AML readers Michael Ugwu of FREEMEDigital.com and Nigerian Entertainment Attorney Akinyemi Ayinoluwa will be speakers at this event. The event is also co-organized by long time AML reader and fan Femi Lawal. Check on it folks.
-Uduak
Introduction
Over the years, the business of music in Nigeria has continued to earn the interest of many entertainment business investors, innovators, multi-national brands and global entrepreneurs. The music business in Nigeria has become a billionaire business with over $105 million (SMW 2013.) worth rating of the Nigerian Music Industry; from show performance fees, album sales deals, endorsements and caller tunes. With many other innovative income streams yet to be exploit, there is a need to look at the business of music focusing on the contents, entrepreneurship and monetization elements for a more enhance business models and working structure for the business in Nigeria.Conversations to date between the major music industry executives and other stakeholders operating within the music industry has left out major numbers of important delegates in the Nigeria music industry who are the emerging music talents, in the discussions. We believe as the youth are the future of every country, so are the emerging music talents to the future of the music industry too. Our Organization, Music Industry Media saw the need to carry the emerging artists, new labels and entrepreneurs within the music industry along in every conversations and gathering, regarding the music industry and business of music.
It is in this light that we have created this platform the “Music Business Entrepreneurship Sessions” a build to our coming annual independent music business conference A2ME “Artists to Music Entrepreneurs”. Aim at educating, inspiring and empowering emerging artists into future successful musicpreneurs.
There are hundreds of thousands music talents, new emerging labels and investors out there operating within the music industry who need to be educated on the current global music business trends and ethnics. Music Industries across the globe are coming together to discuss the way forward since the new era of digital invasion have affected the business and monetization of contents.
The discussions have been on the digital age of music which focused heavily on the contents and distribution elements.
However, as the industry prepares for what lies ahead, it must add a third layer to the conversation. Or put another way—the managing of all digital assets associated with a given artist or song in a way that can be utilized to enhance the discovery, marketing and ultimately monetization of music. Attributes like label, genre, composers and producer, are only few of the metadata info to be inserted during content tagging. The independent artists within the industry need to be carried along like stated previously, on the importance of labelling and what metadata means. For this reason the theme for the inaugural edition of the Music Business Entrepreneurship Sessions will be “Creating a new music business model for the Nigerian music industry” and we will be focusing on *Content *Entrepreneurship *Monetization.
This white paper examines the current state of the music industry, importance of the internet, benefits and the role of the major industry heads, independent artists and third-party services/web & mobile retailers. It also look at business rationale for establishing new standards for the business of music in Nigeria, involving the empowerment of many emerging artists into successful music business entrepreneurs, and outlines a suggested framework for future infrastructure and music business development and growth.
Content
Content is a major important element of the business of music. The business has changed from just developing content and selling of the content. There is more to content in this 21st century. Content in the music business terms can be a music audio, video or merchandize or any materials associated to a musician brand.The internet has made it easy for everyone to operate with the invention of different distributing platforms unlike in the years back when distribution of music depended heavily on physical transit and transactions.
More new starts up are working on great ideas that aim to make it easier for anyone with content to get it to the end users. Old way of distributing music has gone but most emerging artists and new labels are ignorant of this fact. We will be looking at the new opportunities, new start ups and what they offers plus how artists and labels can work effectively with the new start ups, social media PR(Music bloggers) and how they can activate the culture of fans engagement and artists/fans relationship to drive sales and monetize contents.Music as content is more than just listening or making the music but also in building products, services and ROI(Returns On Investments) for parties involve in the process of the content and investors.
Entrepreneurship
Since digitalization is the order of the day, record companies signing fewer and fewer artists and the many opportunities, emerging artists can now sell their music immediately without the backing of a record company with different services available now online to handle the digital distribution of music.Artists need to be educated on the importance of such services and benefits attached. Emerging artists need to be inspired and encourage to start acting as musicpreneurs.
We believe they need to be inspired to take the bold of becoming Musicpreneur, so they will understand the business of music and value of the investments made by labels.
It’s a general knowledge that 99% of emerging music talents in Nigeria thinks of nothing more than just getting signed by a label.
We believe as Musicpreneur, talented artists can partner with labels on other innovative music deals other than just the recording deal.
