In other news this week, the music business is in a tailspin, and searching for ways to save itself. The National Association of Record Merchandisers (NARM) has just published its chairman's message, with several clues about what consumers may see from the industry in the coming months.Noting "It's been an eventful year so far," the statement recaps the findings of a recent NARM focus group and suggests that a key area of concern for music retailers should be fostering better consumer communication. "What became pretty clear was that even though the value proposition [for buying music] could be better, what was even more important was our neglect in effectively communicating the current value proposition to consumers."NARM suggests considering "an industry-wide advertising and promotional campaign. We've spent the past few months exploring a range of approaches to industry campaigns, looking at the objectives, creative concepts, funding, and execution." The organization has studied well-known commodity-based campaigns (milk, beef, pork, cotton, etc), as well as the copyright-protection campaigns being mounted by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
NARM also noted that the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (NARAS) has spent nearly a year researching and planning a consumer campaign to deliver "a positive message" to music consumers. An announcement about this campaign is slated to coincide with the 2004 Grammy nominations in an effort to gain wide media exposure.Reiterating its position on restricted CDs, NARM stated, "Of course, you've read that the technology has been bypassed by a consumer. Our statement of support acknowledged that there would clearly be technical challenges ahead, and we continue to support the industry's pledge to make appropriate changes and upgrades to this technology as needed."Of particular interest to audiophiles are the trade group's recent efforts to reach out to suppliers of new entertainment formats, such as DVD-Audio and SACD. "In the past few months, we have had discussions with the Digital Entertainment Group about convening a meeting with retailers to update them on developments in music on DVD, and to explore new ways of working together to educate their employees and their customers."
Along those lines, Philips SACD became the introductory sponsor of NARM's new Web-based business-to-business interactive marketplace called NARMart. "Philips plans to use NARMart to inform the retail community on all the latest titles and hardware news." NARM says it will also explore the formation of a task force to "focus on the development of new music and video hybrid products."
