Daisy: Direct to (streaming) fans, but not marketed to them.

Two weeks ago Beats Electronics, the company led by Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre., announced they were starting their own music streaming service called Daisy that they will launch later this year. In a related move, Beats also made an undisclosed investment in Topspin, the online business that provides back-end digital services for musicians and labels to facilitate the direct to fan model. You can read the full article here from The LA Times.

This business play was recently the theme of serious discussion on this past week's Hypebot's Upward Spiral podcast (by the way if you are a serious musician, or serious about the music industry, you probably should be listening to this podcast). After listening to the show and reading up on the venture. Only one thought comes to mind.

You can seriously tell that the business side of the music industry is run by musicians, and that isn't necessarily a good thing.

 Let me shed some light on this statement.

One of the biggest problems with most bands, is they don't give a damn about the fan, the person who pays for tickets, music, and merch; who, ultimately, puts food on the table for the artist. If they are a cover band, they normally choose songs they want to play, not what the fan wants to hear, and then they complain that nobody is showing up at their gigs. If the band is an all original unit, it is even worse. Most of the time, these groups refuse to play covers and try to force-feed their fans their own (mostly shitty) material. Then, they too, wonder why nobody shows up at their shows.

Now, before I get a million emails from bands telling me they don't do that, I must say this isn't an absolute truth, but I will guarantee it is well north of 80% of the acts out there.

And now we have Beats, run by a musician, moving into the streaming world. And they put another musician, Trent Reznor, in charge as Chief Creative Officer of the new initiative, whatever that means. No offense to Trent, he is one talented guy, and the founder of the CwF=RtB (connect with fans = reason to buy) model, but will this business venture work out with a musician in charge?

I can already see the problem with Daisy. The whole premise behind Daisy, is that it will give fans the chance to buy merchandise, tickets, and downloads direct from the artist, while they stream their favorite tunes. This doesn't appear to be a need set-fort by fans (consumer led marketing), but rather bands and labels (business to business marketing).

So here we go again. We are going to give the world another streaming service with no value proposition for the fans, but for the artists. So what is going to happen? Chances are Joe Blow the music fan won't give a shit, but Jimmy and His Big Dream Band will try, forcing Joe to change from Spotify to Daisy so he will buy concert tickets, merchandise, and music. They will send Joe emails, Twitter feeds, FaceBook Statuses, anything short of aerial cloud writing, hoping to get Joe to switch over from Spotify or Pandora, listen to their music, and hopefully impulse buy tickets.

Does this really appeal to the fan? The person who is the end consumer of the music industry?

My prediction is Daisy will show up with a big splash. It will appeal to bands and record labels, but not to fans. The service will survive with probably the same amount of users as MOG, which is around 500,000, and that will be it. Fans of music will stick to Spotify, Pandora, and iHeart and those ventures will see increased revenue.

That isn't to say the direct to streaming fan model isn't a great idea. It is so great that eventually Spotify, Pandora, and all the other streaming services will adopt Daisy's model. This will kill Beat's new business units value proposition, but will be awesome for musicians and labels. So at least some good will come of this. And for that I say thanks to Iovine, Dre, and Reznor.

Your Music is a Loss Leader

In business there is a term used to describe products that are designed to get you in the door and buy bigger ticket items. It is called loss leader pricing. When you break that phrase down the first word “loss” is because the business is probably loosing money selling those items. The word “leader” means it leads you to buy other products. We see this all of the time, but probably don’t even realize it.

For instance you can buy a brand new razor with two cartridges for around $10, but if you want to buy additional razors themselves you will have to fork over $25 for an eight pack. 

Have you ever purchased a new printer? What a steal you can get a whole unit with ink for under $50. It isn’t until you need a refill that you realize the cartridges alone will cost you over $50. 

Loss leaders are everywhere. Go into a supermarket and buy an 18 pack of water for $3, two bags of chips for $4, or a 12 pack of coke for $3.99. These are all tactics to get you to buy other, more expensive, things.

Well that is what music has officially become… a loss leader.

According to Apple’s 10-K filings for 2011 iTunes made $5.4 billion. Amazing right? Now think about this. Forbes reported that Apple sold five million phones within three days of their iPhone 5 launch on September 21st, 2012. Now even though the vast majority of these phones were at reduced rates through cellphone carriers, companies such as AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint still needed to pay Apple a subsidy to get the new highly in-demand product. According to CNN money that subsidy averages about $450 per phone. That equates to $2.25 billion dollars for Apple. A little under half of what their iTunes division made last year. So in three days Apple's iPhone made half of what their entire iTunes store made in a year. 

Last week Samsung, Apple’s biggest rival, announced they will start buying up smaller music streaming and distribution companies to strengthen their own music network called Hub. The technology bohemian isn't doing this to sell more music. They are doing it to "lead" consumers into buying one of their Galaxy smartphones or tablets. Samsung is finally catching on to something Apple, Amazon and Google have known for years. You sell more technology devices if you can easily fill them with low cost music. 

Using music to get consumers through the door to lure them to buy bigger ticket items isn’t necessarily new. For years Wal*Mart had isles of CD’s. That’s right I said “isles” of CD’s. They did this because you had to go somewhere to buy new music. This was before you could beam it to your phone while you borrowed your neighbors Wi-Fi connection. When you went to Wally World to buy that new Pearl Jam CD. I know I’m old. You were forced to look at those beautiful big screen TV’s, stereos, DVD players, and other high priced electronic items, and chances are, at least once,  you walked away with one of them. In the end your $16 CD purchase cost you about $500. That is a loss leader.

But today music has completely become a loss leader. If you don’t believe me look around. If you are a Starbucks card holder you will get the occasional free download of a new music track, or you can buy those albums in their stores for $10 while you drop another $8 on a cup of coffee, plus another cup for your friend, and, oh wait, one of those awesome muffins.

  

Artists don’t make money by selling music anymore. That is an antiquated business model and if a manager or record labels is telling you otherwise start running back to your day job because you will make more money and work less there. Just take a look at the sales numbers according to www.gloriousnoise.com.  Total album sales were at $616.6 million in 1996 and have dropped to $330.57 million last year, and yes that includes digital sales for 2011.

But for some reason artist’s still think that they make money by selling albums. The truth is in today’s market they don’t. The smart ones understand how to use their music as a loss leader just like Apple, Samsung, Coca Cola, and Starbucks. Trent Reznor gives his music away and uses those free tracks to encourage fans to buy his concert tickets, merchandise, autographed memorabilia and anything else he can make money on. He understands that the market has changed their valuation of music. To them music no longer has a monetary value. Napster has taught them otherwise. Incubus’ manager Steve Rennie said it best “for some reason college kids can afford their beer and weed money, but will not pay for their favorite song.” 

On a good note music has not lost its intrinsic value and that is why ad agencies, film companies, and big businesses still fork over money to attach their brand to a particular tune. To make money in today’s market artist must stop thinking that people will pay for their music. Instead they must start using their music to get those consumers to buy into their brand. Hell it worked pretty good for Apple.