John Fleckenstein, BMG Label Group
Mark Ghuneim, WiredSet
Peter Rojas, RCRD LBL
Shahi Ghanem, Brickfish
Doug Perlson, Targetspot
Vicki Saunders, TouchTunes Music
Celia Hirschman, KCRW’s On The Beat
Peter: How do you offer a great experience for users so that they’ll keep coming back? Question is not to sell music.
Fleckenstein: Start working with artists from Day 1. It varies by artist.
Ghuneim: Search and display doesn’t yield engagement. Engagement takes place across the edges. Artist development means getting the artist to where they are a full business.
Perlson: Internet radio. 80MM users/month.
Saunders: Digital jukebox that enables people to access their music at specific locations. This is in beta.
Hirschman: User fatigue on social networks. Is there a lifecycle?
Ghanem: Just a media network. None of them will be going anywhere anytime soon. What you see is less fatigue and more specialization in terms of needs. How do we capitalize on the social media genre as a whole, particularly as it relates to me and my brand.
Ghuneim: Ubiquity is the new exclusivity. Trend towards trusted sources. Also actionable data generator. Need real two-way API’s with opensocial.
Hirschman: Where should small labels/artists with little money spend their dollars?
Rojas: They don’t sell. Believes good content sells itself. Released over 250 artists in the past 3 months.
Ghanem: Invest in passionate, engagement-based marketing. Target a small user base and get them excited.
Saunders: Bands must know their audiences: where they are, who they are, and clear that they want to talk to you.
Perlson: Search is the weakest performing marketing play for music. Social networks might be more useful.
Fleckenstein: Incredibly difficult to target.
Hirschman: BMG, have you taken an aggressive free approach to certain bands?
Fleckenstein: Free single downloads to test who’s the audience.
Hirschman: What campaigns have worked for you?
Perlson: Gotta know the goal of the campaign at the outset.
Hirschman: Widgets. What do you think?
Ghuneim: Embrace many strategies based on what consumer behavior is dictating.
Ghanem: Most exciting thing happening is the fan, so you turn around the model and make it interactivity.
On respective businesses
Rojas: One other person works with him. Remember: Economics of the web require that you structure your business differently.
Ghanem: Salespeople that are focused on verticals. The Yahoo! model.
