Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math
(Case Review)
Abstract
This paper is an analysis of a case study originally conducted by the Harvard Business School in August of 2005 and is based on the challenges of introducing a new technology into a market place that for decades been based on “gut feelings and intuition”. The new technology was initially designed to assist consumers in music stores find music that met a certain criteria. Later this was changed because of a sharp decline in music sales. The new revision of the technology was designed to assist music producers, record companies, and artists in the selection of music that could be successful. Faced with a very small marketing budget the challenge of the marketing team was to
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At the time the Polyphonic’s was ready go to market with HSS they had invested approximately $600,000 dollars on the development of Hit Song Science and found that they were running very low on capital investments. Because of this the management team had approximately $150,000 for marketing the product.
II. Analysis
In this section the case study will be broken down into segments that have been perceived as important and worth a closer review.
1) The first important piece of the case study deals with Grupo AIA. Grupo AIA had established itself as having a core competency of utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) and the natural sciences to solve complex business problems. [1] AIA saw potential use for a new technology in the music industry so they formed Polyphonic HMI. When they formed Polyphonic AIA brought in staff that were familiar with the music industry and the technology the initial program was designed for would assist consumers entering a music store in the selection of music that met certain criteria leading to greater customer satisfaction and higher sales.
Looking at the available information [2] Polyphonic should have seen that the market trend for sales from big box stores over previous decade had been in a sharp decline (Figure 1) and considered targeting a different market segment from the beginning. Polyphonic’s either didn’t see the trend or thought that it wouldn’t affect the release of the new technology. Because of the late discovery the
1. Discuss the concept of a marketing information system and why it is important for marketing managers to be involved in planning the system. A marketing information system is a management information system designed to support marketing decision making. Trend in the marketing environment are picked up and analyzed through four subsystems making up the marketing information systems the internal accounting systems, marketing intelligence system, marketing research systems, and analytical systems. The information flows to marketing managers to help
Sometimes it’s not so important that your product fits the exact needs of the segment you target; rather, it’s vital that customers perceive that you do, even if it’s not true. In order to achieve this, the proper amount of advertising and sending the appropriate message are both vital.
What value does Hit Song Science create? If you were Mike McCready, CEO of Polyphonic, which target market – unsigned artists, producers, or record companies would you pursue?
This is to recommend that Hit Song Science should market its product and services to record labels attempting to catch a larger share of the market.
The popular music industry in the late 1990s was dominated by a small number of integrated corporations with headquarters in Europe, the United States and Japan. This music market starts simply with an artist and moves along through many steps to the consumer. Everything has its start when a musician presents his music to a music manager, and if he/she finds the music promising, a contract is signed between the two, recordings are made and a marketing plan is drafted for the
Now let’s run our analysis based on Sony where Polyphonic has the highest chances of making a good penetration. There are about 3000 singles released per year; of which 10%
Over the past decade, the use of CDs has been replaced with online streaming and retailing. This has eliminated much of the record companies revenues as they were used to making most of their profit off of distribution and promotion of physical copies of artists albums (Niemen). This has caused for a major shift and remodeling of major players in the music industries business models. Companies such Sony, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group have started to completely rethink the way they conduct business (Forbes). In the past record labels were not only responsible for production, distribution and promotion of an artist and his/her music, but they also acted as a bank (Forbes), funding the artists tours and recording sessions. Recently, these music giants have been moving towards becoming more of a modular network organization. What this means is that they are less occupied with the nitty gritty, and more focused on what they do best which is distribution and promotion. This also allows for more freedom of creativity for the artist as well as fairer split of profits (Forbes). This adaption of new business models clearly shows the versatility of the music industry in adapting to new times and technologies.
This case study about the Spotify business model allows a broader vision of what the digital music industry is. In a short time, many companies have developed and managed marked their territory in a highly competitive industry. The start-up Spotify has undergone a remarkable evolution in a financial point of view but also in terms of its popularity. Its various competitive benefits regarding the market leader and its respect for music labels have enabled the company to be renowned and to have a reputation in the real business. Today, five years after its creation, Spotify is certainly criticized in some aspects of
In the midst of the United States’ “dot com bubble” (years 1997-2000), there was a surge in technology that brought about file sharing and digital downloads. Threatening the survival of the music industry and introducing a unique set of challenges for the industry to overcome. To remain relevant in the new global market of digital music online, the music industry would have to evolve and change with the introduction of each new facet technology had to offer. The introduction of digitally compressed music files, so easily attainable for a small fee or downloaded legally (pirated) for free, made the music industry reevaluate how to make a profit and protect copyrights. Social media created a visible opportunity for both consumers and artists to maintain digital relationships while providing a platform for consumers to follow and discover new musicians and bands, naturally, making the internet a promotional medium for artists. As the corner record shops closed to make way for virtual storefronts and instant downloads; the internet, digital downloading, and social media made an enormous impact on the music industry that has changed the way consumers purchase, source, listen to, and produce music today.
Since the iTunes music store was introduced on April 28, 2003, gross music sales have plummeted in the United States - from $11.8 billion in 2003 to $7.1 billion in 2012, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (Covert). Counterintuitively, during that time consumers were buying more music than ever. How is that possible? It 's because iTunes had made digital singles popular and was selling them cheap. This would change the music industry forever. In 2000, Americans bought 943 million CD albums (Covert), and digital sales didn’t even make a dent in comparison. But by 2007, those inexpensive singles overtook CDs by a wide margin, generating 819 million sales compared to just 500 million for the CD.
Collect customer e-mail addresses, to inform them of the dates of new releases pertaining to their music of interest and of up-coming events and promotions
In 2000 the digital music was the next big thing in how consumers listen to music. The technological shift in music changed how the relationship is between the artists, recording companies, promoters and music stores on how they operate today. In the late 90’s and early 2000’s Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks allowed free exchange of music files with companies like Napster and Kazaa was a big step that allowed consumers to store large libraries of music. With the cost of hard drive space going down; it allowed for pocket-sized computers to store more information in a smaller space that open the door for apple to step in with the unveiling of the iPod and iTunes. These systems made it possible for storage and playback that gave consumers the
To perform a prefect marketing research, it is needed to identify and define the marketing research problem accurately and then develop a proper approach. The American Idol case is a challenging management decision and marketing research problem case, focusing on reasons why to conduct a study on the viewers and voters. In this case study, we review defining the marketing research problem and developing an approach process, including objective/theoretical framework, analytical model, research questions, hypothesizes and specification of information
For the past decades the music industry has changed a lot. The old music business module, where the artist hands over his music to the record label and through the record label the artists’ music is sold on a high street to consumers, is not as efficient and profitable as it used to be.
Now let’s run our analysis based on Sony where Polyphonic has the highest chances of making a good penetration. There are about 3000 singles released per year; of which 10%