the music revolution is now

ONYX Project #2 Kimani Peter

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Description 4

Project Summary 4

Value Proposition 5

Key Services 6

Positioning 7

Key Partners 9

Market Analysis 11

Launch Strategy 15

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DESCRIPTION

LOUD is a software based record label with a goal of breaking down barriers which young

producers and artist face when entering the music industry.  It specifically  seeks to

empower members of disadvantaged and marginalized communities with a focus on the

black community. It also liberates music lovers by being a platform where they curate the

best content through a democratic system of up voting content.

PROJECT SUMMARY

Record Label & Software Platform

LOUD will function like a traditional record label providing artist with facilities to produce

their music. The LOUD app will provide a platform for artist to share their work. On the

app a democratic system of up votes will be used so that listeners can decide whats the

best content. Popular artist on the LOUD app will be endorsed by the LOUD record label in

the same way traditional record labels endorse their artist by investing in their tours,

festivals appearances, events, radio play, distribution channels etc. Like traditional record

labels these investments are where LOUD expects to receive its main revenue stream.

There are additional revenue stream in the opportunity to sell space, and airtime on the

app to advertisers looking to provide relevant promotional content to LOUD users.

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VALUE PROPOSITION Artist

LOUD seeks to erode the barriers artist and producers face when trying to enter the music

industry; which are especially high for those coming from disadvantaged and

marginalized communities of colour. LOUD also provide those artist and producers with a

democratic platform that gives them an equal opportunity to be discovered by music

lovers.

Music Lovers

LOUD will give music lovers an equal vote in deciding what music they hear and have

access to. Braking the traditional system where a select group controls what music get

airtime over others.

Business To Business

Provide space, and airtime on the app to advertise relevant promotional content to user

on the LOUD app. Users will have profiles which will give advertisers the ability to target

on specific audiences they feel well benefit from their offerings.

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Recording Studio Partnerships

In order to facilitate initial demand LOUD will partner with local recordings studio at

launch. Studios will benefit from having high traffic, and agreements with the LOUD

record label that will give them the ability to monetize from the content they help to

create.

KEY SERVICES

Facilitate Content Creation

Provide artist with access to facilities and means of creating their music. This will be

accomplished though a variety of ways which include but aren't limited to: partnering with

local studios, building LOUD studios, working with amateur home studios, releasing

products for home recording. For the initial launch the focus will be on studio

partnerships and building networks of amateur home studios.

Provide and Maintain Software Platform

Provide a stable platform for artist and music lovers. That allows for people to hear music

being created by local artist and also hear popular music from other artist from all over

that also use the LOUD platform.

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Provide Services Artists Need To Monetize

Act as a traditional record label for artist by providing artist who have proven their validity

on the LOUD platform with investment capital to distribute their music, go on tours, make

appearances at events, make radio appearances and all other ways of expanding their

audience and monetize on their work.

POSITIONING

Attributes

community

sharing

village

art

sanctuary

safe

hospitable

nurturing

wise

culture

open

music

revolutionary

liberating

diverse

human

bold

progress

uplifting

strong

unity

expression

spirit happy

positive

mindful

people

empowering

young

energy

disruptive

healing

youth

democratic

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Artist Support was defined by a score which measures how well each platform creates

opportunities to monetize, provides facilitates for content creation, and opportunities for

content release which provides equitable visibility for the artist on its platform. Platform

with a strong ability to achieving those goals received a high score and were placed

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higher on the axis while platforms with a weak ability to achieve those goals received a

low score were placed lower on the axis.

Interest takes a close look at the missions of each platform to determine whether there

intent is based more on the art of music or if their interests are more based in the ability

profit from music as an industry.

Similar Organizations

KEY PARTNERS

There are organization positioned very closely to LOUD (refer to t-chart in positioning

section). These organizations have similar missions of creating more access for artist

and producers to enter the music industry. They also have many similar attributes which

will make them key partners for LOUD to possibility collaborate with.

Remix Project

Based in Toronto and Chicago; Remix Project provides successful candidates with

training in their respective genres, provides them with knowledge about the industry,

• basecamp

• soundcloud

• audiomack

• CKOU

• spotify

• pique

• 8track

• apple music

• songza

• remix project

• CKCU

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helps them to create a body of work, connects them to mentors, and provides them with

facilities and workshops. Their work is concentrated in the localities they’re based in.

Their success can be seen in the victories of their alumni. A recent testament to that is

the success of Wonda Gurl; a young producer and student of their program who featured

on rapper Jay z’s most recent album.

Opportunity: LOUD would be interested in working with Remix Project in the area of

creating studios. Creating products that make amateur and at home music creation

easier. Working with their studios, learning from them on how to initiate studio

partnerships, learning from them how to create and run proposed LOUD studios. LOUD

aligns with them on their mission to break barriers artists face in creating music and to

enter the music industry.

Pique

Is a blog that profiles Toronto talent. The following information was taken from their

about page: We create and curate talent from across Toronto. PIQUE is a project that

profiles a 100 Toronto artists that range from singers, rappers, creatives, painters,

dancers, skaters, and so on. We produce short clips of artists showcasing their talent

(under 15 seconds). The idea is to provide a snapshot of Toronto’s talent using the idea of

short attention spans.

