February 2012
quick review Welcome to the midem Quick Review, which offers a snapshot of midem 2012. This year’s market signaled a transition for the music industry, bringing together brands, artists, and technology as well as music’s core business. Midem 2012 also welcomed people and companies from outside the music business; it staged a festival that took over the city of Cannes for three nights; it held competitions that showed extraordinary innovation; and it brought together visionary speakers who spelt out the future for music and its wider ecosystem. The midem 2012 Quick Review is brought to you by the midem news team
Selah Sue
midem thanks its sponsors:
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visionary monday
The music business model is still a mystery, says Saatchi’s Roberts Kevin Roberts
KEVIN Roberts, worldwide CEO of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, took to the midem stage to give his views on how marketers can make more creative and innovative use of music. “I’m here because music matters to me,” he said. “Music is becoming increasingly important. I haven’t got a clue as to what business model is going to work
My career has followed the internet, Keating says THE PANEL on building sustainable music careers in the modern industry featured music manager James Barton, artists Zoe Keating and Paul van Dyk, and Beggars Group head of digital Simon Wheeler. Keating has built a fan base on her own, rather than relying on a label. “My career has really just followed the internet. My EP came out in 2005, which was the beginning of Myspace. So I just put it all up on Myspace, and on my own website.” Barton clarified the role of management: “There’s no way you can say Zoe needs a manager, because she patently doesn’t. If you can add value to what someone like Zoe is doing, there may be a role for you.”
though,” he said. “We live in a VUCA world — a world that is volatile, a world that is uncertain, a world that is complex and a world that is ambiguous.” And according to Roberts, new is dead. “Nothing is new any more. By the time we think it’s new, consumers have been doing it for ages. We live not in an age where new counts or innovation counts. We live in the age of now.”
Piracy may help us, says Rovio’s Hed Mikael Hed
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ANGRY Birds is a phenomenon, and Rovio CEO Mikael Hed had some sound advice for the music industry. “You only get one chance to make an impression. So we took our time — we took eight months to make the game — and then we took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans. We do that today: we talk about how many fans we have.” And that focus continues: “We constantly ask ourselves what more we can we do to delight the fans, because if we lose that fan base, our business is over.” Like the music industry, Rovio has piracy problems. “Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day.” He added: “We have some problems with piracy in apps, but especially in consumer products. There is a lot of counterfeit merchandise out there, and we could learn a lot from the music industry about combating piracy.”
visionary monday
Ronson will let the public decide on his Olympic Coke project Mark Ronson
PRODUCER-artist Mark Ronson appeared in a keynote session with Coca-Cola’s senior vice-president of integrated marketing communications and capabilities, Wendy Clark, to talk about their joint project fusing music and sport around this year’s Olympic Games in London. Ronson will be using the sounds of athletes in action to make a track, and he is keen for the song to accurately represent his home country. “It’s not something that I would have thought of myself, but the minute I got into it, I thought this could be ama-
zing,” he said. So it’s all about stringing samples of grunts, swishing archery arrows, table tennis balls being hit, and so on,” Ronson said. How will Coca-Cola measure the success of the project? “I can tell if it works or not the minute I play it in a DJ set,” Ronson said. “If people don’t like this song, it’s not only a wasted opportunity, it’s embarrassing. It’s my credibility on the line. If this song is not great... Coke can move on and do something with the next artist. But I’m screwed!”
