Record labels employ positive, upbeat messaging to combat downloading

The Canadian music industry is taking a soft-glove approach to discourage peer-to-peer downloading among youth. On March 4, a coalition of record labels, retailers, copyright collectives, broadcasters and others launched a Value of Music campaign to teach kids about the connection between music purchasing and the music industry, a made-in-Canada tack that stands in stark contrast to the finger-wagging campaigns seen south of the border. The campaign, spearheaded by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) and headed by consultant Julie Ann May, has posted a whiz bang web site at www.keepmusiccoming.com featuring streaming music, interviews with industry artists and players, education about the music biz, a role-playing game and chat room. The site’s launch is coincident with a contest sponsored in conjunction with retailers to win tickets to attend the Juno awards in early April. May tells Canadian NEW MEDIA the site and campaign – slated to include a schools program and TV public service announcements in the coming months – is the result of intensive research with youngsters aged nine to 17 years old. Early work began three years ago, and last year focus groups were held to help CRIA choose its creative and web agencies. Further research was conducted last summer, then again last fall. CRIA heard loud and clear throughout that an effective Canadian campaign would have to be much different from an American one launched last fall if it was to be effective. "All of these different research efforts brought back to us various reports," May says. "But some of the common threads were things like even the most hard-core downloaders and burners agree that the best way to support their favourite artists is to actually go buy the music. We had a really positive thing at the beginning to start with. It’s different from what other jurisdictions including the U.S. have done. They have not come at it from the point of the hard-core downloader/burner. They’ve come at it from the point of view of the vested interests, mostly copyright holders. From the very outset we’re coming at this differently and we are involving the target groups. We are engaging the target groups. And, we’re celebrating music with the target groups." The U.S. campaign, which featured high-profile artists explaining that music downloading was hurting their industry, was also tested here. Its message, May says, didn’t resonate. "What they didn’t buy was the connection that a click on a download, a click to nab and grab the download, is in any way similar to walking into HMV and sticking a CD in your pocket and walking out. There’s a complete disconnect. They didn’t relate the two whatsoever." May suspects that the U.S. campaign is tied to a high-profile push by copyright holders in the U.S. to effect legislative changes. Rather than point fingers, the Canadian initiative focuses on the value of music to youth, and to educate them that the best way to support their favourite artists is by buying their albums. "Its total purpose is to engage and to get kids to think," May explains. "It’s an educator’s approach to a moral, legal, ethical, huge global issue, but we do stand behind it because we do believe we’re on the right track. The fact that we’ve tested it, and re-tested it, and taken every piece of it to kids to get their input and to get their buy-in – I think we’re there. I think the two biggest words of this campaign are relevance and credibility…The secondary message is that when you buy in, and when you support in that way, there’s a whole recompensation piece that allows for more music to be created." The campaign is also meant to be inclusive. Though few actual dollars have changed hands, the project is potentially worth millions as retailers, broadcasters and even the motion picture industry belly up with in-kind supporting resources.

Record labels employ positive, upbeat messaging to combat downloading

Broadcast | March 6, 2003

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