Digital Digest – August 22, 2013

Rdio early stream propels Dead Letter Circus to #2 on ARIA Charts 

In a clear case of the new promotional guard taking over the old, an exclusive pre-release through streaming service Rdio has led to the Dead Letter Circus record The Catalyst Fire debuting at #2 on the ARIA Albums Chart. Paola Cracknell, Head of Music and Media partnerships at Rdio, tells TMN: “By partnering with UNFD, our users were amongst the first in the world to hear the new Dead Letter Circus album. Through a comprehensive marketing campaign we were able to give the album the exposure it deserved ahead of its release, which ultimately contributed to its immediate success.”

Luke Logemann, Head of Recorded Music at the band’s label UNFD also credits the week-early stream with bolstering sales: “While UNFD remains strong in the physical and vinyl markets, we are increasingly aware of streaming services and their impact on artist exposure and income. In RDIO we found a partner who was as enthused about this record as we are, and willing to help us get the word out there about The Catalyst Fire in every way possible – a marketing strategy we employ wherever we can.

“Both parties put all our resources into the stream and gained some incredible numbers together. The stream of the album a week early was obviously a massive success – with a #2 record in terms of sales alongside tens of thousands of streams – shows us that we managed to really give Dead Letter Circus the exposure they needed heading into the week of release, and still capitalised on sales as well.”

It will be interesting to see if this intersection between strong physical sales, and early promotion via streaming sales is adopted more and more by labels. Certainly in the US, NPR (National Public Radio) has been a great testing ground for early pre-release streams, however this is more of a digital shift from the usual ‘exclusives’ afforded radio stations, rather than a new model for early promotion. Either way, the times they are-a changin’. -NJ

Vevo has biggest month yet 

Vevo Australia – the joint venture between Sony, Universal and MCM Media – announced that June was its biggest month, with 80.2 million streams. 90% of the videos streamed by 12.9 million Australians were “entertainment.” One in five of these were music videos, of which MCM has 75,000 in its catalogue. MCM Media’s digital commercial director Lachlan Brahe said: “It’s exciting to learn that a third of all our video streams are being accessed on mobile devices, validating our opinion that all screens matter when people love your content. With an ad model that delivers one solus ad every two video clips, Vevo is one of the most important ingredients for multi-screen advertising”. – CE

iTunes Radio unleashes a wealth of sponsors 

The Advertising Age has pointed out that the free version of iTunes Radio will not differ at all from regular commercial radio, with interruptions every fifteen minutes from big name sponsors such as McDonald’s, Nissan, Pepsi, and Procter & Gamble. While this is to be expected and will provide a huge revenue stream for Apple – sources claim the minimum buy-in for advertisers will be one million dollars – it will also push customers to purchase iTunes Match, a cloud-based music storage feature, which comes with access to the ad-free version of iTunes Radio. – NJ

SMS Audio team with Rhapsody 

If you are at peace with adding to 50 Cent’s growing commercial empire (or maybe you just need a pair of new headphones), SMS Audio has partnered with streaming service Rhapsody to offer a 60-day free trial of Rhapsody’s premium service to anyone who purchases a pair of Street by 50 On-Ear Wired Headphones, Street by 50 Over-Ear Active Noise Control (ANC) Wired Headphones, and Sync by 50 Wireless Speaker. – NJ

Spotify claim credit for Lorde’s US success 

When New Zealand wunderkind Lorde became the first female to top the Billboard Alternative Chart in seventeen years (sigh), it was due to a flood of streaming activity that started when Spotify’s Sean Parker added Royals to his Hipster International (sigh) playlist in April. At least this is what Spotify Director of Economic Development Will Page claimed at a panel discussion at the Media Evolution event in Sweden this week. He stated that the song jumped to the second most popular song on Spotify within two weeks of this happening, although this wasn’t just an idle boast, but rather part of a bigger point he was making about the way songs are organically shared and promoted through streaming services, which leads directly to sales. “The important observation here is that, yes, the song broke through from a playlist, but once that happened, sharing kicked in, and people began discovering it on their own,” Page said.