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Music merch is having a pretty cool renaissance with several movements happening at once, and each informing the other. On one end of the spectrum we have indie artists leading their own charge by taking advantage of on-demand printing… which allows them a wider array of designs without breaking the bank and forcing the artists to sit on inventory. 

And on the other end of the spectrum we have the likes of #JohnVarvatos releasing higher-end exclusives, like his new Pink Floyd collection. Which I do happen to like… though $500 for a denim jacket isn’t quite within reach for most fans.

And of course live shows simply happening again is part of the merch renaissance – which makes the concert tee momento that much more important.

I’m not sure Ye’s (Kanye’s) Yeezy collection counts as music-merch since it doesn’t directly connect to the music beyond its owner/creator being in the biz. But it’s certainly a movement in its own right considering just yesterday #RollingStone announced that Ye’s 2021 income of $250 Million was largely due to the collection… and not his latest album.

So what’s a super-fan to choose? Despite the array of new offerings, my dream piece most often still doesn’t exist– so I still make them myself like I did back in high school. Here’s my hand-painted Van Halen leather MC. The jacket is a vintage Harley-Davidson Motor Company MC that I picked up at a Buffalo Exchange Trading Co and the camouflage was inspired by the band’s slightly weird 1981 PR Shot with a Tank.

#MusicBusiness#Merchandise#VanHalen#Kanye#Yeezy#RollingStone

Absolutely gutted. Rest in peace, Ronnie. You changed it all. The original bad girl who paved the way for EVERY rock ‘n roll rebel who followed… from Miley to Rihanna to yes… Amy. Love to Jonathan, so sorry for your loss. RS… You’ll forever be our baby. And for now, we’ll sadly be walking in the rain. xxx

(photo credit: ray avery) #RonnieSpector

I received a smart D2C promotion from Spotify over the weekend designed to inspire parents & kids to create playlists as a family activity… and it immediately reminded me of Hasbro’s ‘Family Game Night’ campaign.

Earlier in my career I worked at the NYC ad agency Griffin Bacal Advertising. And at the time, it was the leading kids + family agency behind lots of industry firsts. While I was there, Hasbro was a big client and one of their campaigns was #FamilyGameNight – which eventually even became its own TV game show and video game franchise. I think the original campaign was created by then president Paul Kurnit… but if I’m wrong, he can correct me here in the comments 😉

IMHO the ‘Family Game Night’ campaign supported a brilliant strategy which effectively targeted multiple age groups (both parents and kids), supported a “full line” which included several classic games at once for subsequent purchases (#Monopoly, Sorry, Life, Clue, Operation, Mouse Trap, etc), and most interesting to me, it created family “traditions” while subtly instilling brand loyalty with kids that they would embrace until they’re eventually the parents.

Enter Spotify.

A couple weeks ago I read an article in Bloomberg in which Spotify’s founder and CEO Daniel Ek acknowledged that his youngest generation of listeners (Gen Z and younger) aren’t big Spotify users. He summed it up by saying “We could be doing better in that group,” right after he cited a quote from Intel’s legendary CEO Andy Grove – “only the paranoid survive.”

Seems like every non-gaming media company except #TikTok is having similar realizations.

With this recent news in mind, I wondered what promotional tactics (or even strategies) Spotify might begin testing (besides adding TikTok-like features) in order to better-appeal to younger listeners. And that’s when their own ‘Family Game Night’ landed in my inbox. Family Playlisting!  

Spotify’s message went like this:
Let’s face it, finding an activity that keeps the whole family happy is borderline impossible. You’ve tried cards, you’ve tried board games and the less said about what happened when you suggested charades the better.  So how about a collaborative playlist instead? 

Brilliant!  

So far I’ve only seen this promotion as a D2C newsletter, so I don’t yet know if it’s being fleshed out into a full campaign, but I do love the thinking. What better way for Spotify to inspire teens to embrace Spotify than to target them while they’re still tweens… and have their Spotify-obsessed Gen X Parents do the heavy lifting for them?

Bonus feature: no brawl for the aux cord next dinner time.

Blast from the past… I’d love to hear what my kids-marketing co-conspirators of years-past think about this Spotify promotion. Pete Bregman, Bob Marks, Heather Eyrich, Stacy Lewis, Julius Weil…what do you think?

#marketing#media#brand#musicbusiness

– Music Discovery
– Music Experience
– Direct-to-Fan Engagement
– Merch & Sales Conversion

Originally posted to Linkedin

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gabrielgornell_musicbusiness-musicindustry-branding-activity-6876935321414696960-5BJe

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