The Change of Seasons

It doesn’t seem 20 years ago that EMI released Vivaldi’s Four Seasons performed by Nigel Kennedy and the English Chamber Orchestra. I was the Classical Press Officer at the time and can honestly say that my role was forever changed after the success of this release.

The traditional job specification for a Classical Press Officer in a record company had been to send out a monthly order form to the national and regional newspapers’ CD (and for while cassette!) reviewers, specific classical music magazines and various producers on BBC Radio 3. Their order forms returned, the Press Office would then supply some or all of those requests.

Advertising would follow a similar pattern with occasional appearances in national newspapers but usually key releases restricted to some music magazines, displays in record stores and concert halls and adverts in concert programmes.  

The turning point occurred in September 1989 with the EMI release of the Four Seasons and the following July with the first of the Three Tenors CDs at the final of the 1990 football World Cup.  Tracing the campaign 20 years on shows not only what distinctive campaigns these were, but also that the basic structure of the campaign has influenced subsequent campaigns.

The Kennedy campaign was devised by EMI’s Barry McCann, marketing chief of the company’s Strategic Marketing Division (interestingly not from the Classical Division) and Kennedy’s manager John Stanley (former manager of 1970s pop group The Bay City Rollers). This brought another dimension to the marketing campaign. Pop-style selling procedures were used, such as releasing a single (the last movement of ‘Summer’) a month before the full album went on sale. The work lent itself to a pop campaign with its short movements which could be released as individual tracks.

As a result the single was personally delivered to radio stations (as happens in pop campaigns), receiving air-play on Radios 1 and 2. This allowed the potential for a wider consumer base (attracting non-traditional listeners). Even the music trade magazine Music Week devoted its front cover on 23 September 1989 to Nigel Kennedy and the EMI release.

 

To show how different this style of cover was, it is worth comparing a front over of Gramophone magazine in the same year. November 1989 had the distinguished conductor Andrew Parrot.

The range of advertising for the recording was astonishing for a classical recording and included:

• television advertising
• adverts on LBC radio station
• national press advertising in the Guardian and Independent
• advertising in classical music magazines Gramophone and CD Review
• adverts in monthly magazines Q, 20.20, The Face, and Blitz
• displays in record shops
• outdoor poster campaign around London, in British Rail stations and on Glasgow and London Underground sites.

This was an amazing campaign with an initial spend of £100k, unprecedented for a classical record marketing campaign.

What made it feasible in the first place was the character of Nigel Kennedy. Not only was (and is) he a superb classical violinist, Kennedy is also a performer who can reach out to a broad audience. He writes and performs jazz, and is a supporter of Aston Villa football club.

The release of the single was a month after Kennedy’s appearance in the Prince’s Trust televised concert with Sir George Martin conducting, and performing alongside big names in the entertainment world.

The recording reached No 1 in the classical album chart but also moved into the top 75 pop album chart. A film of Kennedy making the recording of the Four Seasons was then made and transmitted on Channel 4 on Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. In March 1990 Kennedy was the subject of This is Your Life. And, as is normal procedure in the pop business, a UK tour featuring the Four Seasons followed. All this resulted in the album selling over 2 million copies, reaching No 3 in the pop charts and even being mentioned in the Guinness Book of World Records!

This unprecedented success gave record companies cause to reflect. Perhaps classical music could have potential for a higher return on investment than had been regarded in the past? This was further enhanced with the first Three Tenors concert featuring Domingo, Pavarotti and Carreras at 1990 World Cup final in Rome. Such was the reach of this extraordinary concert watched by millions the world over, the CD became the biggest selling classical album of all time. TV was a significant in the success and especially for Pavarotti prior to the 1990 Three Tenors concert. BBCTV sports programme Grandstand used his recording of Nessun Dorma as the theme for all the World Cup programmes. The single alone sold over 500,000 copies and reached No 1 in the pop chart.