There’s still room for more digital
The Fab Four panel
HOW TO Work With The Fab Four: Lessons For Success, focused on the four entities fighting for dominance in the entertainment sector: Amazon, Apple,
Facebook and Google. Moderator, TAG Strategic’s Ted Cohen asked if there’s room for new digital service players: “From a holistic view3
Ticketmaster gets cash boost from Facebook IN THE Facebook keynote, vice-president of partnerships Dan Rose, revealed some interesting statistics, for example, that Ticketmaster makes an additional $5 of incremental revenue every time someone shares on Facebook that they has just bought a concert ticket. “Five billion songs have been shared on Facebook in more than 50 countries around the world since its social graph launched,” he said. More than 20 music services are currently partners for the platform. “If you’re an artist and your content is not already on one of these services, make it available. If you’re not on Facebook, get on the site..” Dan Rose
point, there’s more than enough room for additional players and entrants,” Universal Music Group’s president of global digital business, Rob Wells said. “Over the next 12 to 24 months we’ll see genres of music that are currently underserved — such as classical and jazz — coming through. There may also be urban and hip-hop streaming or a la carte services.” He added: “That goes against what some of the pundits and commentators are saying. It’s incorrect and inaccurate to assume that there’s too much choice for consumers in the marketplace.” Merlin CEO Charles Caldas agreed, saying we will see more diversification both territorially and by genre. “We’ve started with the megastores, and we’re seeing increased specialisation in digital music,” he said. The panel also featured Zahavah Levine, director of content partnerships for Android at Google, and Craig Pape, director of music content acquisition at Amazon.
artists As well as the hundreds of artists that came to Cannes to play the midem festival and midem off, many of the new breed of DIY artists came to do business...
Artists at midem learning tips in the hub
Joss Stone
Jamal Edwards
Patricia Kaas
JOSS STONE came to midem not to play but to do business. She was in Cannes with Getty Images which was launching synch-licensing service Guestlist at midem, a music offering that licenses single tracks from indie labels to “highly visible projects” including trailers, films and commercials. Stone’s label Stone’d Records has signed up to Guestlist because “there are a lot of things that Getty Images is good at that I don’t know anything about,” she said. “Like how to get the best out of the modern, superconnected world, and getting my music in front of people through placement in adverts, movies, TV shows...”
JAMAL Edwards, founder of SBTV — the YouTube channel that has launched a number of urban artists and boasts over 90 million views, explained at midem how he engages with the music audience: “I’d do a video asking people what they wanted to see on the channel, then I’d go out and make that video. That’s the kind of connection that I have.”
PATRICIA Kaas came to midem to launch an album of covers of the songs of Edith Piaf. Kaas said she was “absolutely delighted” by the reaction of delegates at her press conference, particularly that the room was “full to bursting”. She added: “There seems to be a lot of excitement about the album, people seem genuinely interested in how I might have interpreted these classic songs.”
Joss Stone
Patricia Kaas
Zoe Keating Jamal Edwards
Lyly GreenLuv LYLY GreenLuv is a lyricist — in French and English — and a singer. She came to midem for the first time to promote her new CD, Number 1. “I’ve left hundreds of copies with different tech and management companies. And I have met with YouTube here and am working with them now to create my own channel. Midem has been a very good experience for me.”
Rick Wakeman KEYBOARD wizard and former member of the band Yes, Rick Wakeman, came to Cannes to sign with 3DA Entertainment, which launched its new 3D audio technology at midem. Wakeman and 3DA will employ the technology on the musician’s future albums and live shows.
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MIDEM 2012 was the first for Zoe Keating, cellist, composer and DIY artist. She explained how she manages business and connects to her fans: “I can’t imagine how I ever got on without Google Docs for collaborative projects and for managing paperwork and accounting on the road. I manage my travel itinerary with a service called Tripit and the iPad is undoubtably my tour manager. For D2F sales, I’m quite happy with Bandcamp because it’s so easy to use… although I’m hoping they continue to expand their offerings. I can’t say enough good things about Cash Music and their open source tools like Tweet-for-a-track.”
innovations Invitation to the music and tech meet-up
Funkerman
Stephane Doutriaux
DUTCH artist Funkerman’s latest single Blow (Flamingo Records) has been tested in Dutch clubs and received an ecstatic reception from both DJs and fans. “Because it’s different, the effect in clubs has been remarkable,” Dick de Groot, managing director of the record’s distributor Be Yourself, said at midem. “Plus public feedback has been amazing, so in order to build on the ever-closer relationship that Funkerman has with his fans, we will be releasing one track per month, starting with Blow on February 6, instead of putting out an album.”
