US Trip – A Focus Toward the Future

Posted by Reggie James | December 7th, 2011 | Filed under Music Marketing, RTG Ventures

As you are all probably aware by now, I returned about 2 weeks ago from a trip to the US that saw me take-in Los Angeles and New York.

I wanted to take this opportunity to share some the experience with you and more importantly outline the exciting new opportunities arising from some of the meetings.

Why the trip?

In my audio I talked about learning from the last 12 months and our 1st year. My last two blogs looked at everything leading toward the new technology and positioning our company in a brave new world.

The blog today, is looking at my trip to the US and how it would truly test the new concept from people in the music and entertainment business, as well as seasoned technology pros and investors who had held on to the coat tails of the silicon valley dragon.

For me, New York is a given. It is the historical soul of the advertising industry and as such, was core in the agenda. Meeting those that share an entrepreneurial vision of what we are looking to achieve is crucial. Also, re-establishing links with people who we had approached tentatively a few months back was also important in outlining the RTG roadmap for future growth.

So with meetings and schedules prior to Thanksgiving, it transpired that the first leg of the journey would be Los Angeles.

So why LA? Simple. To meet with like-minded people and give the technology platform an airing with the most prolific individuals within the entertainment industry, it was an opportunity too good to pass.

On top of this, we have deep relationships in LA. Meeting Aderra for the first time was such a powerful event that it will no doubt prove pivotal as we move forward and I will dedicate more time on this particular aspect of the trip in my next blog – very exciting.

Again, though the reasons for the trip may be obvious, It was key to capture the hearts and minds on both coasts to make the trip worthwhile.

Testing Concepts

The whole purpose of the trip was multifarious. I had been (and still am) running the agency Digital Clarity, for the best part of 2011 until recent months where I had taken the helm of the technology, to review and bring into a modern arena.

I have spoken in detail already about two things:

  • Major changes in the music and technology arena – commoditization, engagement and scale.
  • The shift in our technology offering and the need to address the changing market ahead of the curve.

On top of having to re-position RTG’s proposition, the trip to LA and NY would be the litmus test that was required to see whether the prototype, concepts and ideas for our new platform would fly or be shot down in flames.

Los Angeles

Linda Perry had made significant in-roads over the last 12 months to not only (re)establish relationships with major investors but also major names in music and technology. On top of this, it was these major heavyweights we were to meet alongside some people we had already spoken with tentatively and who had been kept warm waiting for – you know what.

If New York is where the money is and the San Francisco/Bay area is where the technology was being built, then Los Angeles was the meat in this musical sandwich.

To keep this short and to the point, we met with several major, successful names, and with all, I outlined and described the expanded technology offering to the industry which would allow us to be First Mover. The First Mover position is not said lightly. It is a position that is both coveted and difficult to achieve. Yet that observation was made by one of the toughest guys in the sector.The dots were connected.”

After crossfire questioning, it was apparent that what I was describing to them was not only something that was needed but would also allow the music business to look at data to make business decisions. This was no longer social media, but social business.

After a gruelling session with one of the savviest technology, music and social investors in town, I was greeted with the words, “Tell me more, this is genuinely investable…!”

Without question, the idea of streamlining our offering and focussing on revenues was unequivocally accepted by all, as well as the wholehearted acceptance of our view on the future. The confidence of knowing what we have in development, augmented with a digital marketing agency both working in harmony, was proving a potent value proposition.

With these thoughts firmly embedded in my mind, I was soon leaving the sunshine of LA and heading for more seasonal climes in the Big Apple.

New York

New York in all its glory with the holiday season round the corner is quite a site. The buy-in in Los Angeles was key to the next leg of the tour.

In New York, my first meeting was with a dynamic duo that runs one the most successful ambient media companies which feeds directly into the leisure and luxury brand arena. Former high level music men, they immediately saw the value in our repositioning and approached us with a likely scenario of how we could work together. As they outlined, finding ‘data value’ against their offering was now becoming crucial to their business as well as giving them an edge, not just in the US but in the important emerging markets of China, India and South America.

Another meeting in New York was with a wonderful and charming individual who heads one of the most enterprising private hedge funds based out of New York, that has its eye on application of technology on a global basis. The discussions centred around intelligent debate about the global, political climate and its effects on technology and infrastructure. This led to how technology with a human face is the right approach in a more socially connected planet.

Partnering for Success

Expanding Digital Clarity’s brand is one of the most important discussions that we had whilst in New York. Digital Clarity’s DNA runs deep in the evolution of digital marketing. Emulating this to the next level, without diluting its offering led to a discussion in a meeting that is currently being explored. Though still in its infancy,  it has the possibility of helping the company take a big leap forward in establishing a footprint in the US for the Digital Clarity brand.