In summary focus will be on how to develop creative music business idea into sustainable entrepreneurial ventures.Monetization
Social media has really placed value on music distribution and there are over 40 income streams from the business of music aside the sales of music. Music sales in terms of hard copies have really been low and the debates across the globe are always based on what’s next? Revenue from streaming has been on the high side in most countries while many are still fighting against it. In a country like Nigeria, where streaming won’t work for now because of the internet connection structure in regards to the values on data. We believe we can monetize music via music downloads.Music + Brands + Social Media = an organic way to • Engage your customers • Develop and maintain a relationship with your customers • Connect your brand to something that is important to your customers • Build your brand presence on social media platforms in a natural way. • Communicate your brand values without the hard sell of ‘traditional’ advertising. All these will be look into.
Brand partnerships are an increasingly important source of major revenue for artists and record companies in today’s music industry, so it’s important that emerging artists and new labels understand the importance of artists/fans relationship which will serve as a key point for d brand which is the artist. We will focus on the importance of artistes as brands which will become the products the multinationals will get interested in to access and make use of the relationship between the artists and their fans.
Laying out the need for emerging artists to understand the importance of strategic brand partnerships in their career as music business entrepreneurs. Laying out points on what brands are really looking at before signing up an artist on endorsement deal. Pointing out the need to work closely with brand marketing executives and ad agencies if they have good following and ideas that can bring ROI for the brand.Redefining music business entrepreneurship in the 21st century
Fans are open to discovering new, underground or developing talent if it’s presented to them properly.
Consumers like free music, so we will be looking at ways to change such attitude where artiste can offer them more than just the music but experience.We believe it’s now time we realise the future of music business in Nigeria is not just about the music from an economics point of view, it’s more about the source of it, the songs and the artist and the fans and the interaction between them.
Repurposing and the future
It’s great to see so many start-ups coming up here so it will be great for the whole music industry to support this development with the need to provide some way of experimenting with technology for new ways of monetizing music, without criminalising it, so that start-ups can properly develop and operate easily.Having new business models that allow ‘fans get more involved and participate in the creative process will radically change the industry, and more importantly the experience that people have around music thus making monetization easy.
Everyone is interested in new music business models that work and we applaud anyone who has a good idea that will work. The big questions now are: How will people be listening and buying with blogs posting singles and album free? Anyway, the fans wish to but how do we make they to? Because it’s possible, discussion on; how will music businesses make money?
What we need moving forward
Artists and New Labels need to understand the strongest connections between artists and fans are experience not just the music.The new focus should be on fans engagement, data collection and data management, real-time campaign management and audience measurement on social media with the primacy of data and analytics.
Artists and labels need to measure business success beyond the radio and television airplay, online plays because of the future of the business is more than that. The need to views social media metrics (fans/friends/followers) and audience demographics is more importance for the future of the brand.
People are looking at artist merchandizing business in Nigeria, saying ‘It’s going to be more difficult to make money from merchandizing business in Nigeria because we’re not ripe for that yet. But we believe the merchandizing business can work here in Nigeria. We will be addressing that.
We believe the media doesn’t only drive consumer behaviour, it reflects consumer behaviour and social behaviour can affect the marketing landscape. Since the primary benefit of social media is buzz and creating
relationships with the target audience (fans) grow the brand.It’s very important in this day and age to really understand the economics of where we are as an industry, stakeholder either independent or major and as consumers.
It’s very interesting and important to join the rest of the world in the digital economy, because it’s now a global business.In Conclusion- The Big Future
The biggest source of funding right now is brands but is that sustainable? We believe it doesn’t necessarily, in itself, create career development opportunities, and we are still casting around for that new business model that can sustain the music industry in Nigeria. It’s very important to remember that music’s power to connect is going to continue to deliver. We need to invest more on educating our emerging music talents more on the need to think “Musicpreneur” as the future of the industry and carry them along in all programs and events related the growth of the music industry and the business. We can only convince the fans that it’s worth investing on music with very good reasons beyond just that music but experience.
That’s where the answers lie. We don’t know what the exact new business models will be like but together we can create, debate and mentor a new model that can work for the benefit of all.The trend we aim at is clearly towards the new music market, an evolution of what will become the new music market. Young, clever, elegant, successful, brilliant minds — young companies who will each be creating a pillar block in this new model. The young generation partnering the old toward alternative sources of income for artistes, new ways of monetising and new ways of understanding the value of copyrights, music licensing and the role of music publishing which can become a good business here in Nigeria.
If you’re looking to chart your own course instead of following the pack, then look no further than the Music Business, Entrepreneurship Sessions, the official music business focus build up sessions for the annual A2ME Conference (Artistes To Music Entrepreneurs).
Music Industry Media
(Publishers of “The Music Industry Newsletter”)
113,Iju Rd, by Ajilete Bus Stop, Ifako-Agege, Lagos, Nigeria.
+234-703-161-1402, +234-803-827-2700