POKEN founder & CEO Stephane Doutriaux believes his invention has the potential to revolutionise the live music industry and the relationship between audience and artist. “Instead of getting bogged down at an event picking-up paper brochures, catalogues and CDs, participants collect digital information (pdf, mp3 music, video) by touching a tag placed either on a product, on a poster, or on a booth,” Doutriaux said. “And the exchange of information is two-way.”
Stelio Tzonis
Midem 2012 saw many innovations that connected artists and music companies directly to fans. These are some of them...
WEBDOC, the service which allows users to share their passions online through the creation of rich-media posts, announced teamings with SoundCloud, Songkick, and Topspin at midem 2012. Since launching in December 2011, Webdoc has experienced groundbreaking fan engagement. When British-Irish boy band One Direction asked their fans to wish happy birthday to group member Zayn Malik on Webdoc, within 48 hours more than 6,800 fans had created rich media posts to show their affection for him; spending on average between 15 to 30 minutes on the page, while creating, consuming and looking for One Direction material online.
Michelle Phelan DISCUSSING the intricacies of marketing to fans at the Direct2Fan (D2F) Camp, Michelle Phelan, one half of Irish/French duo Carosel, talked about using Hangouts, Google+’s video-conferencing service. “I’ve played personal concerts for some groups of fans from the other side of the world, who I’d never even seen before. Services like these are very powerful tools for artists,” she said.
Webdoc demo in the Bloggers’ Club
Tim Quirk AT THE Direct2Fan Camp, Google Music’s Tim Quirk said that while on the one hand, services like Google Music could indeed be helpful in building direct links between artists and their fan base, it needed to be done strategically. “The key to successful D2F is targeting your efforts to the many types of fans out there,” he said. “There are super fans, casual fans and everything in between, and by targeting all of them appropriately, you reach more people, which is in every artist’s interests.”
Audience questioning Tim Quirk in the Direct2Fan Camp
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tech Tech companies populated midem, striking deals with rights owners, and demonstrating their disruptive propositions to the industry at large...
The hottest startups pitching in the Innovation Factory
OpenEMI
Sony
POWERED by The Echo Nest, OpenEMI is an open-API platform that makes artist content — music, photos, videos and more —available to developers of apps, websites and other services. The addition of multi-million selling artist, Robbie Williams, to the platform’s offering was announced at midem.
SONY Music Unlimited president Tim Schaaf introduced the service’s latest innovations at midem. “We’re now operating live in 13 territories,” he said. “We’ve almost tripled the catalogue size and we now have access to a global catalogue of almost 15 million tracks.” Schaaf also pointed out that Music Unlimited is available on more than a dozen different Sony product categories, as well as nonSony Android handsets and tablets, with iOS support on the way soon.
API (Application Programming Interface) specialist, BlueVia, sponsored the 2012 midem Hack Day as part of a drive throughout 2012 to publicise BlueVia’s range of API-based services — including a virtual credit card which enables micro-payments on platforms. “We launched the public beta of BlueVia in March 2011 and we are currently busy building awareness by getting involved in events like the midem Hack Day,” BlueVia developer/marketing manager Tom Curtis, said.
STIM STIM, the Swedish collecting-rights society, launched a web-based interactive portal to give small independent publishers from any part of the world as much influence as the majors when negotiating to license their music to pan-European digital-music services. Called WOI and unveiled at midem, the new portal aims to empower small independent publishers. “WOI ensures that independents get the same transparency and negotiation strength when licensing their music to pan-European digital-music platforms, Tomas Ericsson, STIM’s deputy CEO, said.
