom?
NYC’s Marketing-Focused High School Could Struggle to Cover the Basics When the Basics Keep Changing
By Simon Dumenco
Can you teach “Throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks”?
Last week’s announcement that a New York high school that focuses on “advertising and media studies” is set to open as soon as September 2008 has me thinking that maybe we need to update the old saying that so cruelly disparages educators:
Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. In regard to Ad High, it’s more along the lines of, those who can’t figure out what the hell is happening to their profession hope that maybe, just maybe, something of it, somehow, is still clear enough that it can actually be taught.When I consider the media lifestyle of the average high-school student — which involves the ever-increasing rejection of professionally produced, ad-supported media in favor of à-la-carte/DIY/social-networking content, along with exceedingly elastic notions of authorship and intellectual-property rights — it occurs to me that maybe a bunch of teens should band together and open an ad/media school themselves. For adults. Let the kids teach the grown-ups exactly how they’re exploding our business models. I bet plenty of 40-something and 50-something industry vets would pony up serious cash for tuition.
Rick Boyko, head of VCU’s AdCenter, will advise creation of ‘Ad High.’
Read the full commentary here
October 1, 2007 – 1:11 pm
We talked about subscription versus advertising models for content providers in an earlier blog post. Now one of the biggest bands in the world is demonstrating the “pay what you value” model and the “premium packaging” model for music content. This is the experiment to keep your eyes on.
Radiohead to give away new album
By Angela Monaghan
Radiohead, the internationally renowned band, has taken the unusual step of telling fans that they can pay as much or as little as they like for the band’s new album In Rainbows.
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| Radiohead Hail to the Thief album cover |
In a break from industry tradition the UK band famous for hits including Creep, Paranoid Android and Karma Police, has told fans “it’s up to you” what they pay to digitally download the album.
Read the Daily Telegraph article here and Shane Richmond’s commentary here
October 1, 2007 – 12:15 pm
Folks in the experience business know that brands exist in context, and this context is the lens in which consumers of products and services experience brands. This notion is in stark relief against prevailing attitudes of advertisers, who often seek to foist experiences upon consumers, turning simple experiences into grande spectacle. Better to distract consumers from their own experience, else they realize the product or service in front of them may not be something useful.
In this environment, it is not surprising a voice of change for the Advertising Research Foundation found he was beating his head against a wall.
Plummer’s Push to Find Metric for Tactic Ends Amid ‘Disappointment’
By Megan McIlroy
Published: October 01, 2007
An industrywide engagement metric, that ever-elusive concept that has baffled some of advertising’s brightest minds, took a major hit last week when one of its leading proponents, Joseph Plummer, the Advertising Research Foundation’s chief research officer, stepped down from his post.
Joseph Plummer
As ARF’s poster boy for bringing precision and measurement to engagement, Mr. Plummer was at the forefront of moving the industry from a reach-based ad model (one characterized by TV’s gross rating points) to one that tried to capture how consumers reacted to ads (rather than simply reporting on whether they were in a position to see those ads). But the concept of engagement has been stymied by competing interests.
“Engagement has turned out to be such a controversial and ambiguous and sometimes contentious word,” said David Marans, exec VP, IAG Research. All eyes were on Mr. Plummer at a 2006 ARF event when he unveiled the advertising group’s definition of engagement: “Turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context.” Some media executives were less than impressed with what came next. “I don’t think the industry knew what to do with [that definition],”one media executive said.
Read the AdAge.com article here
October 1, 2007 – 11:04 am
This is an interesting concept I came across while reading about decentralized company organizations. The idea is that a group of tech-savvy friends can get a “Startup Weekend” in their town. Usually the group includes people from different disciplines (pr, marketing, tech/coding knowledge, design, etc.) who work together to create a business from “Concept to completion in just three days.”
At least one product has launched: Vosnap. Vosnap allows you to create instant surveys among friends (i.e. “Where should we eat for lunch?”) by text messaging or email. It will be interesting to see what other ideas come out and how much success they have.
October 1, 2007 – 10:08 am
With the cost of a new or restored Mellotron approaching $4000+, who wouldn’t want the plans to make your own?
This week Eric Beug joins me this week to make a musical instrument out of walkmans. The mellotron is an instrument that uses taped audio through a keyboard interface. Finding inspiration in Mike Walters’ Melloman, we hacked together a simple circuit to trigger loops of tape to make a super simple sampler. We had originally thought to use getlofi’s parallel port sequencer, but ended up going with the arduino instead.
Read more and see video here