So have Starbucks given up on music or are they just refocusing their attention?

When it was announced this week that they were to pull out of their record label Hear Music and hand over this business to their partners the Concord Music Group, an obvious reaction was ‘So what went wrong?’

This news was further compounded when it was announced that the entertainment division was to be put under control of the Chief Technology Officer Chris Bruzzo…geeks in charge of creative development? Surely this means that the whole Hear Music exercise has been a failure?

Well, it hasn’t been a failure in my view. For many of the classic artists, it has worked. First Ray Charles sells over 5million units. Paul McCartney sold more than he could have imagined. Meanwhile, Hear Music tempted Joni Mitchell to record again - which in my book is worth the whole exercise in itself. It also started to offer an alternative distribution and marketing solution for many other artists like the immensely talented and underrated Sia.

Has it been a success for Starbucks customers? Well, from a sonic retail perspective, Starbucks can teach many other retailers how to think about the effect of sound on a consumer’s experience in-store (See posts passim).

Starbucks have a head start on other brands in terms of understanding the power of music in the consumer’s connection with their business. Yet, the news clearly suggests that all is not well at Starbucks. So what can we make of the changes?

Shifting away from CD to digital is good business sense, though making the assumption that the CD is completely dead for the Starbucks consumer is a huge one. There are over 6000 options of coffee in Starbucks, so having a choice of formats for the music - “CD or download madam?” - is not a bad idea.

The bigger challenge for the new head of the entertainment division is how to ensure that the experience in-store is not undermined by this move. The danger is that a shift to digital entertainment will leave the coffee-house experience somewhat muted.

One hopes that Starbucks does not retreat, turn it’s music commitment into yet another music download site and forget that sonic branding is felt most of all by their customers in-store. They may be right to consider promoting books in-store (in fact this makes immense sense), yet the power of music could be better harnessed by brands, Starbucks included.

A thought for Starbucks:
Ever thought about getting local artists to play in-store, so supporting local art, giving something fresh to the customers and positioning yourself as the ‘local coffee house’ at the same time? It means acting small, not acting big.

After digging out my Desperate Bicycles records I decided to hunt out my copy of the first single by Scritti Politti. If that name seem familiar it may be from the hits they had in the mid 80s with singles such as Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin) or The Word Girl, or you may even know the blissfull The “Sweetest Girl”, which got to the giddy heights of number 64 in the UK charts back in 1981 (the song was also the opening track on the NME’s C81 cassette which citizen Bay has been digging big time of late). However, before the band became an intellectual pop band much beloved by certain factions of the UK music press, they made a series of independently make scratchy DIY punk records. Scritti founder and current Dalston resident Green Gartside saw the Sex Pistols on the opening night of the Sex Pistols ‘Anarchy’ tour at Leeds University, and decided to form a band.

The band came to London in 1977, moving into a legendary squat in Regent’s Park Road in Camden Town. Scritti Politti were galvanised into actiom the Desperate Bicycles and released their first DIY single, titled ‘Skank Bloc Bologna’ on their own St. Pancras label in 1978. The inside of the sleeve included information on the cost to make the single - recording (£98), mastering (£40), pressing (2,500 7 inch singles for £369.36) , Rubber Stamp and labels (£8), plus information on their distributor Rough Trade Records, then still a record shop in Notting Hill. And just in case you didn’t get the idea he first time around, they printed the costs of producing the John Peel sessions EP on that cover as well.

Green notoriously hates the bands early records, which he claimed “sounds like some anti-produced labour of negativity”, but he finally relented and let his label Rough Trade reissue “Skank Bloc Bologna” on the compilation Early, which brings together the bands first four singles and EPs. The album is available for download at emusic, or you can buy the album from the Rough Trade shop here, for the bargain price of only £6.99!

In the citizensound sonicRetail survey, we found a few stores decided on a policy of a music-free zone in–store.

Shops such as Church’s shoes had the sound of people talking and shoes being squeezed on to feet, nothing more. And this worked for the environment and the clientele. A sense of calm away from the storm of the street.