Tim Schaaf
Corbis
SynchTank
CORBIS’ GreenLight division has introduced an ebay-style bidding system for synch licenses which was presented at the midem Speakers’ Dinner. GreenLight handles licensing of content, clearances, rights representation and talent negotiations as well as representing rights holders directly, including the personality rights of Bruce Lee, Johnny Cash and June Carter, the Andy Warhol Foundation, as well as Steve McQueen and Albert Einstein.
SYNCHTANK non-executive director Fraser Davidson and software designer Joel Thomas Jordan were at midem after a successful year. “Last year when we were here we had one client, now we have 30 and the number looks set to grow considerably in 2012, including some very big catalogues,” Davidson said. SynchTank is a configureable software with a customised portal and many automated functions such as measuring the BPM and characterising tracks as they are being uploaded.
CueSongs
Simfy
CUESONGS, the one-stop music-licensing hub for online and digital media usage, launched its invite-only beta phase at midem. “The old world of music licensing is still the exclusive province of the few. It is too expensive for most, rarely available online and can be painfully slow and complicated,” co-founder of CueSongs Peter Gabriel, said. “By introducing low prices and easy online access, CueSongs is creating a new market for music, to satisfy a huge untapped demand that can begin to provide new income streams for artists.”
STREAMED music has caught consumers’ imagination because it is fun, according to Gerrit Schumann, CEO of Germany-based streamed-music service Simfy, the host of a workshop at midem. “The technical parameters for hosting a streamed service are a lot of fun today because the technology has improved. We have the bandwidth and effective mobile devices like smartphones,” he said. “That, plus the (flat monthly rate or advertising finance) business model, makes a lot of sense.”
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marketing
Midem 2012 hears of innovative new approaches to audience engagement
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HERE is a new kind of relationship emerging in the field of audience engagement that is defined by a sense of community that links artists directly to their fan base using a combination of social media, apps and a whole new level of commitment to openness by performers. “Everything begins with engagement,” Sony’s head of Entertainment Networks Tim Schaaff said at midem. And in reply to artists who claim that streaming services cannibalise sales, he said: “Streaming is a chance to monetise engagement. And we’re very optimistic, there’s a dynamic quality about the music industry right now.” Ralph Simon, CEO of Mobilium said that “innovation is now as important to the music industry as artists”, adding: “Thanks to the ability to build a transmedia presence, an act can get up close and personal with its fans and breed a different kind of loyalty that is nourished by regular engagement. But something that is overlooked is that you have to have great songs and pay as much attention to musical adventurousness as you do to the reaching out to your audience.” Deep engagement also involves a new and more complex kind of marketing: “The biggest challenge for an independent label is data management,” Horst Wiedenmuller, CEO of K7 Records, said. “By that I mean that we have
a database of around 120,000 people, and how we use the affinity that those people have for our artists is critical. What labels need to do is make those people feel like they are part of a club with the artist at the centre.” K7 Records is 27-years-old, and Wiedenmuller believes that independents now have a clear advantage in the market. “To really engage with the fans, you need to be able to react quickly, because it’s all about being able to reach into niches and activating them.” LA- and Belgium-based crowdsourcing company SonicAngel was at midem to meet potential partners and to sign new artists. The company uses social media to find up-and-coming artists, and then contacts the fans that are causing all the buzz, for funding. Fans pay €10 for a Fanshare; the money goes towards a forthcoming album, for which they get a copy of the album once it’s completed, along with extras — plus a share in the profits. SonicAngel’s first signing is artist Tom Dice, who was nominated for an NRJ Award this year in Cannes. “And fans have just received their first payout — €33 to everyone who bought a Fanshare,” said founder and CEO Bart Becks. “We’re now raising money for his second album and we’ve already raised €50,000 in just five days.” At midem Rice signed both a distribution deal and a publishing deal.
