Murray Thom: Mr SXS

By GRAHAM REID

Music entrepreneur Murray Thom is always a clear-eyed, voluble enthusiast for his products. So when his voice drops to a whisper, it is time to pay careful attention.

Sitting this week in his elegantly sparse Tamaki Drive office where his modest desk enjoys a commanding view of the harbour he loves, Thom - managing director of Thom Music - is his usual buoyant self until the dollar-shaped telephone numbers come up.

The deal, he says in a hushed voice, is the biggest he's ever done - "our five-year turnover goal is about $250 million."

"That's a lot of money," he adds somewhat superfluously.

Thom's new project is a beautifully packaged 10-CD collection, together, with photographs licensed from the internationally acclaimed M.I.L.K (Moments of Intimacy, Laughter and Kinship) collection, the brainchild of Auckland publisher Geoff Blackwell.

In the collection are nine of Auckland pianist Carl Doy's themed albums featuring the music of Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, Nat King Cole and so on, plus a collection of the best tracks from Martin Winch's Espresso Guitar albums with two newly recorded tracks.

It comes as a handsome 120-page hardback book, and Thom has just signed a deal with Sony Music International in New York - which valued the project at $20 million at the outset - as a partner in its sales and promotion.

Sony president Rick Dobbis endorses it in a statement inside the dust jacket: "The together project is creativity at its best: thought-provoking, inspiring and life-affirming. This package is a treasure."

Dobbis isn't the only high profile enthusiast. On Wednesday, Thom learned that together will be featured on Oprah Winfrey's Oprah's Favourite Things show which airs in the United States on November 25.

He can't put a figure on what that might mean in sales, but knows the company in Hong Kong that puts together the elaborate package with its fold-out photographs and elegant slip cases for the discs will have orders he doubts it can fulfil.

That doesn't matter, he laughs. "Our marketing plan is for five years. We plan on selling more than a million copies in that period, most of those in North America."

Thom's strategy includes bulk sales through international companies - together is the ideal corporate gift for the likes of Mercedes Benz, Toyota and real estate companies.

"Cars and houses are the most expensive things anybody buys and this is the easiest corporate gift a company can give you as a purchaser."

As the former managing director of CBS New Zealand - at 23 the youngest CBS head in the world - Thom knows the music business intimately.

He quit CBS in 1986 and the following year won the Government tender to market personalised number plates. He sold Personalised Plates in 1997 with no regrets.

"There's a limit to how excited you can get selling number plates. I went to my bach one Christmas and thought the last thing I wanted on my tombstone was, 'He sold heaps of number plates'.

"My real passion has always been the music business and even during that period I ran my own company. We recorded Dave Dobbyn's Loyal album, for example. But in 1997 I made the decision to devote all my energy to it."

The man who'd probably rather be sailing and counts the Team New Zealand crew among his friends would be one of the few executives with a Red Hot Chili Peppers ring tone on his cellphone. His computer is loaded with hundreds of modern rock and classic jazz songs.

Fifteen years ago he conceived the Carl Doy album Piano by Candlelight, and subsequently Moonlight Sax by Brian Smith, Martin Winch's two Espresso Guitar albums and Margaret Urlich's album of covers of New Zealand classic pop songs.

All were big sellers locally - Piano by Candlelight sold 50,000 copies in its first year.

But Thom saw international potential for the Doy series and licensed them to Time Life in the United States. Piano by Candlelight has sold almost three million copies Stateside, "one ad on Larry King sold us about 50,000."

Thom has not been surprised by the success of the easy listening music much favoured at dinner parties.

There was a niche in the market, and that is growing in a world where a generation of middle-demographic potential buyers feel uncomfortable in music stores, and people old enough to remember records with gatefold covers and elaborate inner sleeves don't feel any emotional attachment to a CD in a plastic case with microscopic print on the cover.

People have lost the whole experience of buying music, he says, and there is no added- value component with a CD.

Yet despite the lavish attention to the packaging and production of together, it is modestly priced. It sells in the US for US$179 and here for $179, which includes shipping, with a substantial discount for companies buying in bulk.

It isn't available through record shops, only from Thom's www.pianobycandlelight website

Thom says his market is people who don't go to record shops anyway.

Sampler copies sent to friends and business associates in New Zealand and abroad have prompted the same response: orders for more as gifts. One sent to Winfrey's producer has lead to the star boosting it on her programme.

The project grew out of a similar but more modest 10-CD package three years ago but Thom knew there was potential to extend the life of the Candlelight project.

He invested "hundreds of thousands of dollars" and went through the music, discarding what he wasn't happy with and having Doy record new themed albums with players from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

The M.I.L.K. association came by chance after it approached him to put together an album to complement its exhibitions.

He made a mock-up and in May the former CBS man - the company which became Sony - presented it to Sony heads in New York with a 12-minute, emotionally moving DVD of the music and images from M.I.L.K.

"After the presentation the lights went on and nobody said a word. There was a little bit of this from the marketing area," he says, wiping away an imaginary tear.

Time Warner was also interested, but the following month when Thom contacted Sony's Dobbis he received an immediate Saturday morning reply.

"If you have not concluded a deal with Time Warner," Dobbis' e-mail reads, "I am prepared to consider matching it (with a turn-around of 2 or 3 days) as an entree to a larger deal. I want your creativity to be part of the Sony Music family and network."

Thom and Sony formed a joint venture to market together internationally.

In September he attended Sony's international conference in London and presented the product to the head of every branch. Sony affiliates market the product independently in their regions but Thom has the overview.

"This is our baby and we have the majority stake, so how my baby is brought up is of great interest to me.

"Somebody has to push the thing and that's my job. So I am very protective of it because we put a lot of care into making it what it is and equal care needs to go into how it is projected."

Thom also has an exclusive consulting agreement with Sony International, which gets first refusal on any new projects.

together is a high end product, and in his marketing ideas presented to Sony Thom cited a deal with Mercedes Benz in New Zealand. The company has signed on for three years, and every new car owner gets a copy of together.

"Every day we have owners ringing and wanting more as gifts for others. That's how it works, and now Sony wants to explore the corporate relationships it has internationally. Sony in Japan, for example, will talk to Toyota."

Sony has also picked up the sampler albums Piano Entree and Espresso Guitar, which come with booklets introducing the together collection.

These will be marketed internationally through traditional retailers in the new year because "we didn't want to get lost in the Christmas market; also if it gets dumped into the market now, by January it is last year's product."

Thom has advised Sony to promote them, as he did here with Piano By Candlelight, through non-traditional outlets such as hair salons and cafes.

"Isn't it interesting that Sony, who are the masters of innovation if you think of things like the Walkman and Spiderman last year, should be so enthusiastic.

"I get a huge amount of joy out of going to Sony Music headquarters in New York, the entertainment capital of the world on Madison Avenue, and they look at this from New Zealand and say, 'That is creativity'.

"I'm incredibly proud of that because these people see it all every day, but this is unique.

"It's also a real Kiwi thing. M.I.L.K. is a Kiwi creation, and we're using the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and performers," Thom says with clear-eyed, voluble enthusiasm.

* The M.I.L.K. photographic exhibition opens on Friday in the Waitemata Plaza at the Viaduct Harbour.