Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Nokia's Artist Advisory Council

Dave Stewart is a musician/producer best known as one half of the Eurythmics and who in February was named as the founding member of Nokia's new Artist Advisory Council. The AAC is an initiative created by Nokia to foster an artist-friendly environment within the company.

Nokia has 40% share of the global mobile phone market and wants to now reposition itself as a Web services company. In a Reuters/Billboard interview Dave Stewart and Tero Ojanpera, the executive VP of entertainment and communities for Nokia, gave some fascinating insights to their views of and artist-friendly approach.

Below are some of those insights but read the whole article Reuters/Billboard interview:

Tero Ojanpera:



If you think about the artist's point of view, it's not about selling one track or selling a ringtone or wallpaper. It's about how you create a discovery mechanism (that) represents the artist in a way that gives justice to their work…

At this point it's about understanding the artist and understanding the consumer and making that connection. The rest will sort itself out…

The fact that content is coming to mobile will enable us to continue to innovate for the industry. We have the strength to invest in this space, and that's valuable to the content industry. This is not about who has more power or less power -- this is about, Can we attract the consumer to really use these services?


Dave Stewart:

Nobody ever talked to artists about what they wanted to do. Steve Jobs didn't talk to me about selling music online -- it just went straight to the music labels…

There's ways and means through technology and through common sense to create a way in which the consumer gets a fair deal and the creator gets a fair deal and business is good…

In the new world, it's not about making an album or a film that has to fit the exact demographic and exact length. It's going to be a completely different world. I can send you clips of what I'm working on and you can pre-order it. There's a dialogue going on so you actually know who your fans are and where they are.