Ogilvy music pitch session in the Ideas Hothouse
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Tips on marketing from mentors in the Direct2fan Camp
Also at midem, Amsterdam-based Fuga held a round table session to demonstrate its new fan-based distribution system that CEO Martin Tjho said could “grow to become one of the largest catalogues on the planet” after its visit to midem. The system engages with fans via artist’s social media presence. With Fuga’s system, a track posted onto an artist’s Facebook wall — an artist who might have millions of friends — when clicked, will then appear as a widget on the fan’s wall. Through that widget the fan can buy and share the track. “The potential for sales is massive and we are also able to provide the artist with detailed information of exactly who they are,” Tjho said. “This is a tool that offers the artist widespread promotion, distribution and revenue collection.” He added: “This has been so well received. At midem we are on the verge of signing a global superstar.”
music industry
The business of music CISAC
Alongside the live music, the creative competitions and the ingenuity on show from the startups and tech companies at midem, heavyweight music business figures had some heavyweight industry announcements to make … Frederic Mitterrand
IMPALA/WIN
FREDERIC Mitterrand, the French culture minister, announced that a Centre National de la Musique (CNM) would be launched later this year. The CNM will federate all the interests of the music industry and centralise public funding. It is predicted that the new body will have a budget in 2013 of between €75-€90m, with the funding coming from existing taxes on ISPs.
THE IMPALA/WIN Manifesto debate on January 30, tackled a wide range of issues facing the music industry including emerging business models that challenge small copyright owners’ ability to monetise their creative enterprises. “What was particularly interesting was the level of unanimity on the points to be addressed in the manifesto, from full-scale opposition to the attempt by Universal and Sony to buy EMI and turn music into a two-horse race, to the need to reframe the whole copyright debate, to leveling the playing field across the board for independents,” Impala executive chair Helen Smith said.
Frederic Mitterrand
Paul McGuinness
Coca-cola COCA-Cola revealed at midem that it will be entering into an as-yet-unannounced strategic partnership with Spotify. The partnership will be tied to the 2012 London Olympic Games and will most probably run alonsgide the project Move To The Beat, featuring artist and producer Mark Ronson.
U2 MANAGER Paul McGuinness spoke about the role of ISPs and companies like Google in the piracy debate, as well as the SOPA controversy and why services like Spotify have not yet replaced radio. “Though there is some improvement in the digital environment in terms of people getting paid, the majority of content distributed through their pipes is still pirated. But I hope that in a few years’ time we’ll be sitting here asking ourselves what all the fuss was about because we pay for our music through our phone and ISP bills. But it still remains to be answered exactly why it all took so long to come together,” he said.
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CISAC issued its report on author’s royalties collected in 2009 by author’s societies, and the findings were positive. Key figures for global collections in 2009 were: •€ 7.152 billion was the sum of the total collections of the 225 CISAC member societies in 2009, up 1.7% from 2008 to 2009 • 63% of collections (€4.48bn) were made in Europe • 72% of collections (€5.13bn) were from public performance royalties, which grew in value by 3.4% • Musical repertoire accounted for 86% of collections (€6.14bn) • Thanks to an 11% growth, non-musical repertoire achieved €1bn for the first time
GEMA GEMA, the German copyright administrator signed a licensing agreement with French streaming service Deezer, it was announced during midem. The agreement is based on the new online tarrifs by GEMA which the society hopes will encourage foreign services like Deezer to launch in Germany. “We believe that this contract will send a clear signal to other online providers,” GEMA CEO, Harald Heker, said. “The new rates make it clear that it is possible to reach agreements with GEMA that are lucrative for both sides.”