The Missing Link

The learning over the year and the rapid development of digital technologies in the past decade or so has radically changed the way in which we can interact with the music industry. Likewise, the impact of social media upon the music industry has also made it much easier for musicians to interact with their fans.  Having the ability to have all your music, video, imagery and data managed, and reported in one interface is not unique. Having reports that makes sense of data from over 30 social and music platforms is powerful. But having an algorithm that gives you the ability to model forecast and make sense of engagement & sentiment that in turn, indexes against commercial return – suddenly becomes very exciting.

In a recent report looking at key findings of their fifth annual survey, global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, found that there was a large rise in adoption rates of social technologies. They also noted that levels of reported benefits remain high when organizations use social tools for internal purposes but have also increased among those that use them for communicating with customers or for integration with partners and suppliers.

This report and the level of investment that is being ploughed into the types of technology our company is engaged in, is not only a testament to our vision but paint a bright future, endorsed by the meetings in Los Angeles and New York.

The Future is Bright

Unlike before, it transpired that everyone I met and who I’ve have highlighted above, could see the need for this new platform.  It also became rapidly clear that if we were serious about our business, RTG would need to position itself as the pulse at the heart of this conurbation where decisions were made.

Next Steps

We are busy. Tablet based interfaces alongside an app are in the offing alongside a website platform that will give users a login into the powerful pulse gateway. Where possible, I  will keep everyone updated to the progress, partners and opportunities that continue to arise as we build toward 2012. We are moving forward with reinforcing support and will have some great news later this month. Thank you for sticking with us.

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US Trip – Part 2, Technology

Posted by Reggie James | November 30th, 2011 | Filed under Music Marketing, RTG Ventures

So, I mentioned in my last post some of the structural changes that were being made. I wanted to take this opportunity to share and update you on some the changes to our technology platform.

In doing so, it is important to put things into perspective and to understand that the review process, which has been both a positive experience and crucial to realign the company’s vision toward a meaningful market, which in turn leads to revenues.

Square Pegs, Round Holes

CloudChannel was born out of a concept that would look to change the way streaming media was monetized online. Aimed at rights owners, the idea was to disrupt the blanket media license model that exists today. Why? The idea for the platform was created back in 2010 and the evolving landscape has put paid to many of the good ideas that were to be developed.

With the growth of ‘the cloud’ or ‘cloud computing’ that was defined as ‘computing as a service’ as well an accessible storage area that houses applications such as data and the like, the name was beginning to look cumbersome and at best, a little confusing.

On top of the name, CloudChannel had become an unwieldy beast that was adding on new features at a rate of knots that was akin to a juggernaut heading toward stationary traffic.

As alluded to in the recent audio interview, it has been a busy time trying to unravel CloudChannel’s first phase alongside the plethora of different elements that had to be built in moving the platform forward.

As the commoditization of micro-payments and streaming technology became commonplace, the various delays and market changes meant that CloudChannel would be playing catching-up in certain areas and trying to sell a new concept in others. In many ways, creating more layers, parallel to what already existed and was extensively being used.

Development time to make the platform viable was also becoming an issue. Software that would allow scalability alongside application developments would have become challenging, in the original framework architecture. Alongside this, the application of Social Media into the platform was sadly more of an afterthought than a core consideration.

When one also looked some of the disparate elements of the project, it was also clear that when looking at the reporting capability of the technology, there would be a challenge to pull data into logical segments that would make sense. In other words, the management capability was being focused on but not the important reporting layer that made sense of the data.

In short, the sentiment of CloudChannel was there but it would have created another hoop to jump through before using the strong channels that existed already and have any deep penetration and engagement.

Again, though the above may seem harsh, as I mentioned earlier, it is important to put this into a rational perspective. Through a direct approach, it is vital to understand, It is not a lesser technology, it’s a real technology that has huge scope (beyond music) compared to the CloudChannel concept that no-one understood, was confusing and which meant something different to everyone I spoke to. More importantly, it allows us to focus on deliverables and revenues.

Deconstruction

A brief and un-scientific straw poll into the market showed that that the world was moving to the beat of a different drum. That drum was driven by Social Media and it was becoming crucial to all aspects of business. From the corporate Fortune 500 to the music and entertainment buying public, engagement was the name of the game.

Having to re-engineer a software platform is never easy, doing this with an incumbent piece of technology made the challenge stronger still.

Head in the Clouds to finger on the Pulse

The delivery of the new technology is based on stripping out all that is unnecessary and non-actionable and moulding the product around need.

Taking the DC pragmatic approach, it was agreed that a fast scalable platform would be used to ramp-up development and ‘ruby-on rails’ was the weapon of choice.This would also allow for first stage shaping of the platform for tablets and mobile apps.

