Hero to Zero : The Inevitability of Disruption - & The Stores Where Music Once Lived

My first really substantial marketing role was as Head of Marketing for New Zealand’s largest music retail chain (Sounds).

One minute we were making and breaking the international careers of rockstars, launching the careers of homegrown superstars, deciding what albums were purchased in what quantities, what was fronted and played in store, enjoying side of stage seats at sell out concerts - nek minute we were

- irrelevant.

Doh.

In those days it was hard to imagine there would not be music stores one day. Once there were queues around the block before a store opened, music fans lining up to get in or meet their favourite artists when they visited NZ.  Now, well - it’s tricky to explain to my kids that I managed marketing of stores from which you bought music. (Huh?) As, I’m sure it will also be weird to say that we watched television at a pre-programmed time, and I (in my career post music industry) was in charge of marketing that time slot. Such is the brutal reality of disruption.

Having a front row seat to an industry's demise provided awesome learnings  It left me with an “it will happen” mindset, rather than “it won’t” when it comes to change. It also left me with a better understanding of innovation, its sources and the inevitability of disruption.

Importantly - it wasn’t a demise (though it felt like that at the time) but ‘a reshaping’.   Music stores are certainly not really a thing anymore - but music is. Television may not be a thing at some point soon - but content will be. Money is made differently, those passionate about it remain. (Some of those who worked in the music industry from my time - still work there! Albeit their roles are different. The artists (creators) of course - still make music). God I loved listening to the stories - people being locked in stores by passionate music collecting staff insisting they listen to albums in their entirety, a queue around the street the morning after Tracy Chapman “Fast Car” played on Radio with Pictures - and the glorious golden days of rock n roll that my bosses would describe to me.

But, just like a 29.99 Sounds Blockbuster sale price - nothing can last forever.

The first clues of what was to come was actually a subtle shift in distribution. CD’s started being sold through gas stations rather than traditional music retailers - and “The Warehouse”.  I remember the freak out around this - as these were, “not music stores”.  The distribution model had changed - slightly. But then, ultimately, technology wiped it out.

And it took “Now That’s What I Call Music” with it.

The second clues were the ways in which customers were obtaining information. Dial up and early online “forums” (before social media) took care of this initially.

Without fancy listening tools, back in those days we had “refusal lists”. Every time someone came into the store and asked for something that we didn’t have - it went on a refusal list - and we would use these hand drawn scrawls as data points to work out what international artists were causing a rumbling through magazines and so on for young people.

I remember clearly the week in 1999, when there were 100’s and 100’s of the same name written down - “Eminem”.  This was ahead of the labels presenting and certainly ahead of us promoting or radio stations playing him. How do they know about him in NZ? I wondered. But information, online talk and murmurings were clunkily starting to travel globally - albeit, as The Guardian’s Alexis Petridis put it -“Revisiting the years of Eminem’s rise and commercial supremacy – from 1999 to 2004 – feels like peering at a distant era, in its own way as remote from and alien to the present as the 1970s or the early 80s seem. There was no social media, no smartphones, no streaming; broadband internet, digital downloads and reality TV were all novelties”

In 2001, Apple released the ipod. With the tagline - “1,000 songs in your pocket” - the writing on the wall got clearer. (Read, if the songs are in your pocket - then, they’re probably not going to be in our stores).

So, we did what all great music retailers did in those days. We asked WWRD?

(What Would Richard Do?), referring to our bible - Richard Branson's famed autobiography - “Losing your Virginity” (IYKYK).

We dialled up experience, putting in listening stations so you can at least listen to music on ipods - not entirely sure where we were going with this - but it was somewhere in the space of focusing on experience rather than the original product (CD / music). We also dialled up staff service and reviews. We emphasized the valuue of a curated and supported experience. We designed chill out zones, put in bean bags (just like Richard)…...got creative with “added value” - including an uncleared Metallica Best Of which we had to actually recall and crush physically, painstakingly photographing this process once Metallica's drummer Lars Ulrich found out about it. (True story - it wasn't quite comprehended back then that the internet was global - and even Lars was reading the forums!)

Ads went out reminding people it was illegal to pirate music. A few examples were even made of people. But ultimately, looking back - there was nothing that could be done. The doors of disruption were open - and, enivitably - I moved from there to a much safer industry, from music to television.  What could possibly go wrong?

Incredibly, despite said writing on wall - Sounds was sold in a (lucrative) private sale to Blockbuster. Who, given they were still peddling VHS’s, presumably, and luckily for the seller, missed the memo about either industry's demise.

They entered voluntary administration in 2007.

What a ride.