Soon after Mos Def's t-shirt-album marketing strategy was implemented, successful to some degree, the concept has begun to catch on. Originally it was unclear as to how exactly Mos' album "The Ecstatic" would be tabulated for record sales, as the shirt itself was the product - not the record. Also, Nielsen SoundScan had no intentions of calculating t-shirt sales as record royalties, but they warmed up to the idea shortly after.
The T-shirt, which featured the album art work, track listing and lyrics, included a digital pin code to download the music online after purchase. This is a creative way of delivering music to fans, while attempting to stop bootlegging of the music (which is usually a battle not worth fighting, but rather embracing). Now it seems more musicians artists and bands are starting to utilize this same strategy to provide more to their fans instead of the age old typical physical copy on CD.
Nielsen SoundScan has agreed to and is now counting these album T's for a list of artists spanning all different genres and labels. Digital Music News has reported that SoundScan has recently signed a deal with Music Tee's, LLC. Album T's will be counted as record sales only after the music has been accessed via the pin code and successfully downloaded to a users computer.
How innovative or effective, do you feel this music marketing strategy to be ? As music fans, do we think this is enough ? Or are we still looking for more ways to connect our favorite rap artists ? Leave your two cents and we'll discuss it.
