As a follow up to my previous post about the Music and Bits conference, I wanted to cover off on the other topic of the day, marketing. Out of the five companies who presented two of those, Top Notch records and TopSpin media, discussed the current landscape of music marketing for artists and bands.
Top Notch
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Last week I attended the Music and Bits conference, which is the pre-conference for Amsterdam Dance Event. The conference touts itself as “an exploration of music and technology” and by all accounts I would say that was accurate. Of the five companies who presented throughout the day there emerged two themes: App dev and marketing (for…
A couple of months ago I was sitting at my desk with a friend, going through my iTunes collection and trying to put together a play list. Casually I made the comment that I had paid for about 70% of the music in my iTunes. To my surprise his reaction was “whoa, what?? you actually paid for all of this music?? why would you do that when you can download everything for free!?” The reason his response caught me off guard is because this friend has built a successful career working in the music industry, making money in one way or another off of musicians. Feeling a bit foolish I tried to justify my decision and told him that I simply felt obligated to pay for music if I could afford it. Illegally downloading music felt a bit juvenile when I had the means to finance my music appetite. He agreed but relented that the artists only make about a penny off of each song and that the real money was in touring and other areas.