Executive Cover Memo

Subject: Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Math and Music

This is to recommend that Hit Song Science should market its product and services to record labels attempting to catch a larger share of the market.
BACKGROUND
Polyphonic HMI is preparing to launch Hit Song Science, which analyzes the mathematical characteristics of music compared to past music hits, making it possible to determine a song’s hit potential. Music characteristics can be analyzed by math such as melody, tempo, pitch, rhythm, etc. because hit songs have common mathematical properties. Polyphonic’s Hit Song Science could be valuable for three target markets: record labels, producers, and unsigned artists. There are benefits to marketing HSS to all …show more content…

We need to figure out how HSS should be positioned, what price should be charged, and how Polyphonic should approach the selling process.
Identification and Evaluation of Alternatives
The alternatives the management team of, Barcelona-based, Polyphonic HMI were faced with were who was their best target market and what was a suitable marketing plan to best position their new technology, Hit Song Science (HSS). Their alternatives are the following:

1. To pursue record labels by offering assistance in deciding on whether to market an album, in selecting which song to release first, and in testing new artists looking for a record deal .
2. To pursue producers by offering a chance to test songs or albums at some stage during the production process and “tweak” them to maximize their hit potential.
3. To pursue unsigned artists by offering the ability to check the hit song potential of their songs and thus find out whether they had a shot at making it in the industry.

In the first option HSS would be positioned towards essentially saving record labels money. With the technology of HSS record labels would be able to evaluate an albums sales potential before actually spending the money to market the album. They would also be able to rank songs in an album for the purposes of releasing the best possible single. This would decrease emotional judgments, thus allow record labels to have bigger promotional