Opportunity: When entering the Toronto market LOUD would be interest in working with

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Pique in providing visibility to Toronto artist. LOUD will also be looking for blogs similar to

Pique in other localities that seek to provide visibility to artist in their cities.

Bandcamp

Bandcamp is a online music market place, where anyone is able to upload their content

and monetize on it. This information was taken from their about page: Bandcamp makes

it easy for fans to directly connect with and support the artists they love. We treat music

as art, not content, and we tie the success of our business to the success of the artists

who we serve.

Opportunity: LOUD as a software platform seeks to provide artist with the same

opportunities to monetize on their work that Bandcamp does. Bandcamp has a huge

collection of independently produced music LOUD will be able to use Bandcamp's large

collection to jumpstart the LOUD app. By partnering with Bandcamp so that artist are able

to upload their music from Bandcamp to the LOUD app. Bandcamp will also be a great

tool for finding independent artist at launch.

MARKET ANALYSIS

The market analysis focuses on potential competitors and organizations whose business

models compete with LOUD’s. The analysis will explore the potential ways LOUD will

affect existing business models, showing that there’s room in the market for LOUD and

how LOUD is prepared to exist in the current market alongside these competitors.

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Subscription Based Music & Record Labels

LOUD bridges the gap between two markets in the Music industry. The markets are the

emerging subscription based music service industry and the music rights ownership

industry. The subscription based music service industry is occupied by companies such

as; Spotify, Apple, Rdio, Tidal, Google, Songza, 8track etc. These companies pay rights

owners for a license to stream content owned by rights owners to subscribers of their

platforms. Their revenue streams come from selling subscriptions and selling space on

their platforms to advertisers.

The music rights ownership industry is occupied by major record labels such as;

Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group. These

companies seek out talent and invest in the creation, promotion, and distribution of their

work in exchange for rights to that work. Their revenue streams come from right

ownerships and income generated from artist work and performances, and appearances.

Music Industry Developments

In the past the music industry was dominated by major record labels. These companies

were very large entities whose size were necessary in order to achieve the economy of

scale needed to make music creation and distribution feasible. The over head cost

included recording facilities, print and radio promotional campaigns, production of

physical records/cds and distribution arrangements. The operational cost made it

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necessary for artist to work with major record labels in order to have their music

produced, and distributed.

Since then the technological era has disturbed that model in a variety of ways. The first

major hit to the major record label model started with the rise in online piracy making it

easier for listeners to download content for free online. This dramatically decreased

revenue for major record labels forcing them to shift from physical record sales to digital

record sales (ringtones, iTunes etc), and pushing them to shift focus to artist

performances and appearances to take the place of what used to bring in the bulk of their

revenues. Digital record sales never adequately took the place of physical record sales

especially as a culture for pirating content took hold amongst listeners liberated by the

internet and in protest of music record prices which they felt were not lowering to match

the lowered cost of producing a distributing music.

Eventually the subscription based music service industry emerged as a response to that

disruptive force. Meeting listeners and record labels half way. The solution was to provide

listeners with the ability to stream endless amongst of content in exchange for a monthly

subscription price. This model was much more feasible for listeners who could now pay

an affordable monthly subscription to listen to music instead of paying hundreds of

thousands of dollars on music collections.

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Opportunity

LOUD was created to continue to innovate in this arena. It is born out of the belief that the

scale necessary to serve the role of a record label has drastically gone down and record

labels no longer need to be as massive as they once were. In fact record labels still

operating at such a scale are limited in their abilities to respond to changes in the music

world that effect artist and listeners. The goal is to establish local record labels that serve

their respective communities; by giving artist in those communities facilities to produce

their music and a platform to share their music with their community and the world and

monetize on their work. The local LOUD record labels will be connect by the LOUD app

platform that serves the function of providing visibility to artist.

Main Competitors

Businesses that operate on a music subscription model will be threatened by the

introduction of LOUD as it will directly compete for viewership. Pricing is an area where

LOUD will have a considerable advantage. Due to the fact that it will not operate on

subscriptions since its business model function more closely to record labels; gaining its

revenues through return on investment in performances, tour, and appearance of talented

artists.

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LAUNCH STRATEGY

The first launch of LOUD will happen at the beginning of fall 2015. The goal for this launch

is to bring awareness to the idea and capture those interested in it in order to get a sense

of whether LOUD is a platform people are interested in having. The launch will mainly

showcase the proof of concept which will show the key features and how the app will

look and feel.

The launch will happen exclusively in Ottawa, it will be delivered through a print campaign

targeted at university campus and areas where there are Artist and Producers especially

those coming from marginalized backgrounds. The print campaign will lead to an online

campaign which further explains LOUD and shows the proof of concept. The online

campaign will be centralized around Snapchat which will be the main tool for capturing

those interested in LOUD. Snapchat is a vastly popular mobile social media platform that

allows users to send brief videos, pictures and text to each other. It will be the main social

media platform for keeping people informed on the development of LOUD.