So, where are we today? Well, testing of beta in a controlled environment has started and we hope to roll this out to selected partners at the tail-end of January. I mentioned in my last post, the quote from Eric Ries, author of the Lean Start up, “The goal of a lean start-up is to move through the build-measure-learn feedback loop as quickly as possible.” Well, given where we started 12 months ago and the review and application of much needed changes, we have come a long way, quickly.

I hope that gives some insight into what has happened over the last few weeks. As much as I would love to say more, it would be wrong of me to do so at this stage, mainly due to commercial restrictions.

In my next post, I will outline some of the meetings and feedback of the new approach and discuss some of the exciting forward looking plans for 2012 and beyond.

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US Trip – a Review, Part 1

Posted by Reggie James | November 28th, 2011 | Filed under Music Marketing, RTG Ventures

As the last of the Thanksgiving turkey is consumed and celebrity chefs talk about elaborate ways to endure more food for another week, it is clear that the festive season is in full swing.

All this thought of food led me to think about an old saying – “the proof of the pudding is in the eating.” In other words, you don’t know how good something is until you try it.

So I have been to the US and wanted to share with you why I went and the results and feedback of people tasting the RTG pudding. Before I do, and like the proverbial turkey, I thought it best to break this into bite size chunks. So, this will be the first of three posts, as it is important to share what we are doing with the company and the rationale behind our approach on how we move forward.

The Challenge

Following on from my recent audio interview that took stock of the 1st year of RTG Ventures, I highlighted what I described as ‘wholesale changes’ that had to be made to make the company not only a viable business for the future, but also a company that has a strong value proposition going forward.

Having looked at all the spider web of layers as well as different divisions, holding pages and stop-start programs; the process of creating a lean and nimble business could only be done with an intelligent and pragmatic process that would question the value of each area, within the current structure.

2011 had seen forays into arenas that were not always core to the strengths of the company. The diversity of so many businesses within a relatively small company was not only untenable but confusing. It was important to assess the central core of the business by directing a laser beam on the execution to revenues of the business identified. The core I talk of, was also reflective of growth and low hanging fruit in the wider business community – mainly the growth of digital music distribution and that of online marketing and social media across web, mobile and tablet devices.

It was clear that with an ill wind blowing across western financial markets, lean and agile was the only way to grow to derive revenues and deliver back, shareholder value.

So, with the stewardship of the technology in-house we applied a Digital Clarity consultative and pragmatic approach.

The Result

As mentioned in my audio interview, the analysis have been thorough and the results have created an exciting new structure that compliments the skills of the company and addresses the needs of both a central market in the music and entertainment industry, as well as a broader playing field in the digital marketing space.

The result is that RTG Ventures is now focussed in obtaining new business as well as building out great new technology. Therefore, moving forward the company shall be described thus:

“RTG Ventures offers Music & Entertainment Technology Solutions and Digital Marketing Services.

Harnessing the strength of its acquired online marketing agency Digital Clarity, the company has developed a software platform that fills the needs of artists, management and labels in a complex and ever increasing social economy.

Using Digital Clarity’s application in the social and marketing arena, RTG Ventures offers a unique value proposition of intelligent, analytics based technology with the support and insight of an experienced digital marketing team.

RTG Ventures offers companies a complete, seamless and powerful solution in marketing, alongside cutting edge technology platforms for web, mobile and tablet devices.”

If I may, I’ll borrow a quote from Eric Ries, author of the Lean Start up, “The goal of a lean start-up is to move through the build-measure-learn feedback loop as quickly as possible.”

So, using real world thinking, we are building a real world company.

Practical Changes

Behind the scenes and over the next 4-6 weeks will see changes that roll-out to reflect the new era of RTG Ventures. Alongside the wholesale changes there will also be cosmetic changes to areas such as websites and naming conventions.

Unlike before, the changes will have reasoning and where necessary, be communicated via various channels. I say where necessary as we need to keep a competitive advantage in what we do.

In my next blog, which will come out Wednesday, I will talk about the deconstruction of our technology and in my penultimate blog of the series, I will go into detail on the trip and why I had to test our new approach in the harshest and biggest entertainment arena in the world, Los Angeles, California.

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Power Is Nothing Without Control

Posted by Reggie James | October 11th, 2011 | Filed under Business Strategy, Music Marketing

Many years ago, I remember a wonderful advert for a tyre company that showed a sportsman who at the Zeitgeist of 80’s track and field, was seen in a rather odd and uncompromising position.

The company was Pirelli and the sportsman was the athlete, Carl Lewis. Lewis was named “Olympian of the Century” by magazine Sports Illustrated and had won 10 Olympic medals including 9 gold and 10 World Championships medals – a true great.

So imagine my surprise walking past a billboard and seeing this athlete, who would later run for a seat in the New Jersey Senate, posing in black Lycra. Though this in itself was not the issue, it was what he had on his feet,  that was the real double-take moment.