The Apple Store on Regent Street London is also music free, which given the connection between Apple and music, this seems shocking. However, Apple might rationalise this decision by seeing each person as controllers of their own music destiny (via their iPod of course). So a store that tries to dictate and decide what the customer should hear is not a store that respects that customer. However, my issue with the Apple Store is that in this music-free zone, music is generally heard…not through the store PA system, but through far-off speakers linked to Apple products. People test out iPod speakers or listen to songs on laptops. So the sound throughout the store is of far off tinny music.

Meanwhile the O2 in-store had the music so low that you could hardly hear it. Given the immense commitment to music by O2, this again seems like a contradiction. I would expect the in-store sonic experience to be stunning in any O2 store. Sadly, this is far from the truth.   Which leads to another issue…

citizensound says:

If you think music has a role in store then for goodness sake have it loud enough to do its' work and invest in a decent soundsystem. 

Mango stores are the sonic version of vanilla ice cream. After a while you are yearning for mint choc chip, raspberry, peach or mango even…anything but  vanilla…I have to ask the question – what is the point of having music in store if the music is so bland? It got me thinking…

If Mango was a band, who would it be? And then it dawned on me…Mango is the fashion version of Westlife.

Westlife have sold loads of albums, have a huge following, but are not known for innovation and creativity. They get on their stools, then get off them and sing covers, get back on their stools, then sell lots of CDs. A brilliant and successful model that works. So, Mango as Westlife is not a bad thing, IF Mango wanted that image. But this is NOT Mango. When I lived in Barcelona in the 90s, Mango was not a covers band. It was not white suits and the boy your mother would like. Mango had credibility. It had edge. Yet it also had accessibility. Right now in their stores, it just feels much like a lot of other stores…

Una nota para MANGO:Por favor Senores y Senoras de Mango, es possible a cambiar vuestra estrategia de musica en las tiendas – estoy seguro que hay musica que puede connectar mejor con los consumadores. No estais Westlife, eres mas cool que ellos.

In our first post on the sound of the brand at retail, citizensound mentioned the lack of investment that seems to go into sound within the retail space.

This comes in part from a marketing focus on the visual when it comes to financial commitment. The sense of sight dominates marketing decisions – the logo; the packaging design; the Retail window display; the Point of Sale materials; the storyboard for the next ad – all highly visual. This makes sense given the power of the visual to connect with our subconscious. However, the human being is a sensory beast, not purely a visual one. The sense of smell, of taste and of touch have immense power on human behaviour, yet are still highly under-utilised in marketing – likewise with the sense of sound. Many retailers know that music has a role to play in the in-store environment, but it seems to have been relegated to a line on a spreadsheet that gets ticked or a figure that is cut every year.

In many of the stores citizensound visited, the little thought put into the sonic experience suggests that the sourcing of music has been given to companies who provide the cheapest service of homogenised nonsense, rather than carefully chosen music that resonates with the brand and the consumers. For some companies, I can imagine that music sourcing has been left purely in the hands of those looking to reduce costs rather than build brand. However, it is also probable that music is just not seen as a priority, so marketing budgets are channelled to the Visual, while the other Senses get neglected.

Gap has used music imagery in their communication successfully before and have created innovative music links such as Madonna/Missy Elliott. So to find poor sound quality and bland music in their stores was hugely disappointing sonically.

On the other hand, HSBC have invested in their own radio station. As you wait for an appointment with a business account person, you can kick back and listen to HSBC’s in-house radio station. Playing a balance of music that works for the company, HSBC have DJs playing a safe playlist with dedications to local store staff, and promotions of new products for customers. All the staff said they enjoyed it, whilst customers were shaking their ankles. This made more sense than Gap.

Who would have thought HSBC could teach Gap about music and customers?

citizensound says:

If you are listening GAP, please please sort out your stores – you and your customers deserve better…

Saint Jazzie of B was a highlight at In The City. He was interviewed by Lloyd Bradley (more in him later!) and talked about how Soul2Soul started out.

Two things struck me whilst he was talking. Firstly, that Soul2Soul was very much music of the community - created, produced, refined and promoted by the community. It was rooted in the live experience, not the product form of vinyl or CD. Very similar to folk music where musicians would test their songs in bars and social gatherings in the community. Music as social commentary, not music as product.