Before the Four Seasons, the most successful recordings popularising classical music were in the 1970s; Those were classical arrangements of popular songs by the LSO. In the 1980s it was the RPO’s Hooked on Classics series which took a collection of recognisable excerpts of classical music pieces played over a disco beat. In the concert arena, the BBC Proms reigned supreme in attracting huge audiences to the Royal Albert Hall for classical music concerts in a relaxed and approachable style.

The Kennedy recording spearheaded a range of product releases from the record companies. One was entitled Your Hundred Best Tunes on the Decca label. It originated from the BBC Radio 2 programme in the 1960s and Decca at that time used the generic title to release a budget-priced LP series based on the music featured over the years on the programme. The then head of Decca, Michael Letchford, re-introduced the series on budget-price CD as a way of moving back-catalogue items that would be cheap to re-master on to a CD (because the recordings had already been made). The crucial factor in order to move volume was to market the CDs to a ‘multiple’ store (ie non-specialist with a national spread such as WHSmiths and Boots). Released in April and October 1990, this campaign sold 80,000 units (CDs and cassettes), a phenomenal success for a group of recordings that did not involve any new artists or recordings.

Another example of a broader outlook for a classical artist is seen in the poster from HMV’s campaign for violinist Nicola Benedetti’s recording My Inspiration. The composer, Tchaikovsky, is popular so it is appealing to both specialist and non-specialist music lovers. The marketing emphasises this with a quote from the violinist herself, placed prominently in the middle of the leaflet. To add weight, the album sleeve is also included in the advert along with the label that released it, Classic FM’s own range. Branding the album with Classic FM makes sense as the station is boasts more than 6.5 million listeners.

Another example of how far classical music marketing campaigns were changing is seen in the Sensual Classics 1993 campaign from Warner Classics devised by its then Director Bill Holland (now Decca Classics consultant). Its theme was well-known pieces of classical music from the Warner catalogue, placed on a CD with a provocative picture of a good-looking couple. Inside the booklet there were further pictures of the couple along with quotes from poets about the word ‘passion.’ The idea was to attract consumers of all musical persuasions using the picture.

As a result of the high profile created by the Four Seasons and Three Tenors, the major record companies restructured their classical divisions. In EMI’s case, the department was split into ‘Core Classical’ and ‘Strategic Classical’. The latter had the dual tasks of marketing new classical artists in a pop-style manner, and devising back-catalogue recordings and marketing them to a non-classical consumer. This type of set-up continues today.  

Classic FM launched in 1992: That same year the Polish composer Henryk Gorecki's Third Symphony sold 200,000 in its first year in the UK, aided by the station’s ‘sure shot’ promotion. In 1994 the second Three Tenors concert and CD release took place with a third in 1998. This was followed by the extraordinary phenomenon of a CD of Gregorian chant sung by the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos re-released and selling 6 million copies! In 1995 the EMI violinist Vanessa Mae released her The Violin Player, a mixture of classical, pop and techno music promoted by a provocative and much talked-about promotional video.

What was seen as out-of-the-ordinary had now become the norm for a classical music project. In the new millennium the business has seen a gradual acceptance of online trade. In 2003, budget label Naxos launched Classicsonline, encouraging purchasers to buy online its own catalogue and those it distributed. Artists themselves followed suit - in 2004 Peter Maxwell Davies sets up MaxOpus.com to sell his music online, and in 2007 soprano Barbara Hendricks launched her third album by selling over the internet without a fixed price. Last year Tasmin Little’s recording of The Naked Violin was sold on a pay-what-you-want structure and won the 2008 Classic FM Gramophone Award for Audience Development. 

These key events in the classical music business show a transformation in the way classical music has developed since 1989. It has continued to develop ever since. From Katherine Jenkins to Cecilia Bartoli, from Roberto Alagna to Andrea Bocelli, from Sir Paul McCartney to Kate Royal, from Placido Domingo to King’s College Choir, Cambridge, from José Carreras to Julian Lloyd-Webber, from Aled Jones to Charlotte Church, from Russell Watson to Hayley Westenra, and many more. Marketing a classical artist will never be the same again.

Marius Carboni is the founder of the public relations consultancy Carboni Classical Media and lectures in music business to final year and masters students at the University of Hertfordshire.