We all thought that cassettes were history and according to Soundscan, only 34,000 were soldin 2009, but it seems like there's enough of an appetite for new product, and there are enough tape machines still out there that work to constitute a market. In fact, M2 Communications (where Burger Records get their tapes duplicated at) state that they're currently duplicating being 6,000 and 10,000 a month.
The key to making this work is pricing - $6 per unit. Of course, short runs of only 250 (usually at a buck a copy cost) makes the outlay and the risk small, and also make it an exclusive piece of merch for the true fan.
Cassettes are actually not that bad a distribution medium in terms of reproduction quality. Sure, when they first came out in the late 60's the quality was pretty poor, but by the end of their reign the playback quality was surprisingly good. I remember taking a tour of a record pressing and tape duplicator and hearing some tapes off the line played back in the QC department and being shocked how good they sounded. The key, of course, was that their playback deck was aligned weekly, something that never happened in consumer decks.
While the return of the cassette tape is a short-lived fad that will be nothing but a sales blip (if that), it is a good example of thinking outside the box in terms of marketing. It also goes to show that in Music 3.0 almost anything works, even if it's low tech.
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2 comments:
Warm Greetings Brother Bobby
I'm really sorry but I have to disagree that cassette is gonna make a come back, just as long as we still have mp3 players, ipods, usb...the major problem with cassettes was to play the next track or the previous one, so I don't think it will come back.
I completely agree with you. They're not coming back to anywhere near where they were before, but they are selling better than they have in the last few years mostly because of some innovative marketing, which was the point of the post.
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