With CD sales dropping fast, the music business is exploring nontraditional ways to expose consumers to recording artists. Among the new sales and marketing vehicles are Tara Leigh Music Party and musicShop.
Both launched in November to target female music buyers. Tara Leigh is part of House Party, an Irvington, New York, company that stages Tupperware party-like events that consumer brands sponsor at private homes. MusicShop, run by Sherman Oaks, California, music branding company Musica, is a featured section of Shop.com, the comparison-shopping engine.
Through Tara Leigh, former EMI marketing executive Josh Zieman organized 2,500 listening parties at homes throughout the United States. The gatherings attracted a total of 42,000 people, 88 percent of them female.
House Party provides one such way to reach women in their living rooms. To launch Tara Leigh, Zieman printed 35,000 catalogs featuring 100 titles from 15 record labels, including albums by such names as Harry Connick Jr., Faith Hill, Enya and Tina Turner. He also compiled a 15-track sampler CD for party attendees and created a taraleighmusicparty.com Web site.
Photo by dbs.myflorida.com.