Brick-and-mortar stores eye new music formats

By Ed Christman

NEW YORK (Billboard) - The music industry continues to build bridges between the digital and physical world.

In the latest attempts, iTunes digital download album cards highlighting specific titles are getting high marks in the early part of the rollout.

Meanwhile, merchants await the introduction of the "ringle" -- which aims to revive the CD single in the physical world and allow brick-and-mortar merchants to participate in the ringtone phenomenon.

IT'S IN THE CARDS

On October 2 the iTunes digital album cards for KT Tunstall's "Drastic Fantastic" and Eddie Vedder's soundtrack to "Into the Wild," priced at $14.99 and $11.99, respectively, debuted at Starbucks. And a few weeks earlier, the Safeway grocery chain -- which represents a new frontier for music merchants -- began merchandising eight other titles: single-artist albums from Maroon 5, Norah Jones and Kelly Clarkson, priced at $14.99 each; plus five compilations, priced at $19.99 each: "Best of Comedy Central Stand-Up" and four greatest-hits collections themed by decade from the '60s through the '90s. Safeway is testing the cards in 1,000 of its 1,800 stores.

The glossy plastic cards measure 4.5 inches by 6.25 inches and display the album cover on the front under a black strip, which contains an iTunes logo and a description of the album. The backs of cards list the albums' songs and bonus material -- in the case of Tunstall, six music videos, a digitally accessed CD booklet and a behind-the-scenes video -- as well as a scratch-off that reveals the code to be used in redeeming the card at the iTunes store.

Retailers pay nothing for the cards, which are not activated until paid for at the register. So far, "people are pleasantly surprised by the results," Sony BMG Music Entertainment senior vice president and general manager of U.S. digital sales Adam Mirabella said. The Vedder card comprises 6 percent of overall scans for "Into the Wild," which has scanned 95,000 units, according to Nielsen SoundScan -- including 36,000 in digital downloads, 5,720 of those from the digital cards.

"This is a new product, and the customers are just learning about it," EMI Music Marketing senior VP of sales Darren Stupak said. "So the sales can only get better."