Masterpieces .. are exceptions in the huge ocean of media content. The economics of modern mass media pressures companies to produce quantities to meet huge demands. It's like zookeepers needing to keep the lions fed. Production lines for television series, romance novels and the latest hot genres are designed to produce quanties to meet low thresholds of audience acceptibility. (263)Vivian discusses this tendency in terms of "high art" conflicting with "pop art." And he makes a pretty good case for saying the trend to seek blockbusters influences a majority of media content today.
But there's another trend that works in the opposite direction. Because of the proliferation of different media outlets, especially on the internet, artists don't have to appeal to lowest-common-denominator audiences. That's because of a statistical concept called the Long Tail that has been taken up by marketers - especially on the World Wide Web.
Chris Anderson, executive editor of WIRED magazine, started it with an article in 2004 called "The Long Tail" ... He got interested in Amazon.com, when he discovered that the online bookstore sells more of its lowest-ranking titles than its "blockbusters," once all the lower-ranking titles are added together. But the mathematical concept behind it also helps explain why smaller, more specialized distributors and entrepreneurial who do their own fulfillment or distribution can make a go of it in the new media landscape. The long tail, says Anderson, is:
... not just a virtue of online booksellers; it is an example of an entirely new economic model for the media and entertainment industries, one that is just beginning to show its power. Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it in service after service, from DVDs at Netflix to music videos on Yahoo! Launch to songs in the iTunes Music Store and Rhapsody. People are going deep into the catalog, down the long, long list of available titles, far past what's available at Blockbuster Video, Tower Records, and Barnes & Noble. And the more they find, the more they like. As they wander further from the beaten path, they discover their taste is not as mainstream as they thought (or as they had been led to believe by marketing, a lack of alternatives, and a hit-driven culture).Anderson's argument is very mathematical, and it isn't easy to follow. But he's onto something. Consider this: Two of the three bricks-and-mortar retailers he cited here have gone out of business since he wrote, and the third, Barnes & Noble, is trying to change its business model.
An analysis of the sales data and trends from these services and others like them shows that the emerging digital entertainment economy is going to be radically different from today's mass market. If the 20th- century entertainment industry was about hits, the 21st will be equally about misses.
For too long we've been suffering the tyranny of lowest-common-denominator fare, subjected to brain-dead summer blockbusters and manufactured pop. Why? Economics. Many of our assumptions about popular taste are actually artifacts of poor supply-and-demand matching - a market response to inefficient distribution.
Basically, as the online encyclopedia Wikipedia explains, the long tail applies to online businesses that "can sell a greater volume of otherwise hard to find items at small volumes than of popular items at large volumes." Wikipedia has a graph that shows what it looks like - well, it's a mathematical frequency distribution with a steeply descending curve along the Y axis and, well, a long tail along the X axis.
Here's how it applies to CDs, videos, books ... practically anything you can buy and sell on the World Wide Web.
Open another window and go to the Wikipedia article (linked above). Look at the graph. The number of sales on a "blockbuster" go way up the Y axis (vertical). For example, let's see where a shlocky new single would go on the graph. I'm told Justin Bieber is still moving lots of product (I'm not going to call it music), so his sales would go up on the Y axis. But there are also little niche markets for all kinds of different specialty genres. For example, I like Norwegian jazz saxophonist Jan Gabarek. He's done some interesting things with medieval chant, Indian ragas and other forms that fit loosely in the category of world music. But not many people are in the market for his music, especially in the United States, so we'd better plot him way out along the X (horizontal) axis. But I can order his CDs on the Internet.
The same is true for all kinds of music. Bulgarian folk songs? Out on the X axis, but somewhere in the wide world there's a market for them. Vintage CDs of Stevie Ray Vaughan's blues or half a dozen bands playing 80s punk rock? On the X axis. Sister Rosetta Tharpe? Sound tracks from Bollywood movies shot in India? Very popular in India, but still out the X axis worldwide. Especially for an American distributor. What kinds of music do you enjoy? Where would it fit on the long tail frequency distribution graph?
Here's what makes long tail marketing so powerful. There are more people out there buying niche products out on the long tail of the X axis than there are buying the hits up the Y axis. What makes it all work, says Anderson, is the fact the Web is worldwide. It's huge, and you can find willing buyers out there somewhere that you couldn't reach if you had a record store, say, at 6th and Monroe in downtown Springfield. But you can reach them by electronic commerce. Anderson says:
You can find everything out there on the Long Tail. There's the back catalog, older albums still fondly remembered by longtime fans or rediscovered by new ones. There are live tracks, B-sides, remixes, even (gasp) covers. There are niches by the thousands, genre within genre within genre: Imagine an entire Tower Records devoted to '80s hair bands or ambient dub. There are foreign bands, once priced out of reach in the Import aisle, and obscure bands on even more obscure labels, many of which don't have the distribution clout to get into Tower at all. [And remember: Tower went belly-up a couple of years ago.]Questions: How does the concept of long-tail marketing give serious artists - in any genre - a chance to sell product? Would it work differently for entertainers in different media and genres? How about blues, reggae or ska bands? Playwrights? Poets? Symphonies? Choral groups? How does it give you as a consumer more choices?
