The Midnight Marauder
All Star
Doesn't take a genius to figure this out. Jay trying to compete with Tidal is a MUCH bigger battle then anything he's done in the past. Rocawear was a success, his liquor brands were a success, his 40/40 clubs were successes (other than the one in Atlantic City, but you can't blame him for that since that city has gone to complete shyt) and his ROC Nation Management company has been a success. Going into the streaming music industry is WAYYYY more difficult than any of that.
First off, Roc Nation Management's has mainly consisted of Jay's ability to poach artists that he has previously worked with away from their prior management. On the sports side, he piggybacked off a partnership with CAA and the aide of William Wesley to gain clients. The fact that many professional athletes are also fans of his music gives him a huge advantage as well. 40/40 has been a success, but there's millions of successful bars, so that's not quite a remarkable accomplishment.
With Rocawear and the liquor, all he needed to do was cater to a niche customer base, namely consumers who were fans of hip hop and his music/image. He was able to do this and build huge success by doing it. The thing is, securing that niche audience and slowly growing it out to the mainstream consumer is all that is needed to be successful in those industries. There are a thousand successful clothing lines and liquor brands, and there are plenty of opportunities for new entrants to come in and gain success. No one brand is going to capute more than 10% of the overall market, there's too many clothing brands. Liquor's not as congested, but still has hundreds of successful brands. This Streaming Music market doesn't work that way.
Streaming music isn't going to have hundreds of different services all seeing success. There's only going to be a select few. Up to this point, Spotify, Google, Amazon and Pandora (which is free and has seen its stock plummet this year) are really the only established brands in the marketplace. When Apple Music comes out, its obviously going to shoot ahead of the pack off its brand strength alone. And to that the fact that the app will be preloaded on the iPhone, which is the device 50% of smart phone users own, and the fact that 76% of digital music purchases are done thru iTunes, and its pretty clear that Apple is poised to be the leader in this industry.
There's still room in the market for competitors, but with Spotify and Pandora already well established, you still have giant companies like Google and Amazon in the mix. With their strong brands and infinite cash on hand, you would assume that they have a sizable advantage in the industry.
Its reasonable to estimate that those 5 companies will take up at least 75% of the streaming marketplace by this time next year. Which makes you wonder where Tidal really fits in. Looking for a niche audience in this industry isn't going to keep you afloat. Jay can't just rely on his fans as consumers in order to succeed with this. He's got to grab as much of the overall market share as possible, and he doesn't have the product, brand recognition or cash to compete. Apple has every advantage possibly needed in this industry, Google and Amazon have the money to compete, and Spotify and Pandora have both had a ten year head start in the market.
If Jay's objective was to compete in the marketplace, he never had a chance to begin with. He'd have to be a complete idiot to think he had any sort of chance. The more time that passes, the more I think he launched this company just so he could sell it after a year or two. Dr. Dre's Beats Music streaming service never took off, but Apple still bought the company for $3 Billion. I'm guessing Jay is trying to build the company up for a year, then flip it to a bigger company like Google. The problem is, he'd come out of it looking a lot worse than Dre did. Dre still had the successful headphone line he sold along with the streaming site. He also didn't put anywhere near the amount of effort in talking it up and marketing it as Jay has. Jay selling Tidal would look like a failure. I can't see him coming out of this without looking weak.
First off, Roc Nation Management's has mainly consisted of Jay's ability to poach artists that he has previously worked with away from their prior management. On the sports side, he piggybacked off a partnership with CAA and the aide of William Wesley to gain clients. The fact that many professional athletes are also fans of his music gives him a huge advantage as well. 40/40 has been a success, but there's millions of successful bars, so that's not quite a remarkable accomplishment.
With Rocawear and the liquor, all he needed to do was cater to a niche customer base, namely consumers who were fans of hip hop and his music/image. He was able to do this and build huge success by doing it. The thing is, securing that niche audience and slowly growing it out to the mainstream consumer is all that is needed to be successful in those industries. There are a thousand successful clothing lines and liquor brands, and there are plenty of opportunities for new entrants to come in and gain success. No one brand is going to capute more than 10% of the overall market, there's too many clothing brands. Liquor's not as congested, but still has hundreds of successful brands. This Streaming Music market doesn't work that way.
Streaming music isn't going to have hundreds of different services all seeing success. There's only going to be a select few. Up to this point, Spotify, Google, Amazon and Pandora (which is free and has seen its stock plummet this year) are really the only established brands in the marketplace. When Apple Music comes out, its obviously going to shoot ahead of the pack off its brand strength alone. And to that the fact that the app will be preloaded on the iPhone, which is the device 50% of smart phone users own, and the fact that 76% of digital music purchases are done thru iTunes, and its pretty clear that Apple is poised to be the leader in this industry.
There's still room in the market for competitors, but with Spotify and Pandora already well established, you still have giant companies like Google and Amazon in the mix. With their strong brands and infinite cash on hand, you would assume that they have a sizable advantage in the industry.
Its reasonable to estimate that those 5 companies will take up at least 75% of the streaming marketplace by this time next year. Which makes you wonder where Tidal really fits in. Looking for a niche audience in this industry isn't going to keep you afloat. Jay can't just rely on his fans as consumers in order to succeed with this. He's got to grab as much of the overall market share as possible, and he doesn't have the product, brand recognition or cash to compete. Apple has every advantage possibly needed in this industry, Google and Amazon have the money to compete, and Spotify and Pandora have both had a ten year head start in the market.
If Jay's objective was to compete in the marketplace, he never had a chance to begin with. He'd have to be a complete idiot to think he had any sort of chance. The more time that passes, the more I think he launched this company just so he could sell it after a year or two. Dr. Dre's Beats Music streaming service never took off, but Apple still bought the company for $3 Billion. I'm guessing Jay is trying to build the company up for a year, then flip it to a bigger company like Google. The problem is, he'd come out of it looking a lot worse than Dre did. Dre still had the successful headphone line he sold along with the streaming site. He also didn't put anywhere near the amount of effort in talking it up and marketing it as Jay has. Jay selling Tidal would look like a failure. I can't see him coming out of this without looking weak.
Terrible marketing. Should of chosen Jay, whose nutrition consists of grass, seeds, and ether to be the figure head for the vegan company