Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

Often, business innovation comes from outside of a given industry.  While the industry players try to one-up each other, adding incremental changes to their product line, upstarts can come in and completely upset the cart. Think Netflix, Amazon, low-cost airlines, online discount brokers and so on.  But outside innovation doesn't always mean competition.  While the music industry was whining about declining sales (typically blaming not on their lack of innovation or quality products but on music downloading) the most recent boost has come not from the music industry itself, but from the games industry.  The Billboard Charts may soon have a competitor - the Rock Band charts.

Ad Age reported this week that the popular game franchises Rock Band and Guitar Hero have given a shot in the arm to musicians and labels.  "Sales of all but one of the 63 songs on "Guitar Hero III" jumped by more than 100% that week, with the bulk in the 200-300% range. While a connection between the increase in digital sales at sites like iTunes and Napster and "Guitar Hero III" isn't definitive, the evidence strongly suggests that the game played a role in the huge increase in single sales." they reported in "Video-Game Makers Are the Newest Rock Gods".

So for now these sales help the established music industry. That said, it's relevant that the music labels and publishers have an iron grip on the publishing rights, making this current addition the music market a boon to them. There's probably plenty of upside still.  Where's the Country Rock Band?  Where's the MC Hero? I'd imagine it's only a matter of time. And in fairness, the line between the game industry and music industry isn't exactly cut and dry.  Sony owns a good portion of the music business but also has good exposure to music gaming with the exclusive SingStar PS3 game.  MTV, owner of RockBand, obviously also has a solid grip on a large portion of the music-marketing infrastructure.  

But the boost could turn the corner into disruption. While a bulk of the current sales spawned by the RockBand and Guitar Heros may be coming from known (and signed) acts, there's nothing stopping the gaming industry from starting to sign artists. Maybe the next American Idol happens on the console.  Maybe the next Radiohead release will be in Moody Indie Rock Hero.  And maybe Universal will just buy Activision.