Blank tape consumers breaking the tabs - video and audio tape sales increasing - column

Discount Store News, June 4, 1990 by Peter Hisey

Blank Tape Consumers Breaking the Tabs

Mature or not, the blank media market continues to grow, and new niches such as 8mm, S-VHS, S-VHS-C, high-end metal audiotape, and improved high bias audiotape products offer further opportunities for growth, according to major suppliers.

The summer Consumer Electronics Show will see the introduction of dozens of new media products, and the growing home entertainment trend will probably make most of them successes. More and more, consumers are "breaking the tabs," making audio and videotapes permanent parts of their collections. As they record over tapes less frequently, sales seem poised to increase over the next few years.

Fuji will introduce a brand-new double-coated videotape formulation that it says will offer expanded audio and video response. The first coating expands lower (audio) frequencies, the second expands high (video) frequencies.

"The consumer will see the difference clearly on their screens," said Fuji's Brad Friedrich. The tapes will cost no more than present high-end tape, Friedrich added, and a new television and print campaign (replacing the claymation frog program) will concentrate on technical improvements. Most tapes have been renamed as well, with clearer differentiation between grades. Fuji will also introduce more flexible "pallet" packs, with individually wrapped trays that can be stacked to order depending on the size of the store. That way, Friedrich said, the larger store in the chain could stock, say, eight trays while lower volume stores stock only four.

Sales in 8mm have exploded, Friedrich said, and seem to be trending toward two-packs. Perhaps bricks are next.

Audiotape sales have been strong, nearly tripling in one year, and the company plans to continue its successful tie-in with the Enigma group of labels with a new edition of its CD sampler given away with four- and five-packs of high gade tape. Those packs will be available in a prepack for the first time. Fuji will also introduce step-up packaging and $1 mail-in rebates for four-pack metal bricks. And, most important, Fuji has entered the 100-minute "compact disc" market with several formulations.

Sony has also seen an explosion in its 8mm sales, and has high hopes for Metal HG, which the company said is 25 percent better than metal particle tape. Sony will tie in with the Goodwill Games this year, introducing a sweepstakes that will send a lucky winner to the participating Goodwill country of their choice. Coupons in tape packages will be redeemable for discounts on Goodwill Games memorabilia.

The company has also developed deluxe packaging for its premium Metal Master cassette. That will make it stand out at POP, Sony said, and also act as a salesman, illustrating the premium quality of the tape.

Sony will also cross-merchandise with other Sony divisions, offering headphones as a premium (but not a giveaway) with five-packs of UX-90 high bias tapes, rubber neon sunglasses with UX-100 four-packs or UX-90 five-packs, and a Sheffield Labs sampler compact disc with purchase of three Metal ES cassettes.

GE/RCA audio and video-tapes will also include value-added products, under a "Surf's Up" summer promotion banner. Specially packed three-packs of T-120 video-tape will include Surf's Up sunglasses; purchasers of four 2-packs of audiotape will receive an inflatable beach skimmy; and a free Surf's Up watch will be included with 10-packs of Type 1 HOC audio tape.

American Electronics and Entertainment will include 10 new prerecorded movies with its MGM brand blank video-tapes. All are colorized titles from the Turner/RKO library, including "King Kong," "Gunga Din," "The Thing," and "Fort Apache." Each movie is included in a Triple Pack, packaged with two blank videotapes.

TDK has introduced a unique cross-merchandising plan, offering free SA-90 and SA-100 high bias audiotapes with packages of the company's computer diskettes.

Polaroid entered the high-grade market this spring after introducing its new line at winter CES. "It's done fantastic," said the company's Don Patrican. "We're ahead of our projections, and what I think we're seeing is the retailer trying to get a higher ring, and the consumer becoming more concerned with long-term quality."

According to Patrican, the company will accentuate its high-grade program "much more strongly" in the second half of 1990, and will be offering a cross merchandising tie-in with its 35mm product, OneFilm, offering 50 cents "instant coupon" on packages of videotape good for a discount on OneFilm.

Polaroid will also reintroduce a 450-piece end-cap unit that originally debuted late last year. "We've made it a lot more sturdy and added a 150 three-pack option," Patrican said.

Maxell, whose participation in the January show was punctuated by the introduction of new 8mm, Hi-8 and high-end Metal Vertex audio tape, will introduce value added promotions tied to "Don Kirshner's 35 Years of Rock'n'Roll", a 12-episode series of two-hour rock music shows. Maxell is a sponsor of each show, and purchasers of six-packs of XL-II audio tapes will receive a 175-page booklet filled with pictures and music trivia.