Music Partnerships- Saving the Industry and Driving Emotion

Virgin stores have closed, studios have seen double digit declines and this whole idea of CD's is practically non-existent. But we all know that, the question is how do you fix it and how can music companies like Universal, EMI and Sony become profitable again?

The answer seems to lie in partnerships. The more opportunities to use music as a form of "licensing" in various verticals the more diversification will be in place to create new revenue streams. So where do you find these partnerships:

• CONSUMER PROMOTIONS- sell the "content" as the prize for consumer brands (exaple below)
• NEW MEDIA LICENSING- beyond selling songs for commercials, TV shows, etc, look to other media like gaming- virtual concerts have become huge for some artists like Natasha Bedingfeld and Soulja Boy on There.com
  
• NEW PRODUCT LICENSING- what do people buy to express themselves, show their love to others or entertain themselves? EMI recently partnered with Lottery Tickets, but what about Hallmark Cards, Board Games, etc.
• BONUS MICROTRANSACTIONS- when consumers buy a product online versus in stores, a reward could be a discounted music video, song, etc. as an option at check out.
  

The whole idea of partnerships for music should best be approached in quantity just as much as quality. Music is pretty cheap these days, and the more places music touches consumers the more likely they will consume it.

PARTNERSHIP EXAMPLE:
MySpace recently teamed up with vitaminwater with the launch of Sync. 24 MM bottles were shipped, where under the cap codes could be redeemed for a free MP3 download via MySpace through its partnership with Amazon. Vitaminwater is paying for the downloads and supporting the campaign with magazine, radio and in-store advertising featuring Carrie Underwood, Alicia Keys, and 50 Cent.Not only is MySpace seeing new revenue, but added traffic to its site. In fact the 24 MM bottles is more than the typical number of unique visitors to MySpace per month, which is currently at 20 MM.