Conflicted outcomes at the majors, the importance of pure play strategy & why don't today's kids love their music?

There’s a big issue at the heart of the frontline major label system.

And it’s a problem for artists.

It’s about outcomes.

Two articles last week highlighted this really well.

First this one in Billboard reminds us that all major labels really care about is market share. https://lnkd.in/eRpPFYjb

That is how they measure success. That is what the SLT in the front line labels are measured on.

That drives their behaviours and decision making.

And yet market share is a local metric whereas artist careers are global. They are not aligned.

Then this article on Taylor Swift’s catalogue returning to TikTok https://lnkd.in/epxvKQhA

This was about artist outcomes.

She wants her fans to find her new album where they already are. And she wants to keep building her fan base.

She has the power to make those calls because she is independent - despite going through Republic Records.

And she’s thinking globally.

Artist goals will often be different to the outcomes targeted by major labels.

If you sign with a major bear that in mind.

They want you for local market share.

If you don’t deliver it you will be dropped.

FRTYFVE we spend the pre-deal phase doing discovery calls and deep dives into artist’s goals to ensure they are aligned with our own - and vice versa.

We think global on every single artist campaign.

We literally couldn’t care less about market share.

We think it’s the future for label’s in a world where artists don’t need you.

Label heads - you need to focus…. ...or be ready to fail.

We are facing an existential crisis.

Majors are laying off front line teams because they can’t break talent.

Many established indies are struggling to shift from traditional operating models to the new social x streaming world.

As this Bloomberg article says, “Record labels are searching for their next big win….” https://lnkd.in/e89Br5j5

The problem is artists don’t NEED a label.

They can exist AND thrive without one.

And labels can no longer leverage old tricks to deliver hits.

So, what is the way forward?

IMO, it is time to focus. It’s time to decide what your pure play is.

In business, generally, pure plays win.

Spotify won vs Apple, Amazon and Google because it focuses on one thing.

It’s a music (now audio) streaming service. Nothing else.

And long term survival requires it to be better than everyone else at that.

No surprise then that it is. There was no plan B.

Netflix won TWICE vs. the bigger media groups because it was a pure play business.

First as a "no late fees" DVD by post rental service.

And second as a video streamer.

It just got better and better and better at that and then became untouchable.

It isn't just these big beasts that have nailed pure play.

Check out Anthony Pierri ?? and FletchPMM .

They do ONE thing: "Let's rewrite your confusing homepage."

And they are the best in the world at it.

And have built a large, highly successful business around that "big niche" pure play.

Labels who are struggling now can learn a lot from these and other pure play strategies.

I think pure play wins for 4 reasons:

?? Team focus: your whole team knows clearly what you do and works to be better.

??♂? Customer focus: your target client (in this case an artist) knows what you do and why you are different from the competition. They will be clearer about whether or not you are the right partner for them.

?? Greater efficiency: pure play allows you to eliminate the time and money spent on things that are peripheral to your focus and move faster.

?? Less baggage: for older businesses identifying your pure play is an opportunity to jettison out dated practices that are holding you back. I’ll admit it.?

??♂? In our business we’ve been guilty of not getting this right.

Too many products.

Too many brands.

Too many ideas being tried at the same time.

Pure play is harder than it looks.

But if we are to survive and thrive in the new music business we have to know where we add value, for whom and how we do it better than anyone else.

So, think about it.

What’s your pure play? You can check out ours at www.frtyfve.com

Why don't kids love their generation's music??

There was some really interesting analysis in this Substack article and YouGov research (linked here).

Although the big take away for me from this is the stark difference between Gen Z vs. earlier generations.

They have a far lower regard for the music of their teens and are far more interested in older decades.

This is exactly what we are seeing across the industry as catalogue is performing better and better and it is harder than ever to create “new classics”.

The driver is social media. UGC has no regard for what the industry wants them to promote and so teens are just as likely to discover an old song as a new one.

That just wasn’t the case when I was 14 back in 1984.

So my guess is this analysis stands for everyone born before the advent of social media and streaming and will not apply for teenagers after then.

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