Guy Hands has pledged that EMI will sell music in new and innovative ways. Hiring Douglas Merrill away from Google was certainly part of that strategy. Here's another: a promotion with publisher Gannet. Brian Wilson's album is streaming on 33 Gannet newspaper sites and 19 TV stations sites. Here's the album page at USA Today. I couldn't find the promotion at a few Gannet newspapers, such as the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, but found the page right away on the front page (below the fold) at the Louisville Courier-Journal.

The actual selling part isn't new -- the purchase link goes to Amazon.com -- but the promotion does show the kind of creativity that is sorely needed at major labels. I think this is a great way to find out about a new album. It's interactive. There are buttons for Digg, Facebook, Reddit and other similar sites. The streaming quality is good and the embedded player is as simple as could be. The only big problem I see with the promotion's layout is the album's street date (September 2) is buried at the bottom of the page. I'm not sure if the existence of a comments section is good or bad. Unlike Amazon.com reviews, people who did not purchase the album will be more prone to speak up...and there are some very negative comments there.

While the promotion isn't completely original, the financial terms are -- as far as I know -- unique: Gannet, reported paidContent, will be paid for the promotion based on the number of album downloads sold through the promotion. A better conversion rate means more money for Gannet (whose revenues in the first half of 2008 were down 10%). That Amazon.com is the retailer in this promotion should lead to more sales than if sales went through another retailer (other than iTunes) or the artists' and labels' website.

For older artists, lack of consumer awareness is one of the more difficult hurdles to overcome. Gannet is in a great position to help. EMI benefits from the publicity and the awareness generated by the promotion. Ironically, this is the sort of thinking that Paul McCartney lamented was gone from EMI when he released his last album through Starbucks' Hear Music. And I like that Gannet will get paid on a commission system similar to the bonus system typical in the video business (as opposed to the flat fee system of the music business).

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