key development over the past decade with music is the availability and abundance of music. For example, via Kesseny’s own libraries and partners I have now access to over a million tracks. So music availability is no challenge any more as you know from your new mainstream music streaming partners. Music will continue to become more available and more commoditised. Every artist has his/her own online streams and has most likely signed up to the majority of non-exclusive libraries.

What continues to make the difference in terms of music for business is delivering the right music which comes in two parts, the sourcing and mastering of the right music for the right client, and the quality delivery of the music to a business environment requiring the skills of a library and music service provider along with the skills of system installers and service management businesses.

Managing the delivery of a complete media service provider

 

music based sourcing and mastering requires professionals who understand the client and the markets they do business in, which Voice Solutions and Kesseny have a track record within.

The delivery of music continues to be a challenge even with the upward trend of brandwidth availablility

Bandwidth from networks continues to be challenged by the increasing number of applications people and businesses use of which many are processing and communicating simultaiously, and the increased use of these applications by more and more people.

Social networking applications are creating massive traffic waves across a 24 hour period, as is the increased use of video from video on demand channels and public video services such as YouTube. Add to this businesses increased use of these channels to communicate with their clients,

So the bandwidth challenge hasn’t ended yet.

 

 

With a background in the development of music and the technology that drives music over the past 30 years it is clear that music is continuing to commoditise itself.

Within the music for business licensing there is increased saturation in the mainstream genres from artists creating music yet few actually focus on making music for specific markets in mind. Hence the mainstream music agencies such as Mood Media will look to a large volume of music to pick out selected music for a client which is v time consuming especially if you don’t understand deeply the client’s requirements (or have a track record of understanding and developing a service around those requirements).

Thus music volumes is not a problem,

 

Spa.

Spa market in the USA clearly developing strongly. But with a range of brands now there competing for the growing market each spa franchise needs to strengthen its brand recognition and develop stronger differentiation.

Music has a part to play in this challenge in two ways:

Branding: music can help with brand identity. Where music helps to connect with clients and communicate the values a brand has. Music collections and indeed music signatures and logos can be designed to then be included in all the touch points a brand has with its clients. From reception and service, through mobile apps and online / terrestrial advertising. Getting that consistency across each touch point enables brands to strengthen their impact on the market place.

Personalisation:  Spas increasingly need to increase the personal level of each treatment exeperience. Massage Envy talk on their website about, “customising your massage”. Music has a key part in helping the experience feel personal if there was more of a personal choice about what music was used in their treatments. Whilst branded treatment music is a great start there maybe clients who really just have a preference for something else. So a ‘one size fits all’ solution is not how things will develop moving forward. I think Red Door Spa already offer clients a choice, as do Planet Beach. However their implementations have their own limits since (at least) Planet Beach use generic genre streams that arent specifically designed for the spa / relaxation market (again, a volume approach to throwing a lot of music at a wide customer market).

The music for business market is becoming saturated with streaming based service providers. However these channels risk embarrassing interuptions to the audio stream because of how the public part of the networks they will need to use is becoming ever in demand from consumer audio and video based services, whilst equally the business local area network is challenged with additional applications, all there to challenge streaming service providers with balancing continuity of service with quality of audio.

(Melody Pods download the music to play locally)

 

 

Development Futures for Melody Pods.

A few things being researched with customers and partners are:

1) Video for either serving up fitness and exercise programs and relaxation / nature video to loop in receptions with background music and product / service advertising.

2) Scheduling of the above in addition to changes in background music collections throughout the day

3) Video catalogue for training videos for clients. Clearly a key challenge for any spa is training and ongoing development of its therapists. With around twenty four thousand therapists I am sure this is something Massage Envy is already addressing so how this could help specifically Massage Envy I am not sure right now.

4) Increased usage monitoring and feedback systems.