Marketing Blues Music in 2001
This assignment is designed to give students a chance to think about and apply Basic Marketing ideas to one example of a real world problem:
Marketing a product or service, with small overall market share, in a highly competitive and technologically-impacted market .
I created a scenario wherein a blues industry group (the National Blues Council) has called upon a marketing consulting firm (Millennium Music Marketing Consultants, Inc.) to develop some strategies and tactics aimed at growing the industry. (The full instructions about this marketing analysis assignment are available at "Assignment D." )
Basically, I wanted to have students utilize just-learned marketing ideas to :
a) significantly increase sales in the blues music genre, while
b) retaining the basic essence of the product (blues music)
Especially with the constraint of "retaining the basic essence of the product," this is a challenging applied marketing problem, replete with opportunities for both "by the book" marketing techniques as well as for employing innovation in thought and strategy to marketing programs. Innovation is increasingly one of the prime requirements for effective marketing programs, often leading to what is called a strategic competitive advantage, a determinant of superior business performance (Porter 1980, 1985).
In the intro level course, students (about 80% business majors--10% marketing majors) learn fundamental marketing ideas such as the marketing concept, target market, segmentation, promotion, public relations, distribution, customer orientation and numerous others. This assignment is an optional project, meant to be completed in about 2 to 5 hours. It is not the kind of semester long project such as a marketing plan that a student would complete in higher level marketing management or strategy classes.
The class consists of mostly sophomores/juniors, including some making the transition from community college to the university level. Mean age of the class is 25.8, ranging from 19 to 44. According to a survey taken at the beginning of the course, predominant career interests are accounting and management. Students reported spending about 10 hours weekly on the Internet and the same amount watching TV. Students' musical interests included Rock, Pop, Country and "Everything," in that order. Only one person mentioned R&B and no one stated an interest in Blues.
The purpose of this page is to document selected student -consultant papers. I think they did a fine job in:
a) doing some marketing research regarding a product they knew virtually nothing about.
b) applying both basic and innovative marketing ideas that could be further developed into growth-based marketing programs.
c) providing some insight into how a younger generation views blues as both a musical genre and a marketable product.
In the table below are excerpts from selected papers that give the reader of this page an indication of the ideas in each Student-Consultant's report, the structure of which was designed by the student. Just click on the author's name to see the entire text, which is set in the form of a memo to the National Blues Council president, a fictitious Mr. I. Glauer Bruce.
Comments are always welcome.
Rich Gonzalez
University of South Florida
Click On Student Name For Full Report
| Student-Consultant | Excerpt # 1 | Excerpt # 2 | Excerpt # 3 |
| Allison Gough | "...and the music consumer is constantly picking up and listening to new styles of music. The music industry is changing, how people listen to music is changing, how people purchase music is changing. And, understandably, how people promote and market music and the artists that create music is changing. " | "One BIG problem with the blues music genre’s size is the target market, it's too small." | "We can merge ‘Blues’ with Rap/HipHop." |
| Jeffrey McDonald | "...that
despite the large audience of blues music fans, the reason that it does
not sell very well is because these people do not have a lot of access to
the music itself." |
"...an enhanced CD concept.... added features that can be accessed by use of a CD-ROM drive... to get all kinds of information about the artist. Some ideas to include would be to have links to blues music web sites in general as well as the artists web site... to get information on the artist such as other CDs available and a brief biography of the artist." | "...a sales promotion. Get artists to offer free concert tickets to lucky people that buy their albums...every CD that is sold has a code number. The person enters the code number at the artist’s website. One out of every one hundred thousand CDs or so would win two free concert tickets..." |
| Tracey Morgan | Short
Term Goals:
2. Develop an image/awareness/marketing plan for blues music. 3.Develop a strategy for use of the Internet as a tool in promoting blues. |
Long
Term Goals:
2. Sell blues music to retail as a profitable concept. 3. Measure/track financial growth within the blues genre. |
|
| Damion Scott | "A vital part of the blues market could be the African American market. Our firm could provide promotions that help to educate this segment about the origins of blues." | "The African American segment is susceptive to ideas that provide a feeling of pride and accomplishment. Our promotion could be geared towards helping to create additional pride for this segment..." | "Approximately 42% of the US population are baby bloomers [sic]. ... need to be informed about concerts and CDs. We could use the internet to accomplish this task." |
| J. W. Musser | "Recommendation
I: Target growth with female
listeners. ...recommended that a major promotion of [a] female recording artist be initiated. The campaign should invoke the nostalgia appeal and identify with the earliest Blues female recording artists. " |
"Recommendation
II: Increase promotional and distribution ...with Lowes Hotel and House of
Blues Restaurants.
... recommending exploring a joint promotion to include all nine of the House of Blues Restaurants. The restaurants ... in prime locations: Lake Buena Vista (Disney Area), Anaheim CA (Disney Area), Cambridge, MA (university location), Chicago (Lowes Blues Hotel), Los Vegas, Myrtle Beach, (resort location) New Orleans (major Blues market) and Sunset Strip. " |
"It is understood that these are initial recommendations and in order to retain and strengthen the revenues of Blues Music the effort must be ongoing. " |
| Jan Wolfe | " I think we need to focus on increasing the number of consumers in these two areas. Essentially, to change these passive listeners into active fans." | "
I see no problem with the distribution of blues music except that
it is not given enough exposure." |
"There is nothing wrong with the product. Blues music is a part of our heritage. It deserves greater recognition. ...Exactly why blues music doesn’t command a larger share of the market is a puzzlement... Essentially all other music stems from the blues." |
| M. Ryan Davis | "The real blues music is overlooked. If you look on the music stores shelves for blues specifically you will find a small selection to choose from in terms of artist. Furthermore, it is usually placed out of the way, sort of placed in some remote corner..." | " We have to make the retailers want the product along with the final consumers. " | "Some of the record labels need to band together and ... and see who [an industry created star] has got the potential.... Then the artists with the most promising future need to be revamped with a mellinum [sic] edge... need to be young so that they may be molded and have a potential for longevity...artist need[s] to be good, preserving the true essence of the music, yet they also need to be some what good looking ... to their audience." |
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