>The music industry in Japan came up with a brilliant business model that enabled them to sell the same CD multiple times to the same consumer, basically by bundling a ticket to each CD. Sometimes a single ticket grants you one vote, sometimes you get one piece of (say 12) tickets randomly and you need to complete all 12 pieces to get something. This forces loyal fans to buy 10s and sometimes 100s of the same CD.
I don't understand what you mean by tickets and votes. It sounds really interesting, and I'd be grateful if you could elaborate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AKB48
Basically every "season", fans get to vote on their favorite member of huge roaster-pop group that J-pop has pioneered.
"The group has publicized special events to choose the promotional and recording lineups for some of its singles.[191] In 2009, the concept of sōsenkyo (総選挙?, "general elections") was introduced.[19] To obtain a ballot, voters must purchase the group's latest "election single."[192] Members who receive the most votes will participate in the recording of AKB48's next single[19] and are heavily promoted,[5] with the top vote-getter the centerpiece of the group's live performances.[191][192] Votes in the 2011 election exceeded one million, and the single "Everyday, Katyusha" (which contained a ballot for the election) set a Japanese record for weekly sales of a CD single.[193] The 2012 election had nearly 1.4 million votes,[191] and the 2013 election had 2.6 million votes.[194] Fans have reportedly bought hundreds (or thousands) of copies of singles to vote for their favorite members."
What's interesting is that each physical copy of Taylor Swift's latest album, 1989, includes 1 of 5 possible sets of 13 polaroids[0], and it's set to have the biggest sales week (in the US, presumably) of any album since 2002[1]. I wonder if she didn't steal this idea from AKB48.
It's about idol groups (big groups of singers/dancers, usually girls), where fans can vote the singer that gets the most attention[1], who represents the group at different occasions or who will join next. Because the votes are usually tied to a CD, the logistics of crazy fans can be complex, as they buy cartloads[2].
Thanks for explaining. It's crazy, but on some level I have to admire it. They found a way to extract the hidden value of the long tail of super-fans. It's like the "whales" in gaming that spend huge amounts to buy various extras.
The voting is something unique (I think) to AKB48, where for the last 6 years they have an annual event where fans get to vote for which performers will be in the singles. I believe in the last election there were 200+ participants, including all the '48' family groups and training members. http://stage48.net/wiki/index.php/Senbatsu_Election
The tickets usually refer to hand-shake events where you can meet and shake hands with members of the group.
Another hook is including different DVDs in each of several versions of a single, for example Making of videos, close up versions of the video, dance versions, etc. I have seen up to 6 different versions of the same single.
Looking at the number of votes - y axis - on this visualization I made might giv you some sense of how much the volumes involved in this tactic have changed. It's big business.
I don't understand what you mean by tickets and votes. It sounds really interesting, and I'd be grateful if you could elaborate.