ANALYSING BUSINESS DATA & INFORMATION

Tribute Ltd specialises in promoting the work of tribute artists and you are going to be attached to a young guitarist and independent artist, Jonnie Jones. Jonnie is a tribute artist of Jimi Hendrix, a famous singer, rock guitarist and song writer from the 1960s who died in 1970. (A tribute artist is someone who impersonates a famous and usually deceased artist).
In his early career, Jimi Hendrix played with the Isley Brothers and Little Richard before hitting the heights of fame head-lining at Woodstock, 1969 and the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970. He won numerous awards for his music and was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame posthumously in 2005. Jimi Hendrix’s music continues to be sold throughout the world.
Although there are many tribute artists who imitate Jimi Hendrix, Jonnie Jones has built a huge reputation in his own right throughout the UK for the quality of his tribute performance. He has a following across the age ranges but especially amongst the senior citizens. Tribute Ltd use nostalgia marketing to promote Jonnie’s own five albums featuring Hendrix’s music and use their website, retail stores around his home town of Brighton and throughout the south east of England. Nevertheless, Tribute Ltd believe that more could be done to increase sales and to enhance his profile across the UK.
Tribute Ltd decide to attach you to Jonnie when he is performing at live gigs, promoting his albums and visiting venues in his hometown, Brighton. They want to know how to market Jonnie better and hence their business; should Jonnie’s music move to a digital format so customers can download songs directly from the internet; should they use YouTube to market his work or consider other outlets for his work? What they really want from you is to provide them with some of your experience of problem solving and business management knowledge.
You have been set a number of tasks which should be presented in report format (word length 2000 excluding graphs/figures/ references) for the management of Tribute Ltd:

Task 1
Using relevant sources of information write a critical analysis of the senior citizen music market and include in your discussion an explanation of nostalgia marketing and whether the internet should play a major role in the marketing of Jonnie’s work in the future. Include a list of references at the end of the report. (15marks)

Task 2
Having gained a better understanding of the senior citizen music market you decide to start analysing Jonnie’s last two years of sales data (2014-2016). Although incomplete Tribute Ltd’s database does provide some basic data including the locations at which his CDs were sold and the contribution to overall profit each method incurred (Table 1). You learn that Jonnie only sells his music in CD format at the present time. You have also discovered that it costs the company £2 per CD to make an album and this includes hire of the recording studio, the cost of a technician and the blank CDs themselves. In terms of sales locations: complimentary indicates there was no charge to the receiver of the CD; General indicates that the CDs were distributed through Jonnie’s personal contacts and friends; mail order is through the post; web order is through the web site; concert performances indicates they were distributed at venues where he was playing live at specific venues (not pubs); retail indicates through record stores.