I have kept relatively quiet over the last 18months on this - due to the sensitive nature of what we, at Conchango, have been developing for one of the UK's biggest retailer!

So to help demystify, clear up and also show some of the innovation that Conchango and their retail partner is involved in, thought that now (seeing as they have just launched their Movies & TV areas of their site) that I would share a little insight into what is going on, where they are heading (without giving away too many secrets) , what we are going to do to achieve this and importantly why??

So quick background to begin with, our client had an “out the box” white label music download service. It began at the time when all retailers that had any music heritage needed to be in the digital game. They continued with this for almost 4 years until they decided that now was the time to do something about this. Either pull out as there was no apparent money in digital media or actually have a go at it and stay in the game, seeing as physical music and entertainment has a limited shelf life - that although may still be a while off - it will demise.

Conchango arrived in May 2007 to start what would become their Digital offering. Their very own digital download service that used Conchango’s DCP, but importantly would mean that they would become masters of their own destiny.

The first point of the over arching Digital Strategy is to look at initial ambitions of our client, share some real life scenarios and also help shape and show where the industry is heading - anyone who reads my blog will know that I have one or two opinions on this. This was everything from music, film, TV, printed media, devices and innovation in storage and delivery methods..

What became apparent is that after initial discussions and some market and growth patterns – is that currently making vast fortunes from retailing music at £0.79 is not going to make millions of pounds overnight, from a retailers point of view, not great - the P&L will look slightly lightweight to say the least in the short term. The future market place was shifting daily (as it does today) and our client needed to be sure that not only were they up to speed on these developments – but needed some radical new thinking about sustainable business models within the digital landscape. Speaking with labels and studios at the start was somewhat frustrating as there seemed to be no movement on what was a traditional business model - however the longer we progressed the more flexible and open to new ideas and concepts both the labels and studios were.

The 30,000ft view is that the “mass” market consumer is where our clients consumer sit (well as you can imagine from being one of the biggest retailers) and fundamentally a late adopter in the digital media landscape. Their customers may well be behind the curve in terms of gadgets, understanding and fear of not having anything tangible to hold, touch or feel. Digital assets are of course digital files that reside “somewhere” and some will have had poor experiences in the past when after spending money on digital content may have had this "lost" or just no longer working - normally after an OS upgrade and failure to back up those pesky DRM licences, as well as some of the early digital music casualties meant that they had a bunch of files that they could do nothing with. This time had to be different!

The mission was to demystify the digital landscape, give the consumer the reassuring hand of comfort that our client delivers in bucket loads elsewhere in their business – then help guide them through the minefield of acronyms, digital lingo and anything relating to what in effect is digital.

To break down the list and in some kind of order, in how they would deliver a digital offering went something like this:

• DCP: Conchango’s own platform for the future development of their media offering.
• MP3: Agnostic media format that is used and can be used across all devices. This was of course the trickiest element of the plan as when we started working there was "talk" and only talk of a full MP3 offering. So when the site was launched there was a smattering of MP3 - which of course was slated in the press and media as only having 1million MP3 tracks - I can tell you it was not for the want of asking and attempting to do the MP3 deals - more like the stubbornness of the labels to buck the trend and allow their music out there as unprotected MP3 files.
• TV & Film: This traditionally used windows media format that had the digital rights management delivered with it. So they were in the same situation as music - however cracking the movie studios is going to take slightly longer and with more technological advances before we start to see Spiderman 4 unprotected (as such)
• Streamed Media: To give the consumer the streaming experience direct to them without having a 1.5Gb file sitting on their hard drives (a la SKY, Virgin Media) Rental, On demand and Own – as well as portable.

At this point I could go on and share the other pieces of the picture that make up the next part of the strategy - but this is only the story so far, and I'm not one for letting the cat out of the bag!

Suffice to say that I have sat back and read with great interest and dismay the reports and journalists that see our client as another "me-to" play in this area. That they wouldn't really know or understand where the market is heading and how they would take on the mighty Apple. No matter what anyone does in Digital Media we are all held up against Apple (quite rightly though, what a bloody good job they did - whether you like them or their business model or not they certainly cracked it!)  and although this is unfair to everyone (apart from Zune - who rightly deserve a comparison and poor one at that!) it will remain so.

So what happens now - you will just need to keep your eyes and ears on announcements and press releases on what happens next - and sure that The Madman may well comment again (maybe not in another 18 months)