Spoon’s Indie Record Store Instant Vinyl Gratification Campaign Is A Big Hit
UPDATE: We heard from Team Spoon overnight. Yesterday was release day and many indie stores are already sold out of the unique vinyl promotion. Typical was this tweet from Nashville's legendary Grimeys.
The Story: Britt Daniels of Spoon came up with an indie-oriented vinyl-centric response to the digital tracks offered as a form of "instant gratification" to those pre-ordering online at big outlets. His solution is to gift those who pre-order Spoon's upcoming release, "They Want My Soul," at select indie record stores with a 10" vinyl record including a single off the album when they preorder. While they're obviously ways to do indie digital gratification, this is a catchy idea and the folks at Record Store Day concurred and helped connect the band with interested shops.
Spoon's Britt Daniels recently shared the backstory and details of his "Instant Vinyl Gratification" concept:
"A few weeks ago as we were figuring out how to roll out the new Spoon album I kept coming back to this: why do we incentivize people to buy our music from big outlets but we don’t extend the same courtesy to actual record stores?"
"Case in point: why do we encourage listeners to buy early by offering 'instant gratification' tracks for pre-orders of the digital album, yet there’s no special motivation for buying music from Waterloo or Reckless Records?? And there’s no incentive to buy the format that so many of those listeners prefer—an actual physical item they can hold and read and play on a turntable."
"So I came up with an idea, and today I’m pretty ecstatic to be able introduce the Vinyl Gratification program. It’s the first program of its kind; it encourages pre-ordering a vinyl copy of our new album They Want My Soul at independent record stores all over the US (and soon, internationally) by providing its own sort of instant gratification: a limited edition 10″ vinyl featuring three pre-release songs from the album that you can take home with you and put on your record player immediately"
"The great people at Record Store Day have generously offered to spread the word about the program and we’re launching with 150 stores on board, well beyond our wildest dreams."
Actually programs like Amazon's AutoRip do provide an incentive for physical purchases so this isn't the first that Daniels might claim.
Update: An indie example would be Matador's impressive Buy Early Get Now program which:
"rewards you now for pre-ordering an upcoming album through our participating stores. These rewards usually include exclusive goodies like mp3s, posters, merch, contests, etc. And it always includes a free stream of the full album way before the release date, letting you 'beat the leak' every time. "
But more important than being first is having a great idea and following through. "They Want My Soul" will be available for pre-order at indie record shops during the album presale from July 15 to August 4 with a release date of August 5.
You can find record stores on Spoon's store finder. Right now they just list locations in the U.S. and Canada but Ellis says international shops are on the way so I assume he means beyond Canada.
All in all a great idea for getting a bunch of indie record stores to promote your album while promoting them at the same time.
More:
- The Secrets Of Marketing Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' "The Heist" from Manager Zach Quillen
- Creative Music Marketing: Tailored Songs, One-of-a-Kind Albums, Video Games
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) also blogs at DanceLand. Send news about music tech startups and services, DIY music biz and music marketing to: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
more 10″s are en route to stores. so stay tuned to your local participating shop’s twitter, etc for when they arrive.