At first I was surprised to hear that “1,” a compilation disc (of No. 1 hits) from The Beatles, was the best-selling album in the U.S. from 2000 through 2009. It was released in 2000, which gave it somewhat of an advantage — it had all 10 years to generate sales, and it did to the tune of 11.5 million copies.

So, like others, I asked, “What does this tell us?” That the music produced over the last 10 years is just that bad?

If the Mamas and the Papas, Janis Joplin, and Canned Heat had registered albums right behind “1,” maybe. But, of course, they didn’t. Although he didn’t have one individual album that topped the Beatles’, Eminem sold a total of 32 million albums during the same time frame, with two albums in the top five, behind ’NSync’s “No Strings Attached,” which topped 11 million copies. It’s not “Sgt. Pepper,” but someone’s buying it.

But, consider this: A countless number of artists and groups over the last decade produced albums/discs with certain songs, in a specific order, packaged and sold to be listened to together. At the same time, a record company releases a compilation of 40-year-old songs, not originally meant to be packaged or listened to together at all, let alone in a specific order. And the random compilation sells more. Why?

It’s no secret that consumers rarely buy into the album/disc concept anymore. It’s a shame, but they don’t. They don’t because they don’t have to. The “order” that an artist or group worked so hard on in putting an album/disc together just doesn’t matter to today’s buyers, especially now that they have options to select what they want, when they want it, mixed and matched however they prefer. Of course, I’m referring to iTunes and the like, but this type of option-buying can be attributed to a lot of growing purchasing habits.

So I got to thinking: In the past, the album/disc was a primary marketing channel for an artist or group to reach their fan base … In a way, their “campaign.” And if consumers no longer relate to that type of “order” or “packaging,” does this signal the demise of campaign marketing? We — as marketing communicators — work so hard to organize advertising, public relations, and other elements into integrated campaigns. But we’re marketing to a culture that may only be exposed to or select certain elements. Then we’ve lost that integrated approach.

On the other hand, music lovers are still buying a “package” from the artists and groups they follow. It’s just not the same packaging that became popular back in the late ’60s with some of the great Beatles albums and thrived until the iTunes age came along. Now, the packaging includes high-tech (and high-priced) theatrical concerts; reality television; satellite radio programming; and digital marketing, including the growing list of social media options. The list goes on.

At one point, the album was all we had. We listened to it over and over and over, song after song, hidden messages and all. Our exposure to the artists and groups we loved was relatively limited to what we could get from a 12 – 15 song collection that took weeks, months, and in some cases, years, to conceive and produce. Now, even the Beatles, almost 40 years since their breakup and with only two surviving members, are being packaged differently. And they’re finding a new fan base in the process.

So, campaign marketing may not be in jeopardy after all. At some point, the Rolling Stone “Greatest Albums of All Time List” may only include music 20, 30, 40 years old. But the artists and groups making new music today will reach their fan bases and have different claims to fame, all due to marketing efforts as carefully orchestrated as “Magical Mystery Tour” or “Rubber Soul.”

… But not on vinyl.

Some fun links:

• The Beatles’ top-selling album of the decade
• The recording industry’s historical numbers on top-selling albums
• The Rolling Stone “Top 500 Albums” list

Tags: advertising, strategy

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 2:39 pm and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.