Capitol Orchestrates the Hype for Beatles on CDs

Somewhere in the pre-dawn hours on Feb. 26, delivery trucks worldwide will unload their long-awaited cargo at thousands of record shops.

A few hours later, the world will meet the Beatles--all over again. This time, the music of the mop-topped legends of rock will be reintroduced in the form of four compact disks. In effect, the high tech of the 1980s will make music with the melodies that best symbolize the 1960s.

Behind it all is a marketing campaign that could make Beethoven roll over.

While executives at Capitol Records--the North American arm of London-based EMI Music Worldwide--contend that they will spend more money launching these compact disks then any others in history, their marketing plans are to let the media do most of the work for them.

“Due to the tremendous media interest,” said Ron McCarrell, vice president of marketing at Capitol, “the world will pretty much know about this before we tell them.” After all, besides wide-ranging coverage in major magazines and newspapers, segments on the coming release have already been scheduled for “Entertainment Tonight” and the “Today Show.”

Said one envious executive at a competing but smaller record company: “There’s no need to sell the Beatles, they sell themselves.”

But Capitol has hardly kept silent. For months, the company has spewed out a parade of press releases to whet the public’s--and the media’s--appetite. And the company will take its sweet time reintroducing 14 Beatles albums to the world. No more than four albums at a time will be released during the next year or so.

Capitol learned an important marketing lesson from Columbia Records, which recently released 14 Rolling Stones compact disks in one fell swoop. “In one day, Rolling Stones fans went from famine to feast,” said Geoff Mayfield, associate retail editor at Billboard magazine. “It was hard for them to get excited about buying 10 records at once.”

So Capitol has gone slow--and built suspense. “Their calculated program of hype has stirred up an incredible amount of publicity,” said Dick Lewis, associate publisher of Digital Audio & Compact Disc, an industry trade magazine. “They’ve really turned this into a major event.”

If all this sounds like the British rock invasion revisited, executives at Capitol Records will happily harmonize yeah, yeah, yeah. They blame the delay in getting the CDs to market on legal skirmishes.

The names of the CDs--which will retail from about $13 to $15--will in many cases be different from the original American releases. Capitol has elected to release the original British versions. For example, “Meet the Beatles” was released in London as “With the Beatles.” The British versions generally have a few more songs, as well. Aware that initial demand will be high, Capitol officials insist that there should be no shortages. And they are hoping that all four compact disks go “gold”--posting sales exceeding 500,000 each within two months. Not bad for a bunch of 20-year-old songs.

Amid all this hoopla, none of the Beatles themselves are expected to play any part in Capitol’s marketing of their 2-decade-old material. “There really wouldn’t be much gained by having them involved,” said McCarrell.

Capitol is aiming for two key markets: those who grew up with the Beatles two decades ago, and the most lucrative market of all--today’s teen-agers. In early March, the company will begin advertising the compact disks in major magazines ranging from Rolling Stone to Esquire. At the same time, it will also unleash a national newspaper and radio ad blitz.

But it will hold back on television advertising until April. “That should help give it a new kick that will carry it through the summer,” McCarrell said. TV ads will appear on cable and in selected spot markets. The 30-second ads will feature footage of the Beatles in concert. For retail promotions, Capitol is supplying some stores with special six-foot-tall display racks that will feature the widely recognized Beatles logo.

Much like Capitol, many retailers expect big business without big advertising budgets. Edward Dempsey, president of Compact Disc Warehouse Inc., a Westminster-based franchiser and supplier of compact disks, doesn’t plan to run a single ad to hype the 1,600 Beatles CDs he has ordered. “People have been waiting for this so long,” he said, “the pump is already primed and running.” Yet to handle the heavy volume expected on Feb. 26, he will bring extra cashiers aboard to ring up sales.

Nick Rubenfier, assistant manager of Tower Records in Berkeley, has his own ideas about how to market the Beatles compact disks. “I’ve never done this before,” he said, “but I may try wrapping all four together and selling them as a set.” His price? About $50.

Big Agency Firms Up Management Structure

Keith Reinhardt says he can now see the light at the end of the tunnel.

That tunnel is the 6-month-old merger that made the giant ad firm he chairs--DDB Needham Worldwide.

“I was surprised,” he said in a telephone interview, “that in this short time we’ve been able to put a new management structure in place.” The management picture at the agency was firmed up last week. DDB Needham created three separate divisions, including a new U.S. division, an international division and a huge New York division that will operate separately from the U.S. unit.

The heads of all three divisions will report directly to John Bernbach, DDB’s president and chief operating officer. This gives Reinhardt free hand to take more control of the company’s strategic and creative planning.

“I won’t have to worry so much about incoming phone calls,” said Reinhardt. “I’ll be able to do the things a CEO should do, like set the course for the agency.”

That will be no simple task. The agency has picked up $110 million in billings since the merger last August of BBDO International, Doyle Dane Bernbach Group and Needham Harper Worldwide to form even bigger Omnicom Group Inc.

But that is still about $50 million shy of what it lost when clients who saw conflicts from the merger took their advertising accounts elsewhere. DDB Needham is projecting worldwide billings of $1.8 billion in 1987.

“We see a reasonably strong 1987,” said Reinhardt. “We’re actually much further along then we thought we’d be.”

New Contender Aims at the Latino Market

Southern California’s already competitive market for Latino advertising is about to become an even bigger battleground.

The stakes were raised late last week when a new joint venture company was announced between a couple of Latino marketing heavyweights. The two agencies joining forces are Davis, Johnson, Mogul & Colombatto Inc., of Los Angeles--which now handles Latino advertising for Ralphs and Knott’s Berry Farm--and Publicidad Ferrer, Mexico’s largest ad agency, with billings of $50 million.

The new agency, Ferrer/Ad America Inc., will not only provide advertising for Latino firms in the United States, but also aid Mexican firms that want to sell in this country.

“There’s not a lot of Spanish ad expertise just walking the streets of L. A.,” said Ron Kojis, president of the joint venture company. So DJMC went to Mexico City, where it inked a 50-50 joint venture with Ferrer. The operation will be located at DJMC’s headquarters in Los Angeles.

“We’re not just a Spanish language agency,” said Carl Kravetz, chief operating officer of the joint venture. “We are bilingual and bicultural.” Among the key Mexican products the agency hopes to be advertising in the United States: beer and snacks.

Sports Heroes Planned for Disneyland Plugs

Say it ain’t so, Phil and Dennis.

Two of America’s most popular sports heroes--Phil Simms, who quarterbacked the New York Giants to the Super Bowl victory, and Dennis Conner, who brought the America’s Cup back home--may be putting on their all-time best acting performances in commercials for Disneyland.

The Disney-created commercials give the impression that immediately following their big victories, the two heroes had Disneyland on their minds. As the two men are surrounded by reporters, cameras and fans, they are asked what they plan to do next. Both respond, “Go to Disneyland.”

But the on-the-field questions and answers were hardly spontaneous. Before their victories, Disney had signed contracts with both men--as well as with Denver quarterback John Elway in the event that the Broncos bested the Giants.

The deals were simple. All the heroes had to do was utter the Magic Kingdom’s name at that critical moment, said Bob Roth, a Disney spokesman. And Disney film crews were there to catch the canned statements. This may be just the start of a series of such ads. “If the Lakers win the world championship,” said Roth, “maybe we can get someone like Magic Johnson to say the same thing.”