Trendspotting: Music Industry Spins New Business Models

'THE FUTURE IS MEDIEVAL' WITH THE KAISER CHIEFS

We’re finally able to talk about this. It’s been shrouded in secrecy within the agency for over a year now.
Wieden + Kennedy London have teamed up with The Kaiser Chiefs, B-Unique and and Fiction Records (a division of Universal Music UK) to create a whole new way of releasing an album.

Everybody gets their own bespoke album that they are then allowed to sell on.

Fans can pick 10 songs out of 20, design their artwork and download their album.
We give them their own web page, banner ads for their blog, posters and social media tools to advertise their album. For every album they sell they get a pound.
If you don’t want to make your own album then you can browse and listen to other people’s and just pick one of them.

The plan was hatched by our creative Oli Beale and lead singer Ricky Wilson in a fish & chip shop, while on holiday in Cornwall together. The conversation snowballed into a bigger and bigger idea and we’ve had a full-scale team working on this here for months now.

Nothing like this has ever been done before. The financial model has required fundamental changes to the way royalty payments work that couldn’t have been done without the might of Universal Music UK behind it.
It’s been an incredibly exciting meeting of minds. We’ve learnt a lot of things:
1.    Never show a band a Powerpoint deck. “I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT I’M LOOKING AT HERE!”
2.    Look after the hardcore fans of bands.
3.    Use the band as creative directors. They are brilliant.
4.    Being a band manager is an insane job that doesn’t allow for sleep. Respect.
5.    Record labels and Ad Agencies are very different places but full of very similar people. I think we all learnt loads from each other.
Who knows what stories this will throw up in the next few weeks?
Will somebody make a fortune selling an album?
Will other bands make their own versions of the album?
Which tracks will emerge as the favourites?

Pop back soon to find out.

Make one yourself here: Take a look here: http://www.kaiserchiefs.com/