NEW YORK – TK Records is spending a reported $250,000 on a merchandising campaign involving several current and new releases, including a double LP jazz sampler being sent to more than 5,000 accounts.
“As TK grows and becomes a major force with the major labels we’ve got to go in there and fight for space with the CBSs and RCAs…doing a lot of things we’ve never done before,” says Jim Solmson, TK’s national sales manager.
The campaign budget will be spent between now and the end of the year, he says, with the majority of it going to plug product by FOXY, Betty Wright, Michael Urbaniak, The Ritchie Family, T-Connection, KC and The Sunshine Band, and debut artist Bobby Caldwell.
Caldwell aids include prepacks with accompanying mobiles, counter and window cards, oversized posters and three dimensional 3 foot die cut displays. This will be followed by trade ads and a series of 60 second radio spots.
The label is also preparing a three sided slotted unit that holds six different LP covers and can be permanently installed, although the covers will be interchangeable.
A mobile aimed at Christmas shoppers is in the works.
The label is debating whether to use a stickable cube, clear vinyl posters, or both for the T-Connection release.
TK will be drop shipping these merchandisers to distributors as they become available, otherwise retailers will have to get them from TK offices in LA, New York, or Hialeah, FLA.
The label is also anxious to support artist tours abroad with merchandising material, and TK’s Katie Kahrs, director of product affairs, foreign and domestic, will be coordinating things with CBS records inernational, distributor of TK products in most territories outside the U.S. Markets slated for attention are Japan and Brazil thus far.
The Jazz Sampler LP features Eddie Daniels, Kenny Barron, Ralph MacDonald, Phil Upchurch, Jimmy McGriff,, Jimmy Ponder, and Joe Thomas. The elaborate package inclludes the double LP and album jackets of those artists bound together in spiral form.
TK is running off 5,500 sets of this number, and shipping them to distributors and certain retailers with a copy of the Urbaniak LP.
