We are in an era where physical forms of music purchase such as CDs or tapes are completely obsolete. CD sales have consistently been plummeting since napster was invented and artists have now given up hope of making money out of their recorded releases and now rely on money from live shows, label payments and endorsements for their living.
The only saving grace is that music is sold online through iTunes and other such mediums. Therefore because the product is being sold online, it needs to be marketed online. iTunes has come up with quite a useful program called 'genius' which reads your play list and suggests other bands/artists/albums that are similar and the user is likely to enjoy. This is great targeted advertising as it is not pushed and doesn't even look like advertising. It exposes new music to consumers who are most likely to buy it and offers the sale. Sites such as iLike serve a similar purpose of matching listeners with new music they might like.
A huge problem facing this industry is illegal, free downloads. Everyone does it and it is so easy to do. So when a product is readily available for free on the same medium as it is available for sale and there is no considerable difference in difficulty of acquisition or quality of product, why would anyone pay for music???
Hey there, honestly I have started downloading musics since I started become technology savvy (mainly after I went to Australia hahaha..). I do agree that people buy less CD nowadays since it's much cheaper and easier to just download free tracks.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I will buy a CD only if I really like the artists and if it's worth the money hahaha.. But there have been some discussions saying that those who download musics illegally would have more potential to be fans. And therefore they would be willing to go to the concerts, buy merchandises, and any other way of selling music.
Btw, there are a discussion relating to this topic in my blog. Do visit my blog and leave a comment if you'd like. (http://e-marketingstreetfashion.blogspot.com/2010/08/california-gurls.html)
Thanks!
hey,
ReplyDeleteyeah i agree. There's really no way around it. Artists can't turn their backs on such a huge market (illegal down loaders) in order to make a few dollars on music sales when they may potentially be losing loyal fans who will in the long run be a lot more valuable to them through coming to shows, promoting the artist and merch sales.
cheers