Terry McBride At “Meet The Millennials”

INTRO: FROM THE POST-PRESS RELEASE

PART 1: MCBRIDE SPEAKS

(Press Release) INTRO: Music Tank celebrated it’s 5th anniversary on Thursday in style with the launch of a unique music business experiment, kicked off by Nettwerk Music Group CEO Terry McBride. Hot on the heels of his acclaimed report ‘Meet The Millennials’, McBride was challenged by MusicTank to demonstrate live on stage the practical applications of his lifestyle-marketing philosophies and in his own words get us all thinking ‘outside the sandbox and onto the beach’.

Joined by representatives of some of the leading organizations in the music, gaming and advertising industries, such as Electronic Arts, Warp Records, Rough Trade, KLP, Last.fm and MTV (see below for full list of contributors),Terry was tasked with creating an experimental 12 month road map fit for tomorrow’s music business for one of the UK’s hottest new talents, James Yuill, who was introduced to the audience by his manager Amul Batra.

Widely regarded as one of the music industry’s leading thinkers, Terry
in collaboration with the invited guests proposed several paths for
James that neatly sidestepped pre-internet routes to market in favor
of compelling 21st century strategies for artists, their management and
labels.

He began by questioning James, learning more about him and discovering
about James’ background.  He then built up a profile of James’ tribe and found several back stories in James’ life that were used to brainstorm
ideas – from James creating adverts off his own back for causes and
brands he associates with such as recycling or Guinness to organising a
worldwide hunt for his stolen laptop.  The web domain
www.wheresmyfuckinglaptop.com  was even registered live on stage after
a suggestion from one contributor.

Terry looked at the myriad ways James can build up his fan base, learn
more about them by using tools such as Google Analytics and then most
importantly get those fans to take an active part in James’ career,
from remixing his music, designing his record sleeves and merchandise.  By the end of the
brainstorming session everything from soundtracking computer games,
releasing Guinness shaped USB sticks to Mediterranean cruise ship shows
for the fans had been suggested by the audience and James and his management left with plenty of ideas to mull over.

During the course of the day we also heard a global brand’s
perspective of Millennials courtesy of MTV’s Philip O’Ferrall and from
Russell Hart and Peter Ruppert, CEO and Founder/President of
Entertainment Media Research who provided an insightful take on the
career trajectory of those ‘broken’ by Millennials.

Our Millennials then got to have a look in themselves as four representatives from this emerging and important demographic were introduced to the audience and given a chance to have their say. With 6Music’s Tom Robinson responsible for coaxing pearls of wisdom from the youthful chorus we soon discovered that many of Terry’s ideas struck a chord with them, for them music is an ever present background noise, a soundtrack to their instant messaging, gaming and traveling.

Despite facing the massed ranks of music professionals they had no qualms in stating their lack of concerns when it came to illegally downloading tracks, believing the artists will make up the money elsewhere, though they agreed with Terry that were download prices reduced then the convenience and neatness of legal tracks with all their accompanying metadata would make legal downloads a more appealing alternative. All in all it was a combative, robust demonstration of why we ignore the views of the ‘Millennials’ at our peril and why if we continue to listen, learn and experiment then the future of the music industry may look a lot different to what we’re used to, but there will be a future.

List Of Invited Companies / Participants

Martin Stiksel (Last.fm); Howard Monk (The Local); Rachel Wood (WoodWork Music); Daniel Cross (Record-Play); Suw Charman-Anderson (Fruitful); Steven Hill (Warp Records); Susie Armstrong (Electronic Arts); James North (Rechord); Kim Machray (KLP); Alfie Dennen (Moblog); Ian Bell (7Digital); Stephen Godfroy (Rough Trade Stores); Sean Adams (Drowned In Sound); Nico Köpke (Kodime); Paul Entwhistle (Firebrand Live); Ritch Ames (Tomorrow NeverKnows);  Melanie Johnson (EMI Music Publishing).