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Wednesday,
Feb. 4 - "Turbulent
Times... Where are the answers?" - Rob Light, CAA
The
real revelation, which won’t surprise this room is that by the
time they are older teens online takes over, with more than 21 percent
of older teens spending more than four hours a day online. Online
is the radio station for these teens, and online will be the radio
station for an even bigger population in the near future because we
are a society that wants what it wants, when it wants it.
And what about those over 30 and even more so, over 40? Billboard
tells us that the majority of CDs are sold to people over 25. There
was one week late last year where 11 of the Top 50 albums were recorded
by artists over 40 and that 35 percent of the albums were bought by
consumers who had also celebrated
that birthday. Artists like Simon & Garfunkel, Michael McDonald,
Rod Stewart and Bette Midler were part of that group.
It is a fact that 4 million people turn 50 every year, and consumers
over 50 spent $400 billion. The biggest growth in movie ticket sales
are among men and women over 40. By 2010, more than half of the population
will be 40 or above.
What do we learn in this Readers Digest version of demographics? Older
people want to be young, younger people want to act older, we are
demolishing traditional stages of life, shortening childhood, rushing
adolescence, demanding more of young adulthood and middle age now
reaches until you’re 60.
The interesting thing about all the money spent on research, and all
the information we try to gather, is that it is truly at our fingertips.
There are few assistants who work in any promoter’s office,
agency or label who can afford to buy a concert ticket. Ask them what
they think. While we debate the difference between $37.50 and $41.50,
they are laughing to themselves that they can’t afford $25.
Next time you go to the dentist, ask the hygienist with two kids why
she skipped taking her kids to a show. Ask any of your non-industry
friends what they listen to, what they read, what they watch –
a frightening exercise. Yet, put Simon & Garfunkel on TV for a
week, send a clear message of what the show will be and, to that specific
audience, price is irrelevant.
My point is that we can no longer address our issues as generic conversations
spread across a mass audience.
Are ticket prices too high?
When they are $40 and your audience is 18 to 24, and you are on your
first CD, you bet. Let’s try to find the answers in truly tackling
an issue and not a political statement that sounds cool in a panel.
So, I reiterate: We lump groups together and try to talk to them as
if they are one group, residing in the traditional ways of communicating
with our audience (even when we think we are being creative). Yet
we all know, whatever age group we are trying to reach, they are not
where we think they are.
They do not listen to the radio the way they used to, they do not
read the paper the way they used to, they no longer watch TV the way
they used to. Yet, still we spend countless dollars trying to reach
them in that space.
In a world where a movie studio might spend upward of $8 million launching
a film on opening weekend, we are begging labels for a few hundred
thousand for a multi-month campaign, or trying to put tickets on sale
for $20 or $30 in the face of competition from movies, clubs, sporting
events, the Internet and hanging out.
Interestingly, last summer I had breakfast with a reporter in Los
Angeles who writes for The New York Times and covers entertainment
with great passion and proclaims to love music. I was bemoaning how
hard it was to talk to the 18- to 35-year-old audience.
Specifically, I was discussing matchbox twenty, a great live act who,
on their previous tour, had done basically sellout business in arenas
and here they were, touring on a new CD behind their second Top 10
single, and business was way off from the last tour.
She told me she was a big fan of the band and would love to see them
when they got to L.A. She asked when they were going to be in town.
I informed her they were coming in about seven weeks, but that we
had gone on sale the previous Sunday, had spent close to $80,000 announcing
the show and taken a full-page ad in the Sunday Los Angeles Times.
How could she have missed that?
She had proven my point. And when I questioned what she watched, because
I was bummed that she didn’t see or hear any of the $80,000
in media, she explained that she listened to NPR, hadn’t read
the Times as she was out of town (she read it over the Internet) and
really doesn’t watch much TV.
The lesson: Go where the consumer is. Do not expect them to come to
you.
The flip side to that story is Bon Jovi in Boston. We pushed Dave
Marsden and Clear Channel to taking the show into Foxboro Stadium.
They would have preferred two nights at the shed; imagine that. But,
they went along with the artist, not begrudgingly, but it took a real
effort.
Two weeks out, they were looking at a six figure loss and, of course,
the obligatory “Can we get any help on the guarantee?”
call came in.
We all agreed not to have that discussion and instead management,
our marketing guru Alli McGregor, Dave Marsden and his marketing people
got on the phone to dissect the last two weeks of the campaign.
And everything from contests, to interviews, to giveaways, to promotions
with the New England Patriots – you name it – was put
into place. The show went into percentage, everyone was thrilled and
everyone contributed to the process.
The
punch line to the story, and I mean this as a compliment to Dave,
was that he called the next day, said thank you for all the help from
the agency and management and added, “I wish I could spend this
much
time and put in this much energy on every show. What a difference
it would make.”
Don’t get me wrong. I am not blaming the promoters or their
marketers; it is not their fault nor is it their responsibility alone
to fix the problem. They put in tremendous effort given the volume.
It is just an observation that an innovative approach to a campaign
might change the outcome.
So first, we looked at our audience. Second, we looked at our marketing
system and acknowledged that the traditional methods weren’t
nearly as effective or as cost efficient as we wanted. Yet, with our
knowledge of the power of the computer and with all the names existing
between ticketing companies, promoters, labels and bands, we have
not found an innovative way of tapping that resource.
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