Aug. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, will offer a $12 CD set with rock band Kiss’s first new music in 11 years, and plans to expand into other merchandise licensed by the group.
The collection will go on sale Oct. 6 exclusively at Walmart and Sam’s Club stores in the U.S. and Canada, said Tom Welch, senior music buyer atWalmart, in an interview Aug. 13. The set includes “Sonic Boom,” an 11-track compact disc with new material; a greatest-hits album with titles such as “Rock and Roll All Nite” and “I Was Made for Loving You;” and a DVD of a live concert in Buenos Aires.
Exclusive deals with retailers typically give artists more money than a traditional record contract, while helping chains such as Walmart and Target Corp. get more customers to the stores. Kiss joins the Eagles, Guns N’ Roses, AC/DC and Pearl Jam in striking deals with retailers to distribute music.
“This is the world we live now where the artists get a much bigger percentage of sales,” said Steve Gordon, a music industry attorney in New York.
Walmart, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, declined to disclose financial details of the Kiss release. The company reached similar deals with The Eagles, AC/DC and Journey. Target, based in Minneapolis, is exclusively releasing Pearl Jam’s new record, “The Fixer,” and Best Buy Co. put out Guns N’ Roses’ “Chinese Democracy.”
ITunes Gains
Walmart was surpassed last year by Apple Inc.’s iTunes as the biggest music retailer in the U.S., an indication of the ongoing consumer shift to digital purchases. U.S. sales of CDs and other physical music products dropped 31 percent last year, while digital sales increased 17 percent, according to theInternational Federation of Phonographic Industry.
This year, Walmart shares have fallen 7.6 percent after they were the best performer on the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 2008. The stock declined 9 cents to $51.79 on Aug. 14.
Kiss, which started in the early 1970s as a New York-based rock band called Wicked Lester, is still led by its co-founders Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley. Over 32 years, Kiss has recorded 36 albums and sold more than 75 million copies, according to its Web site, http://www.kissonline.com.
The band drew attention for its costumes and face paint, smoking guitars and fireworks on stage. Its site sells items such as Kiss baby jumpers, wine, 11-inch rubber footballs, necklaces, shoes and mugs. In May, Kiss performed onNews Corp.’s Fox television show American Idol, the most-watched primetime program in the U.S.
The Kiss Brand
“I’ve been impressed with the way the Kiss brand has been able to reinvent itself over the years,” said Greg Hall, 38, Walmart’s vice president of media and services. “I’d say the Walmart mom loves Kiss and looks fondly back on that as one of the first concerts she went to.”
Sales at U.S. stores open at least a year fell 1.2 percent in the quarter that ended July 31, Walmart said last week. The retailer had forecast them to be little changed or to rise as much as 3 percent.
Eduardo Castro-Wright, the head of Walmart’s U.S. stores division, attributed the drop in part to consumers being more selective in buying discretionary items and to stronger-than- expected declines in grocery prices. He spoke during a recorded earnings call last week.
Walmart plans to sell Kiss merchandise other than the new CD/DVD set, Hall said. The specifics of those products are still being worked out, he said.
“As we talked to other merchants within Walmart, they’re just as excited about this as the music team is whether it be toys or apparel or candy,” said the music buyer Welch, 34. “They’re saying this brand resonates with Walmart customers.”
No comments:
Post a Comment