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Business News Digital
Townsend Music expands service offering with D2C Plus
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 10 August 2021
Direct-to-fan business Townsend Music has announced the launch of a new service called D2C Plus which will see the company get more proactively involved in the release, merchandise and direct-to-fan activities of some of its clients, from concept to delivery.
The company says that, under the D2C Plus banner, it will now offer select artist clients “a wide range of services including finance, creative development, product curation, campaign management, design, manufacturing, digital and physical marketing”.
The new service builds on recent projects at the company, including the release of deluxe edition vinyl live albums with artists like Shed Seven, James, Bryan Ferry, Embrace and Supergrass, and the publication of a ‘coffee table book’ with Suede.
The manager of the new service, Paul Barton, says: “Our aim with D2C Plus is to give artists a new and exciting way to bring products to market. That product could be a studio album, live album, catalogue release, merch line or even a book. Our expertise stretches across all of these product types and the various components needed to release them successfully”.
“Combine that with our vast knowledge of D2C and music fan buying habits and we feel we have a strong and helpful offer to artists”, he goes on. “Our motto is quality over quantity. There’s every chance we’ll release more books than studio albums, more live albums than merch, and vice versa – it will all depend on the quality of the project and whether we can bring value on a case-by-case basis”.
Townsend Music Sales Director Bruce McKenzie adds: “This is a natural evolution for our company. During lockdown, many of our D2C clients approached us for help with releasing new products to generate revenue when touring was off the table. We successfully took a number of live albums from conception to market, and then found other clients were looking for extra levels of support such as management and business strategy”.
“I’ve always seen Townsend as an A&R driven business”, he continues. “With the recent arrival of Paul Barton and Ben James, alongside our Business Development Manager Lucas Barr and Head Of Digital Barney, we’re able to help our D2C clients with more aspects of their careers, or sign developing artists to launch their initial releases, bringing in appropriate labels, distributors, managers and publishers along the way”.
