I had considered taking this blog down in order to start-a-fresh, but time and the little voice in my head got the better of me.
Why bother. Let’s just move on.
Nothing to see here, just a new job, a new focus and a seriously exciting challenge ahead.
In short, I’ve left LBi the digital agency where I was for nearly 5 years to go ‘permy’ at Universal Music. I’m swapping all that variety, travel and high octane agency stuff for a clientside role in the music industry.
I’ll miss the pitching I must say. I loved a good pitch, but as I went out on a high with winning Etihad Airways I can lay that to rest.
And of course I’ll also miss several folks from LBi whom inspired me, endured my incessant juvenile use of email and generally had fun with on a daily basis. But this new opportunity is too good to miss.
Some of my friends think that I’m utterly insane moving to ‘collapsing industry’. But I say hogwash. The idea that the music industry is in trouble is laughable.
Yes CD sales are down. Yes high street retailers are falling like flies (Zavvi, Woolworths, etc). And yes, those high street retailers that do remain are dedicating less and less rack space to music products (see HMV and it’s range of games, Blueray and DVDs), but honestly.
While the middle bit is in need of some serious transformational action, it has a guaranteed supply chain.
Kids will always make music.
People will always listen to music.
We just have to rethink how the middle part works.
Ahem.
I’m joining my former client, Gideon Lask, in a bid to help Universal and all it’s labels open new channels to the consumer and create reasons for them to engage directly (via artists, labels, fans even). Some call it Direct to Consumer (D2C), some call it eCommerce, some call it ‘participation’ or the ‘Age of Conversation’.
Whatever.
It’s a fairly clear challenge facing us. Traditionally a company such as Universal didn’t have to worry about understanding the consumer and their behaviour; how they bought, shared and consumed music. For sure the A&R side is about understanding the current temperature of an audience and what artists will and won’t fly, but there hasn’t been any traditional user needs type information in terms of consumer lifecycle.
With a decline in retailers, it’s now a music industry imperative to understand it’s audience and develop products and services for them. It’s time to reinvent the music product, understand the culture of the fan, think about music discovery, usage and advocacy. Think about incremental releases, deep fan culture and short attention spans.
It’s time to deal with piracy, copying, the ‘economics of abundance’ and the ‘economics of scarcity’ as my mate Phil would say.
It’s now time to seriously consider the rise of live music, merchandising and the fact that XBox sold over 50 million tracks last year, the iPod and it’s grip on the personal music player market, the music phone and it’s grip on the iPod. DRM, artist rights, licensing, royalties, territories, torrents, streaming etc etc.
I’ll be working across Universal Music and it’s labels (Polydor, Island, Def jam, Mercury, A&M, Interscope, Geffen etc etc).
Exciting stuff to be part of. Play with. Solve and of course, occasionally fuck up.
I won’t go into all the reasons I’m doing this, but suffice to say that in terms of blog feeds, my subject coverage has halved.
Nice.
More time to listen to all that free music I’m now getting.
NB – I guess I now have to say that opinions expressed in this blog are not that of Universal Music or any of it’s subsidiaries.
That’s corporate life for you.
Technorati Tags:
music industry, Polydor
Technorati Tags:
Def Jam, Mercury, Universal Music, Music Industry, A&M, Geffen, Interscope, Polydor, Disruption, Transformation Design, Service Design
