Taking it to the streets
p2pnet.net News View:- You’re not someone who loves music. You’re not even a “teenaged phenomenon”. You’re a “demographic”.
So says Bill Wilson, AOL Entertainment senior vp as quoted in a CNET story on Warner Bros Records’ street teams.
“Street teams have long been a key part of record labels’ grassroots marketing efforts, a kind of Baker Street Irregulars corps of fans, students and paid marketing companies who post fliers, distribute sample discs, and talk up new albums among friends and scene members,” says CNET, going on:
“In Warner’s case, those groups have now been moved under the corporate umbrella of ‘new media,’ in recognition of the critical role the Internet is now playing in the label’s attempts to identify trends and market its music.”
If Warner hasn’t yet identified trends or figured out how to use the Net and p2p for marketing, let alone sales and distribution, there’s not much hope for it.
In any event, “We moved street marketing under new media to make it more accountable and to push more focus onto the Internet,” Jeremy Welt, Warner vp of new media, said at the Music 2.0 music summit in Los Angeles.
“But we’re not just out pushing. We’re trying to learn. We’re trying to get them to tell us what’s going on in their scene.”
‘Them’ has been telling the Big Four record label cartel what they want for years. But the cartel – of which Warner is a founding member, the other partners-in-crime being EMI, Sony-BMG and UMG – just isn’t listening.
‘They’ want to be able to choose mp3s from the complete range of Big Music catalogues, not just a paltry 700,000 examples of stale, cookie-cutter tunes sold through the various corporate music sites.
‘They’ don’t want to be hammered with law-suits because they’re not willing to pay an extortionate dollar a download for low-fi mp3s.
‘They’ just want a fair shake as reasonable people with reasonable expectations.
But these wants and needs aren’t compatible with those of the cartel, which is after only one thing – to be able to herd and control buyers, just like in the good old, pre-internet days.
In the meanwhile, millions upon millions of potential customers (not ‘consumers’) around the world are becoming even more alienated from the corporate music ‘scene’ as they discover countless indie sites and musicians, and find they no longer have to dance to Big Music’s tunes exclusively.
“We’re trying to get them to tell us what’s going on in their scene,” says Welt, the new Warner street teams man.
That’s what’s going on, Mr. Welt.
It’s called ‘competition’.
===================
See:-
grassroots marketing - Record labels’ street teams now online, CNET News, December 9, 2004
December 11th, 2004 at 10:15 pm
exactly its only thick chav’s who actually buy music as they are too stupid to own a computer yet alone know how to downlod