The below is reproduced with kind permission of Record of the Day magazine (15/07/10)
The BPI Annual Conference for Members took place last week ahead of the BPI AGM and organised by Julian Wall, BPI Director of Independent Member Services featured 2 separate panels looking at Social Networking and Music Retail for indie labels. In his introductory speech Wall took a quick inventory of BPI Independent member activities over the year. This included the very successful annual BPI international trade missions to the US & Japan and the announcement of an inaugural one to Scandinavia, scheduled for September; a new initiative with AIM & Julie’s Bicycle to quantify the economic and ecological costs of physical promos and provide independents with a road map to digital only promotional servicing; the new OCC independent chart; and of course the Digital Economy Act and the BPI’s commitment to fully protect the interests across its entire membership, especially the independent labels as the details of the legislation begin to be worked out.
Julian Wall, BPI Director Independent Member Services introduces the BPI Annual Conference for Members.
Following this the first of the day’s panels took to the stage. Moderated by Music Ally’s Paul Brindley, the Social Networking panel guest list included Christopher Moser of MySpace, Ryan McCann of Music Alley and previously Rough Trade, Karl Nielson of AEI & Media Junction’s Neil Cartwright, all of whom urged independent labels to fully utilise all the marketing opportunities this ‘new medium’ offers. The sheer extent of the growth of social media was pointed to by Brindley in that visits to social media sites in the UK now exceeded those to search engines, and this differential is getting larger each month. Facebook recently signed up its billionth customer and MySpace now boasts 110 million users per month. MySpace UK Managing Director Christopher Moser reminded the audience that the site built its reputation on music and remains firmly committed to that ethos, in which artists and fans are the main traffic drivers. Moser conceded that although MySpace sees subscription ultimately as the principal revenue source, setting the correct price point for this remains elusive. However, already receiving some (small) income stream already through social networking activities was panellist Karl Nielsen from Drum&BassArena, who informed the audience that his company was enthusiastically engaged with the Google partnership scheme to try and monetize some of his label’s acts. Neil Cartwright from Media Junction evangelised how his clients the Chicago rock band OK Go had (somewhat against the wishes of their then label) energetically embedded their music and videos across the social media landscape and through careful analysis of the metric information yielded by social networks, now hugely benefitted from ticket, merchandise and other sales through their internet audience.
Social Networking panel networking together!
Ryan McCann talked about the need for social networks to stimulate debate and discussion to fully engage fans and draw in the wider audience alike – something that had been put to very positive effect with his projects, Gang of Four & The Magic Numbers. Questions from the audience to the panel included Cherry Red’s Iain McNay who probed their views on where this would leave some of the more traditional forms of ‘social networking’ such as the family television. – the consensus being that if not entirely a replacement, the visual social networks and the YouTubes of the world would offer complimentary experiences, and also perhaps competitive advertising avenues. Paul Sheddon of Shed Music requested the panel’s advice on how to manage the various timelines that came into play in the social networking upfront of new releases and in the promotional mix - suggested remedies included putting up samples rather than full tracks as well as 24/7 vigilance across the blogosphere to address early ‘leakage’.
The state of retail in the UK remains a pressing problem for all independent labels and the second panel took a long hard look at this with a stellar cast list including Sister Ray’s Phil Barton, Proper Music and ‘Last Shop Standing’ author Graham Jones, plus independent label owners Ian Grenfell of Simplyred.com & Sumit Bothra manager of Boxer Rebellion – both of whom had recently done exclusive deals with Tesco & HMV respectively. Tesco Entertainment Division Director Rob Salter and Gennaro Castaldo of HMV were also both on the panel. To start with there was an examination of the ‘exclusive deal’, which Rob revealed that the Simply Red album Tesco had recently sold came about as much because he was looking to uplift the music profile within Tesco’s enormous product range, as for above-the-line commercial reasons. At HMV Sumit Bothra was full of praise for the working relationship the project had established with the retailer, who took a very strategic view of the release allowing Bothra to market the album digitally and through live gigs etc. Sister Ray remains an outpost for independent music and Phil Barton was most grateful for those labels and artists that had supported the recent ‘Record Store Day’ in the UK and - despite the obvious trading difficulties - remained optimistic that there was still a place for the smaller store. In what turned into quite a lively and slightly acrimonious exchange at times, Graham Jones aired the continuing major difficulty independent shops face in competing with on-line sales through VAT free retailers, pointing out that whilst this state of affairs persists not only do the government lose valuable tax revenues but it is a huge disadvantage to smaller retailers. Tesco & HMV, both with energetic web site off-shore sales, pointed out that this was a valuable part of their current business mix and there was no intention of abandoning it, given the current legislative climate.
Phil Barton of Sister Ray cheerfully thanks all those artists, labels and managers that contributed to Independent Record Store Day.