What Your Business Can Learn From Prince
by petermeToday’s New York Times feature on Prince belongs not in the Music section, but the Business section.
Given the themes that we address here at Adaptive Path and on the blog, what impressed me was how Prince was handling his “multi-channel experience.” He has a habit of giving away his recordings, which conventional wisdom would assume means he’s giving away his money. But in the same way that Apple controls iPod, iTunes, and the iTunes music store, Prince has achieved control over his recordings, his touring, his online presence, and the like. And in the same way Apple doesn’t make money on the iTunes Music Store but rakes it in with iPod, Prince seems to have an innate understanding of how his coordinated effort to get his music out in the world can produce far greater revenues than reliance on any one channel.
The power of Prince’s approach is summed up in this passage from the piece: “Prince’s priorities are obvious. The main one is getting his music to an audience, whether it’s purchased or not. ‘Prince’s only aim is to get music direct to those that want to hear it,’ his spokesman said when announcing that The Mail would include the CD.” Driven by that desire, he’s done everything he can to make that a reality, and has reaped the reward of not only significant cash, but total creative freedom.
How can your organization learn from Prince?
July 22nd, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Well,
You need to read the article more carefully.
Prince is not “giving away his recordings”, he is in fact paid up front by a variety of sponsors to distribute the albums through alternate channels.
If you had bought tickets to a recent Prince stadium concert, say in the last 5-7 years, you’d realize that the cost of the “give away” CD is included in the ticket price. And one more bit of trivia, those $3,121 USD nightclub concerts in Los Angeles and The Hamptons? No “give away” CDs were distributed to the audience.
Final word — Prince *always* gets paid.
July 22nd, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Completely agree with you folks on all points.
Frankly, what Prince is doing is completely in line with a lot of what David Bowie spoke to the NY Times about in a 2002 interview. Basically, as an artists Prince is at the leading edge of the transformation of the business of music. Like his music or not, the guy is tuned into what’s going on in a very big way.
Here are some excerpts from the Bowie interview to note:
—
His deal with Sony is a short-term one while he gets his label started and watches the Internet’s effect on careers. ”I don’t even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years, because I don’t think it’s going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way,” he said. ”The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it’s not going to happen. I’m fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing.”
”Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity,” he added. ”So it’s like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You’d better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that’s really the only unique situation that’s going to be left. It’s terribly exciting. But on the other hand it doesn’t matter if you think it’s exciting or not; it’s what’s going to happen.”
Here’s a link:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B03E1DA113AF93AA35755C0A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
—
I heard that Prince is getting something around $25M for the gigs he’s doing in the UK. The man can live on touring alone, which is akin to what Bowie points to. The sale of the music becomes far less important — it’s a loss leader. The more open you are (like running water), the better off you are. The more people have a chance to find out about you.
Frankly, if any kind of poor deal goes through with the recent fee changes being pushed on internet broadcasters, it’s sure to be the death knell for the music business as we know it. Frankly, the sooner the better.
August 9th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Good Copy Bad Copy is an incredibly interesting documentary about the current state of music copyright in cultures around the world. For an artist wanting to bring their music to the biggest number of people around the world, Good Copy Bad Copy paints a picture of cultural, legal and economic challenges to world-wide distribution. Existing models for getting creative works into the world are undergoing massive transformations. To answer your question, organizations can learn this from Prince. If you have a clear understanding of what your goals are and you view your customers as people who are part of cultures and economic systems then you can define the way forward in an otherwise foggy landscape.