Eat to the beat

Over the Xmas break it was sad to see another one of our high street retailers struggling. I walked past our local HMV the other day, and it took me back to the days of going into record shops looking at the latest vinyl with your mates and working out which album to by next. The buzz of getting it home, reading the sleeve notes – and then taping it for your mate who was too tight to buy it (sure we’ve all done that).

Now like most of us I stream and download. For a small monthly fee I can get any album I want. But I’m still a big fan of vinyl and I’ve got over 300 albums at home – in fact I still have the merchandise list that was inside one of my first albums 1979 Blondie ‘Eat To The Beat’ album. I think the merchandise list was done on a typewriter – well before Apple. Back then the only mac I had was a plastic one that my Mum bought me to keep the rain off.

So what’s gone wrong for HMV? What could they have done differently when they first went into administration? Should they have come up with a new strategy?

Here’s an article from Marketing Week I came across recently where they discuss this.

https://www.marketingweek.com/2019/01/02/brand-heritage-save-hmv-administration/

But It just goes to show that no matter what the size of your brand is you can’t afford to stand still. You can’t sit on your laurels of your previous successes, it’s about what is around the corner.

So what’s round the corner for you?

How do you do to keep up-to-date with what’s happening in your industry?

And more importantly what was one of your first albums?