>>Kirsty Wark: Now we move on -- last, but not least -- to a much garlanded member of
this panel, Dan Duncombe, who is VP of Digital EMI Music and all the big-time --
>>Dan Duncombe: U.K. >>Kirsty Wark: U.K., U.K.
-- and all these campaigns. Coldplay, Lily Allen, Gorillaz, Tinie Tempah. You swept the
boards at the Digital Music Industry Awards and particularly the best artist promotion
for Gorillaz. Explain how you do it in a very difficult
world where it's hard to make money out of music in a traditional sense.
>>Dan Duncombe: So I think for us everything starts with the artist. I think we appreciate
that it's slightly different to some of the kind of formats and media that these guys
have been talking about that everything starts with the artist and emotion around the artist
and the music that they're creating. So I think for us it's how we augment that. Our
best advertisement is the artists themselves, the music, the imagery that they create, and
I think we augment that through social media, through new channels, through new partnerships,
and essentially something to the point recently around traditional peer to peer. So where
social media is just replicating what used to happen around pubs and clubs and schools
and people talking about music, this is now happening online in social media environments
that we can capitalize on and be in and be a part of it.
And I think with artists like Gorillaz specifically, they show how an artist doesn't even have
to exist. You know, they only exist in the virtual world.
>>Kirsty Wark: Did a lot of that come from Damon Albarn himself because he's very creative
in that sense? >>Dan Duncombe: Absolutely. And as I say,
everything that we do starts with the artist and their creativity, and we help augment
that, and I think we understand the user journey from either the artist's or our biggest discovery
engine is still radio and how we take that user journey from that start and kind of perpetuate
those conversations. So we know that outside of the artist being
our best advertising, that fans are our biggest advocates, and we use that fan advocacy to
extend the idea of that artist and their creativity. So we light fires under these fans and allow
them to perpetuate that message. >>Kirsty Wark: So when you say you light fires,
how do you actually do that? >>Dan Duncombe: So through social media mechanics.
So turning two fans into four and four into eight, giving them incentives, giving them
content to see, giving them points and points mean prizes, points mean bigger opportunities.
You know, again, we look at in the artist world things like virtual merchandise and
badging. To what we were talking about before, bragging
and badging rights with their music are key for us. People want to be seen as the most
-- as the biggest fan of that artist, and I think the more we allow them to be that
in, to some extent, a controlled environment, the more they will perpetuate that message
of the artist and their music. So fan advocacy is key for us.
>>Kirsty Wark: And you've got a clip to show us how that happens.
>>Dan Duncombe: Yeah. So something we did with Gorillaz was a multi-platform game. The
first was a Flash game which resulted in millions of plays of people getting involved with the
Gorillaz characters and the story line the album "Escape To Plastic Beach" had.
That then went on to a commercial part of the game that with built in Unity and included
the MP3 of the new single, and then further levels were unlocked in an iPad game which
we did as a kind of cross- -- cross-store promotion with iTunes around the album and
around the iPad and iPhone apps. >>Kirsty Wark: Let's look at it now.
[Video.] >>Kirsty Wark: So this is a tough world financially
for you guys. So does a lot of that have to come out of the artist's pay?
>>Dan Duncombe: It depends on the deal we have with an artist. We have a lot of what
they've been recently terming 360-degree deals, so where we look after the recording rights,
the live rights, the merchandise rights, brand sync licensing deals, those kind of things.
And I think, you know, we've recently restructured and we now term ourselves a global rights
management company. We're still in the music business, but not necessarily just the recorded
music business. So I think the deals differ, but I think most of these are now joint ventures
with artists. >>Kirsty Wark: So when somebody steals a Gorillaz
song and puts it on a LEGO YouTube, you don't care. Or do you care? Because it's good for
you. >>Dan Duncombe: I think we know that that
happens. I think we -- we're part of that world, and I think on the one hand exposure
for our artists is good. I think on the other hand, again, everything
starts with the artists, and our job is to promote that artist but also to guard their
copyright and to look after their catalog. And I think in those kind of instances, we'd
rather work with people to exploit those opportunities and we work with YouTube and VEVO, video distribution
by the commercial and promotion music distribution platforms, to ensure where fans are doing
this, that we're working with them so we can both mutually benefit.
>>Kirsty Wark: Just very briefly before we throw this open, tell me about the ROME Project.
>>Dan Duncombe: So the ROME Project, for those who don't know, is a musical collaboration
project by a guy called Brian, who is Danger Mouse, and he's worked with Nora Jones and
Jack White of The White Stripes, and a guy called Daniel Luppe on an album. From that,
Brian is a good friends with a video director called Chris Milk, and together with Google
and with EMI, we created a new video, a kind of 3D browser experience using WebGL and Chrome,
to create an amazing experience. I think it's outside for people to go and have a look at.
But I think that's -- for us that's indicative of how we're embracing new partnerships, new
opportunities, new digital platforms to be innovative and creative and try and perpetuate
this message or the music, the imagery, the vision aesthetic of our artists, to both fans
but also beyond, to potential fans.