In itself, the roots of Soul2Soul came out of the sound systems where musician/music/listener were joined. The sound systems created their ’specials’ - a tune that for all connected to the sound system would define that sound system against others. In effect is was their sonic branding. Everyone would know that tune belonged to that sound system.

Yet Soul2Soul understood the power of branding in more ways than the power of the sonic logo. Their visual emblem is still one of the most recognised logos in music, whilst the collective delivered not just the music but also their merchandise (with their own retail outlet too).

Very much a music collective ahead of their times, balancing smart branding techniques with the need to keeping close to their community roots…and making great music too.

In these times of 360 business models, Soul2Soul is a model that others can learn from.

The title of the In The City conference this year was Brand New Dance…but I don't know it's name. Beautifully reflects the confusion and opportunity that is the music industry right now. citizensound was asked by In The City earlier this year to help them assess what the key concerns were in the music industry. We sensed that the speedy reshaping of the industry around the growth of the DIY music culture seemed a good place to start. Artists who have decided to control their own destiny without the support of a major record label are not doing anything new, so understandably another discussion on the rise of DIY music might have been a bit 'so what'. However, DIY music means many things. It could mean DIY in the sense of the era of skiffle music in the 50s where young musicians used what they could find at home to make music (spoons, washboards and more). It could mean a Punk attitude, where making the right notes were not as important as getting up there and not holding back. Right now, the IT in Do-it-yourself is more about the investment, marketing and distribution of music, rather than just the creation. It is about artists wanting control over all of these elements. (more…)

Hopefully you've have seen the fantastic new ad for Cadbury's Dairy Milk by now, but if you haven't I won't spoil it for you (check it out here). However, the soundtrack to the advert, a 26 year old track by Phil Collins, has been catapulted back into the charts, currently standing at number 53 in the iTunes download chart. The track when originally released in January 1981, was held off the UK top slot by John Lennon's 'Imagine', which had been reissued to tie in with the former-Beatles recent death. Poor Phil seems to perennially top many a music critics unhip-list, however the 'guilty pleasure' that is 'Something In The Air Tonight', is becoming a hit all over again thanks to a great piece of advertising creative. The website promises more adverts to make us smile, let's hope so. You never know whose career they may choose resurrect next…

Too often the sound is a last minute scramble in the advertising process, as advertising agencies all too often pitch ideas visually rather than sonically.

So it is no surprise that the mood set by the sound of the ad is poorly thought through in most advertising.

When is is right, it is immensely powerful.

Here is a great example of the power of sound. Another one of those clever Honda ads.

PS What is the half life of your sonic branding… 15 seconds…15 minutes or 15 years?

Lucy from Diesel (on the right) joined Kate Williams of Columbus Media at the citizensound session at Venice.

In response to the panel urging brands to commit to more than just the short term when getting involved in music marketing, Lucy shared with the attendees the experience of Diesel.

The Diesel U-Music activity has been active for a number of years, slowly but surely building credibility with both the breaking acts and fans alike. Whilst these two groups seem to be have benefited from the investment from Diesel, how about the brand itself?

Lucy shared with the attendees a classic problem for a brand who gets involved in the music space with the band and fan at the forefront of their activities. How does the brand get recognition for the commitment they have made without coming over as too pushy?

Artists such as Mylo have come through the Diesel U-Music project, yet few people are aware of this. Since becoming an established artist, Mylo has come back to support the Diesel U Music events, so recognition from the artist is not in doubt.

It is the transference of this mutual respect into long term business results that is the tricky bit for Diesel. It reminds me of the conundrum that ethical brands face. Do you tell the world that you are ethical, thus placing yourself in the firing line for those to find any weaknesses in your argument (Memories of Anita Roddick in the early days of Body Shop) or do you just do your stuff and keep low key about it (Levi Strauss a good example)? It is the eternal debate. Shout about your good work or do it quietly.

If the marketing world believes in the power of word of mouth or Advocacy Marketing, then letting others do the talking for you has to be the way forward…