Rolling Stones, Album Sales

Attend a Rolling Stones concert and you’ll notice that the band does not sell CDs at the venue as other bands do. Rather than use the concert to peddle CDs, the Stones use it to push other merchandise that carries significantly higher profit margins. Other artists usually bring in Sound Scan to capture sales data that will be given credit toward official sales figures. At this point in their careers, however, the Stones don’t need to push albums. Fans will buy them online or in stores if they want them, and many of them do. The Stones would prefer that fans spend the limited funds they bring to a concert on T shirts, hats, and other higher profit items.

In the grand scheme of the Rolling Stones organization, the album really serves as a marketing tool. But the Stones have never really been about record breaking album sales. “The Rolling Stones never had huge sales of an individual album at the time of its release,” explains Gmeiner. “Look at Peter Frampton, who sold 60 million albums at one time, and compare that to the Rolling Stones, whose biggest sales in current lifespan of an album is 2.5 million copies, which I think Forty Licks will surpass.” You Can Sometimes Get What You Want The Rolling Stones understand the complexities and opportunities that arise from having a fan base that encompasses both ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. In the vein of classic product differentiation and discriminatory pricing strategies, the Forty Licks world tour played in three different types of venues-stadiums, arenas, and select small venue theatres-with the goal of selling out each concert regardless of venue size. Marketing research identified which cities had fan support strong enough to warrant large stadium appearances and which were more likely to sell out midsized arenas. Some cities were better suited for smaller, more intimate theatres and ballrooms, which not only gave the most dedicated Stones fans a special experience but added to the aura of the brand. Seven cities, however, proved to contain enough demand that the band played all three types of venues with multiple appearance dates.