Will try to reach music fans in the “everyday places people shop” with a new Now That’s What I Call Music brand.
After managing to drive brick-and-mortar CD retailers into the ground by allowing Wal-Mart to sell albums as loss leaders to attract customers, EMI is trying a new approach that uses stores where people frequent on a daily basis.
Beginning September 9th its new Now That’s What I Call Music brand will begin by putting copies of a digitally remastered Beatles albums in the likes of Restoration Hardware, Starbucks, Whole Foods, Ralph’s, Pathmark, 7-Eleven, and Blockbuster.
“It will allow us to reach the everyday places people shop,” Bill Gagnon, EMI’s Senior VP of catalogue marketing for North America, told Billboard. “We’re bringing the music to where they are.”
If all goes well he plans to then push other artists from the label as well.
“But it still needs to be a pretty significant project to get these outlets’ attention,” he added.
It’s a bold move by EMI as it tries to prop up ever decreasing physical CD sales. Making CDs more accessible to music fans is surely the way to go. However, the real downside here is that it relegates albums to a snack aisle commodity much like detergent or a gallon of milk.
I guess with brick-and-mortar CD stores a thing of the past it was only a matter of time before albums reappeared in public outside of big box retailers.
Stay tuned.
Albums should be priced similar to a gallon of milk, and chocolate bars. They need to price it at an attractive price so it becomes a “sure what the hell” sale. Otherwise people walk by, look at the price, and often will pass on the purchase. When you can buy best selling games for $10 online, or sometimes in the bargain bin, and right beside it there is a 30 year old album selling for the same or more, it simply won’t fly with people who enjoy both mediums, it also doesn’t take a genius to know which platform cost more to produce.
Two zombie business models, seems like a good match.