Filed under: Products and services, Launches, Marketing and advertising, Media World

Nonesuch Records, a division of Warner Music Group Corp. (NYSE: WMG), is joining other record labels under the Warner Music banner by creating a new website designed to bypass the digital retailers and maintain physical sales, according to Billboard. The new service was launched this week with the release of the soundtracks to Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd and Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood.

The attempt by Nonesuch and Warner Music to sell digital tracks directly to consumers with the purchase of the physical versions of the music isn’t the first time this method has appeared. The program follows this plan according to Billboard and the label’s storefront is the following description:

“Buy the latest Nonesuch CDs on the Nonesuch Store and get:
The CD of the album shipped to you
A free digital download of the album with each CD bought
Your choice of Standard (128 kbps) or Audiophile-Quality (320 kbps) downloads at no extra cost
Exclusive digital bonus tracks on choose album included at no extra cost“

A plan like this was previously attempted by a company called AnywhereCD, which had agreements with Warner Music that were terminated after the arrangement to sell CDs and give away high-quality MP3 tracks was announced. What the above description does not speak about is the disuse of Digital Rights Management technology, the anti-piracy software the labels encode into digital music and other media files.

The arrangement, which is nearly identical to the one Warner Music stopped AnywhereCD from using will apparently include DRM-free tracks, Billboard reports. In any case, though the store requires consumers to buy a CD to accompany the digital files, at least one more music company is testing the possibility of eliminating the use of the anti-piracy software. It is a late minute addition to the holiday season, but it is still in time to capitalize on consumers hoping to load up their new MP3 players with music as a result of the holiday season.

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Filed under: Consumer experience, Marketing and advertising

As Doug wrote on a few weeks ago, there’s a theory running in the retail arena right now that says Nintendo is engineering a U.S. shortage of its hugely popular Wii gaming console to create even more demand for the gaming system as the holiday shopping season hits its apex this weekend. Right now, Wii consoles sell out nearly immediately as soon as stock arrives at national retailers who carry the system, and Wiis are going for $450 and up on eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY). Supply and demand, baby.

Yet, Nintendo is set to lose a big amount of revenue by creating a shortfall in nationwide Wii inventory amounts. Its current partnership with leading game retailer GameStop will “promise” a Wii by the end of January to anyone who pre-pays for the console. Will that light up the face of a few hundred thousand kids who receive a rain check under the Christmas tree? Please.

But then, some analysts are questioning whether Nintendo is actually creating its own Wii shortage after all. In fact, the Japanese game company stands to lose almost a billion (with a “b”) in holiday sales by not having enough Wii consoles to go around this holiday season. If that figure is anywhere near correct, engineering a shortage of the uber-popular gaming system to create even more demand hype can’t even start to compare to the monetary losses Nintendo may be facing by not having correctly anticipated the Wii’s consumer demand. Although any company would love to have the problem of a hot product that’s impossible to keep on shelves, this might not be the case for Nintendo this year.

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Filed under: Newspapers, Marketing and advertising, New York Times’A’ (NYT), Gannett Co (GCI)

McClatchy Co. (NYSE: MNI) Chief Executive Gary Pruitt was considered by Wall Street a pretty savvy operator, but his reputation has taken a nosedive following his ill-advised decision to acquire Knight Ridder last year. Now, he seems perplexed as to why Wall Street isn’t as bullish on newspapers as he thinks it should be.

“Certainly newspaper stocks are out of favor on Wall Street,” he told Forbes.com. “That’s happened before, and that’ll happen again. But we’re not going to go away.”

Then, he defended the Knight Ridder deal, saying that it helped boost revenue and cash flow, and strengthens the company in the long-term. The problem, as he noted, is that investors aren’t buying his logic. Shares of the publisher of the Sacramento Bee, Kansas City Star and Miami Herald, have tumbled more than 70% this year, underperforming rivals including Gannett Co. (NYSE: GCI) and New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT), which dropped 40% and 30% respectively.

The reason for the decline is that the business is sucking wind. As of October, advertising revenue was down 8.5% and total revenue fell 7.8% on a pro-forma basis.

Pruitt is right that newspapers aren’t going away. They’re in a good position to take advantage of the growth in local online revenue. That’s going to take time. Although newspaper publishers love to babble on and on about the internet, they’re still in the print business and will get most of their revenue from dead trees for some time to come.

The ideal hope for McClatchy shareholders is a buyout, which Pruitt told Forbes remains a “long-term option” that’s not being seriously pursued. Given the trends in the industry, Pruitt may have to change his tune fairly swiftly before the company’s value erodes further. The company has attractive properties that would attract private equity players.

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Filed under: Marketing and advertising, Coach Inc (COH)

You know the fashion industry is in trouble when one of the hottest-selling trends is a rubberized sandal-shoe named after a reptile.

According to the New York Times, sales of women’s apparel were down 6% for the first half of the Christmas season. However sales of men’s clothing were up 4.5%.

Experts have been swift to blame the usual suspects for the women’s clothing weakness: economic woes, housing troubles, rising gas prices — but that doesn’t fully explain it. Electronic sales are up 5.8% and sales of luxury goods have soared 10.8% — the struggles of Coach, Inc. (NYSE: COH) notwithstanding.

While holiday sales have been lukewarm, the expected growth of 4%, the lowest rate in 5 years, indicates that there is some other factor driving the slowdown in women’s clothing.

According to Fortune, the problem is that there are no must-have women’s fashion products and trends to loosen nervous purse strings. Skinny jeans just aren’t enough to drive nervous consumers into the stores.

This could actually be bullish for the industry: The fact that the major factor driving the slowdown appears to be within their control — as opposed to broader macroeconomic factors — means that they could bounce back stronger next year if they get some hotter threads in the pipeline.

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