Restorm.com RESTORM.com and Jamendo signed a cooperation agreement at midem with the goal of creating a long-term partnership and the bundling of resources. Both platforms support independent artists and labels, and now will combine their technological expertise and focus on opening up and modernising the market for music licensing, for which restorm.com will launch the music licensing platform rightclearing. com within the next month. At the beginning of the co-operation selected tracks from Jamendo artists will be imported to rigthclearing.com, opening new streams of revenue for these artists. “Jamendo is doing a great job,” Philippe Perreaux, CEO of restorm.com, said. “I am very happy that we are combining our know-how, and I’m sure that together we will have a profound impact in the near future.”
awards Three competitions were staged during midem 2012, designed to encourage innovative, creative, and disruptive approaches to doing business
Midemlab innovations designed to monetise new-look music business
MIDEMLAB featured the latest digital innovations designed to help music executives, artists, and brands, to engage and profit from audience engagement with music. The 2012 finalists were nominated through a call for entry by the selecting partners Music Ally and bluenove. In the Innovation Factory at midem, they pitched their business model to a jury comprising potential business partners, leading investment firms, influential media and winners from previous editions. And the winners are: • In the Music Discovery, Recommendation And Creation category: MPme by Apsmart (UK) • In the Marketing And Social Engagement category: CrowdSurfing by LiveOne Group (US) • In the Direct-To-Consumer Sales And Content Monetisation category: WildChords by Ovelin (Finland) • And the special sponsor prize chosen
The midemlab jury
Competition rewards creative marketing FOR THE first time midem highlighted, and honoured,the most innovative and creative use of a music partnership with artists in a marketing campaign. The 10 finalists selected by Contagious, the ad industry’s authority on creativity and innovation, presented their campaign to the midem audience, and a respected panel of judges. The winning campaign, announced during Visionary Monday, was from Christoph Bornschein, CEO, Torben, Lucie Und Die Gelbe Gefahr — Germany’s most popular social networking site — for his marketing campaign Mein Tweet als Lied.
The campaign was designed to establish Vodafone’s certified status as the “best mobile network in Germany” among the Generation Upload. In accordance with Vodafone’s catchline Power To You, this campaign honoured the creative power and social presence of this demographic. For 11 hours on March 30, 2011, German band Bakkushan set status updates to music. Anyone could send tweets hashtagged #tweetlied or Facebook comments. Within five minutes, Bakkushan turned status, twitter poetry, and other messages into short, catchy songs.
Midem Hack Day
conceptualise, collaborate, and build a new generation of applications. The best ideas got the chance to pitch directly to the hackers at midem. Stand-out projects included
MIDEM Hack Day brought together 30 developers who were given 48 hours to
Left to right: Will Sansom, writer and consultant, Contagious Communications; Torben, Lucie Und Die Gelbe Gefahr’s Christoph Bornschein; and Reed MIDEM’s Anne de Kerckhove
the midem Music Machine, which generates 3D graphics to music, and Tourrent Plan, which selects venues for artists based on fan-base downloads.
Hackers hard at work in Cannes
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concerts The midem festival and midem off, both brand new additions to midem, proved a smash hit with delegates and the public, with some 14,000 people enjoying the live music during the week. Here we share some of the highlights
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1 Soulful French artist Imany kicked off the midem festival, staged in the Chapiteau Croisette 2 UK pop band The Ting Tings rocked the Chapiteau Croisette 3 Hit boy band Mayday took to the stage in the Palais as part of the Made In Taiwan night 4 Dance mix stars 2manydjs raised the temperature in the Chapiteau Croisette 5 Canadian Blast showcase at Morrison’s Irish Pub, one of the venues for midem off
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concerts
2 1 Shaka Ponk at the Chapiteau Croisette 2 Brigitte at the Chapiteau Croisette 3 Mari and Hakon Samuelsen at the Theatre Croisette 4 US DJ Jazzy Jeff at Dadada, midem off 5 Skip The Use’s midem festival performance earned them deals with promoters in Russia and Germany
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the full music ecosystem
They came to midem 2012
6900 participants • 75 countries • 3000 companies • 338 journalists • 650 artists • 80 gigs with 120 bands • 114 workshops & conferences with 305 speakers • 19000 tweets • 1400 blogposts
EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION UNTIL FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2012
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