Oh sure, there's also a lot of crap. But there's a lot of crap hiding between the radio tracks on hit albums, too. People have to skip over it on CDs, but they can more easily avoid it online, since the collaborative filters typically won't steer you to it. Unlike the CD, where each crap track costs perhaps one-twelfth of a $15 album price, online it just sits harmlessly on some server, ignored in a market that sells by the song and evaluates tracks on their own merit.
What's really amazing about the Long Tail is the sheer size of it. Combine enough nonhits on the Long Tail and you've got a market bigger than the hits. ...
How does the long tail affect John Vivian's discussion of highbrow, mass market and blockbuster entertainment? How does it help a composer like Eric Whitacre further his career?
8 comments:
The long-tail market is helping smaller less popular groups like ska music and poetry because it seems as if people are looking for something different and fresh. People are discovering that they are less interested in mainstream genres that they hear on the radio or see on the TV everyday, and more interested on something they've never seen or heard. This gives artist of all aspects an oppurtunity to be heard and demonstrate a unique talent.
The long-tail market gives artists of any genre a chance to sell their merchandise, because it gives consumers a larger market to choose from. Those artists also have the chance to get their name out and therefore sell more.
The long tail market lowers the risk for the seller. It increases the buyers options.
The long tail niche is great. Consumers can purchase pretty much whatever they want these days. I also have an uncle who wrote a book about Mel Ott. The only way to buy it is on line. With less and less bookstores and movie houses open these days the internet gives everyone a much larger variety. Not to mention I have bought several books for a dollar or less on Amazon. Utube has brought several types of media to the forefront.
The long tail marketing is shifting away from the mainstream products and markets. Its helping out the smaller groups by giving them an opportunity to let more people see what they have to offer. In our era of endless room for communication and technology it allows narrowly-targeted goods, such as small bands etc., to become economically attractive as a mainstream. Our economy is shifting away in a sense from mass markets to millions of niches. This goes for music, selling products, entertainment etc. People are moving away from these mass markets and finding others things to listen too, wear, watch, etc.
Questions: How does the concept of long-tail marketing give serious artists - in any genre - a chance to sell product?
Answer: Long-tail marketing gives serious artists a chance to sell products because they don't have to choose between selling out and creating what they want. They can market by themselves locally or online without relying on big corporations to back them up. One example is a band made up of professional YouTube vloggers, Chameleon Circuit. They are signed to an underground label, DFTBA Records, owned by another YouTuber that the band is personally friends with. They rely on their YouTube subscribers to buy their products. They get to make the music they want (songs about Doctor Who, that have a small market) and promote them without having to change their style to stay afloat.
Would it work differently for entertainers in different media and genres? How about blues, reggae or ska bands? Playwrights? Poets? Symphonies? Choral groups?
Answer: Certain groups might rely more heavily on mass audiences. Bands, symphonies and choral groups rely more on concerts to make money. Bands can market online or open for big-name bands to make a name for themselves. They can play locally until their fanbase is large enough to keep them financially stable. With poets, if they are only publishing a few poems in magazines or online, they probably can't make a living. They can self-market a book they've compiled through local poetry readings and online. Playwrights require big audiences for their plays to be successful and make money. Hypothetically, the plays could be performed intermediately for years and generate a good amount of money, but not many playhouses are going to pay for a play to be performed if it won't have a good turnout.
How does it give you as a consumer more choices?
Answer: As a consumer, there are innumerable options for music. Sub-sub-genres exist to fill niches. I listen to a band that exclusively writes songs about Doctor Who. With the long-tail model, producers/creators aren't limited in what they can make and distribute, so consumers aren't limited in what they can buy.
How does the long tail affect John Vivian's discussion of highbrow, mass market and blockbuster entertainment?
Answer: If the long-tail model were to become the standard in marketing, the highbrow/lowbrow differences would stop existing in many ways. There would be no blockbuster movies or megahit songs that are devoid of art. The products that are devoid of art would still be created and would still have a market, but they wouldn't necessarily sell more than highbrow material.
How does it help a composer like Eric Whitacre further his career?
Answer: Whitacre doesn't have to rely on a company to finance him. He can market on his own and reach the people that are going to be interested in his music. He can gain a fanbase and rely directly on the fans for his success.
buyers have a lot more choices in a long tail market and it decreases the risk for sellers as well
Long-tail marketing gives small market artists the chance to become well-known and popular, without selling out. It also gives the public more choices than the same main-stream options they have always had. It lowers the risk for the seller and increases the buyers options.
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