The advertising agency Young & Rubicam (Y&R) who were working on the Pirelli account, had Lewis in the starting block position on a wet race-track wearing red, 6 inch high heels, heels that wouldn’t have been out of place in an episode of Sex in the City.

I was reminded of this advert when talking with a contact who attended the recent MusicTech in San Francisco and registering for the forthcoming Music 4.5 event in London . Looking through the list of attendees and talking with my contact, it was apparent that there was a lot of buzz around the changing shape of music and content in general.

When looking at these new technologies, the bands as well as the fans and consumers of this sexy new stuff, it made me realise that there was a common denominator that ran through all of these platform, a thread that was so important but not being properly addressed.

Whilst independent artists, bands and their management are using online platforms like social media to attract new fans and sell music and merchandise, all of the information being collated is disparate and does not join up. This is also true of large record labels.

Even those that are savvy enough to have a basic management system still don’t know how well their various platforms are doing, let alone analyse, implement and influence their existing fan base and crucially, reach new ones.

In a connected world, this is a major disadvantage. If a band post a video on YouTube after a gig, how do they know how many Facebook pages the video got uploaded to or how many times that video was tweeted. Also, if a band is playing a gig at the Best Buy Theatre NYC, they have no idea of where their fans in the crowd are from, let alone know if 40% of their fans travelled from Boston.

This is important. Bands and their management want engagement, fans ‘need’ and want to feel they are being heard and are part of the whole connected experience.

After a long hard look at look at the needs of these groups and rather than re-inventing the wheel, RTG Ventures technology, CloudChannel, is well into building something that will not only fulfil the need to know but actually manage and influence the data.

Music is a powerful force. Augmented to video and strong imagery it becomes even more so. If one adds Social into the mix, then it goes beyond power and into a new realm. Understanding this power and harnessing it is the next stage of evolution within the entertainment industry.

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Hitting the right keys in music marketing

Posted by Reggie James | August 24th, 2011 | Filed under Music Marketing

This first appeared in imedia connection, 23rd August 2011

MTV has just reached the big three zero, and the place where music videos first found a permanent home has witnessed more change in the music industry in the past five years than in the rest of its history combined. Changes in the way music is promoted and distributed are currently so profound that it seems more likely that MTV has a much better chance of being here in another 30 years than many of the traditional record companies who created and controlled the video content MTV ran in 1981.

Whether TV will be its leading distribution channel, though, is another matter as the market provides ever more options for performers to get their video content directly to the paying public. So where is music video promotion heading, and what role do digital marketing experts have to play?

Digital distribution channels such as YouTube and Facebook have already brought about one revolution in the way consumers access music videos — given that video traffic is expected to account for around 90 per cent of total global consumer traffic by 2015, music video is becoming a massive part of the content landscape. But being able to piece together a solid YouTube promotional campaign is only part of the picture for anyone who wants to make money from music videos. To create campaigns which exploit the full range of promotional services on offer is going to present a steep learning curve to many in the digital marketing industry.

Closing the skills gap

The amount of digital startup services appearing to exploit the video end of the music industry means a steep learning curve for marketing experts. Agencies need to quickly learn how to exploit these channels and integrate specialist campaigns with their existing digital promotion skills. Niche marketing, distribution and monitoring services are maturing with the likes of Audigist offering artists a way to distribute and earn from their video content.

Every part of the video marketing process is getting its own assistance. Take analytics, for example — Google Analytics et al are on hand to provide endless detail to monitor and inform general digital strategy, but analytics services designed specifically for the music industry — Next Big Sound being an interesting example – are popping up to pitch a bespoke alternative.

It’s important that digital marketers with an interest in the music industry take up this challenge now. Artists with a profile can reach the mass market through the big players, such as iTunes and Spotify but emerging talent is looking beyond the new digital ‘establishment’ to go direct. This segment represents the bread and butter market for digital agencies — there are plenty of emerging artists out there who want to promote their work, but need affordable consultancy in order to get beyond the most basic digital marketing tactics.

Those currently working in the ‘mainstream’ of digital marketing have a huge amount to offer the music industry, particularly when it comes to drawing together the key content distribution channels so that search, social and mobile integrate well. Bridging the skills gap between generic and specialist services is the step the music industry needs to see more of.

So, the advice for digital marketers who want to build a client list in the music industry is to try and build experience quickly. For instance, consider doing some promotional work for an artist free of charge or at minimal cost. As long as they are aware that the relationship is helping to build your expertise it may still offer a great solution all round. A specialist partnership may also work — look for a like-minded agency who you can share skills with, or a freelance consultant who you can bring in to work on specific projects. Whichever approach fits best, it’s clear that music video content and the internet are a potent and very current opportunity for digital marketing practitioners.

Reggie James is managing director of Digital Clarity and SVP Communications at RTG Ventures Inc.

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