Your Starbucks order just got trickier: One venti decaf vanilla latte with a chocolate almond biscotti on the side and toss in the latest must-have CD, please.
Hawking new music in the age of digital downloading, CD burning and competitive price-slashing means labels are desperate to find new marketing inroads.
And strategic partnerships that put new music in nontraditional stores make it a safe bet that many people who turn up Wednesday for the Alison Krauss and Union Station show at Red Rocks first heard her latest CD, “Home on the Highways,” while tying on the feed bag at Cracker Barrel.
They might have even snapped up the CD on their way out of the restaurant, finding it among the rocking chairs, cherry pie fixings and sock monkeys in a Cracker Barrel Old Country Store. All 526 Cracker Barrels nationwide exclusively stock “Home on the Highways.”
Company spokesman Jim Taylor said music is a key part of the nostalgic image the restaurant chain likes to cultivate.
“Alison Krauss and Union Station are a natural fit for us,” Taylor said. “The band members have been visiting Cracker Barrel for years. They have a strong connection to country music’s past and present.”
Cracker Barrel may be the little fish in the corporate pond compared with the 4,400 Starbucks stores stocking music by the likes of Amos Lee and Joni Mitchell, but the comfort-food chain is no Johnny-come-lately to music marketing. Its Grand Ole Opry partnership goes back 30 years and has afforded Cracker Barrel customers the chance to buy classic and previously unreleased recordings from that storied Nashville stage. The Cracker Barrel record label also issues bluegrass, classic country, gospel and Americana collections.
“It goes back to creating that emotional connection with our guests,” Taylor said. “They heard these songs when they were growing up, and these songs bring back their childhood.”
Starbucks, meanwhile, has become almost as much about music as about coffee. Its Hear Music imprint landed the hot-selling Ray Charles album, “Genius Loves Company.”
The company recently launched its Hear Music Media Bar, which allows customers to make personalized CD compilations and burn full-length albums. It runs a 24-hour “Starbucks Hear Music” channel on XM Satellite Radio and further promotes its music catalog through deals with United Airlines, T-Mobile, Hewlett-Packard and The New York Times.
“Unique experience”
“Starbucks offers a unique entertainment experience for both young music fans and older, disenfranchised customers who still have a love for quality music but are not typically embraced by the music industry,” Starbucks Entertainment president Ken Lombard said in a statement about the Hear Music Media Bar. “We will help customers discover new, emerging and essential music.”
Starbucks is even making the move toward breaking new artists. Earlier this year, Hear Music teamed up with the Warner Music Group subsidiary Lava Records to launch the all-female rock ‘n’ roll band Antigone Rising. Their major-label debut, “From The Ground Up,” is another Starbucks exclusive.
Mollie O’Brien discovered Antigone Rising while stopping in for a caffeine fix.
“What a great thing for them,” said the Denver folk and bluegrass recording artist. “It’s automatic store play while people are standing in line waiting for their coffee. It’s definitely great niche marketing.”
It’s also a far cry from the way O’Brien distributed her own early albums: by personally contacting record stores to consign a handful of “units.”
Other retailers are enjoying similar success with music exclusives. James Taylor sold more than 1 million copies of his 2004 holiday album by offering it in Hallmark Gold Crown Stores. Best Buy has zeroed in on the music DVD market by arranging exclusives with the likes of Elton John and the Rolling Stones.
But Alanis Morissette’s latest move is perhaps the most ironic Starbucks partnership yet. An otherwise “crunchy,” left-leaning musician, Morissette basically stuck it to mom-and-pop record stores by announcing her new “Jagged Little Pill Acoustic” album would be available at Starbucks six weeks before the July 26 street date.
“I don’t think a lot of that,” said Duane Davis, co-owner of Wax Trax since 1978. “We’re the folks who sold her when she was coming up and got behind her and played the stuff … and she does this?”
Writing on the wall
Davis said Wax Trax will probably order fewer copies of “Jagged Little Pill Acoustic” because of the Starbucks exclusive. But, he added, the writing was on the wall for smaller music stores years ago.
The trickle-down effects of downloading, burning and deeply discounted bulk sales to big-box chain stores has suffocated old-school record stores. Many diversified their stock to compete, offering everything from bongs to keychain lip gloss. Wax Trax opted to deepen its relationship with DIY indie music labels and crate-digging vinyl collectors.
“We don’t know jack … about comic books or electronic games,” he said. “Music has been our whole thing, so we concentrate on that.”
That includes fostering a healthy vinyl sales business through eBay.
Chris Tennant, senior editor and pop culture watcher at Radar magazine, said music is prime fodder for this sort of marketing, whether it’s pitched to the culture of cool or the culture of comfort.
“Music fans in particular want to feel like they’ve discovered something on their own,” Tennant said of CDs gleaned from Starbucks, Cracker Barrel or Hallmark. “People feel like they’re part of something.”
Keeping up with the Joneses is also something American consumers in general are starting to reject, he added.
“People for their own psychological needs want to feel like they’re apart from the herd,” he said. “Corporations have figured that out.”
Staff writer Elana Ashanti Jefferson can be reached at 303-820-1957 or ejefferson@denverpost.com.
