2022

Many of the accounts we supply require all physical products to be supplied with printed barcodes attached because they are an essential part of automated stock management and point-of-sale systems. This means that whenever goods are supplied to us which do not display a barcode (or which display a barcode that doesn’t match what was submitted via the portal), barcode stickers have to be applied to each unit prior to dispatch.

Although our agreements have always allowed us to charge a 10p/unit processing fee for this service, we have usually taken a soft-touch approach to doing so, partially due to the additional burden of administering the related invoicing. However, please be aware that we are currently updating our systems so that in future, processing charges will be invoiced to labels automatically when goods are booked into our warehouse if barcode stickering is required.

In an ideal world, all products would arrive at our warehouse with the correct barcode already displayed to avoid stickering altogether. Wherever possible, please ensure that barcodes are incorporated into artwork at the point of manufacture and that the UPC in the label portal is set accordingly. Alternatively, we are happy to provide printed barcode stickers for a small charge so that you can process the stock yourself before supplying units to Kudos.

Spotify recently announced the launch of native DJ Mix playlists on its platform. The program is currently available in eight countries around the world (UK, Ireland, The Netherlands, Japan, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand) and essentially copies a similar program on Apple Music that’s existed for some time.

Spotify’s DJ Mixes are editorial playlists that have been curated and mixed by a well-known DJ into a continuous mix. Each track used in a DJ Mix will be edited for a seamless transition but will be clearly labelled as a “Mixed” version of the original track, with at least 30 seconds of the track included. If your tracks are selected for a DJ Mix playlist, the plays will be accounted to you directly as streams of the original version.

For the first launch, noted by Spotify as a “test run” – DJs Adam Beyer, Shingo Nakamura, MOTi, Noisia, and AmyElle have each released individual mixes on the platform.

The addition of Spatial Audio support to Apple Music last year introduced Dolby Atmos music into the mainstream but with the format still in relative infancy, the volume of Atmos music available is still very limited. In an effort to support the expansion of the Spatial Audio repertoire, some funding has been set aside to subsidise the production costs of generating Atmos content for a number of selected projects. We have been invited to submit titles to be considered for participation in the scheme, so if you have anything that may be of interest please discuss this with us. Note that the scheme is largely aimed at reissuing high-value, evergreen catalogue in the new format, although new releases with large global appeal may be considered.

Did you know we offer tailored digital marketing campaigns for our clients?

Get in touch with our Marketing Manager Kira to have a chat about how you can boost engagement, pre-saves and streams on your next release. She can guide you through how to optimise a release for streaming, set up Facebook and Instagram ads on your behalf, and provide detailed reports post-campaign.

Some recent campaign highlights have included a pre-save campaign we ran on Facebook and Instagram for one of our artists. With a budget of £140 we received 4,850 clicks through to the Spotify pre-save link. The campaign also reached 23,663 people, had impressions of 66,791 and a CTR of 8%.