FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information:
Charles Van Horn
+1-609-279-1700
cvanhorn@contentdeliveryandstorage.org
Taking It To The Streets
CDSA President's Message at CDSA Media Market Intelligence Summit
New York, NY, December 4, 2007 - I'd like to formally welcome everyone to the first-ever Content Delivery & Storage Association Summit. It is sort of like giving birth to not only a new Association but also a new event. But, first-ever sounds odd for an association that is actually celebrating 38 years of industry representation.
But as most of you already know, last spring our board initiated a branding change that was intended to position us for the next 38 years and hopefully even longer.
And for the first six months, we tended to the business associated with such a major branding initiative –
- Communicating the message to the market
- Redeveloping the logo, the magazine, the web site, the collateral materials, the Sponsor presentations, and the like
Not always the most glamorous part of the job but necessary nonetheless.
A few months ago the real job at hand began: Finding out more about our membership. Learning what issues keep you up at night. Soliciting input about ways we can be of service. How we can truly earn your trust, participation and membership dues.
And we've learned a tremendous amount about your business, our image, and what CDSA must truly become in order to persevere in these dynamic times.
I hope you've been seeing our monthly membership surveys, which are providing all of you with a voice in this process. Each month we will be putting out a survey, and each month they are different. Some of you may say “I answered this last month” – well, actually you didn’t. We do report in the President’s letter that follows that, significant results from the surveys. Those surveys help us formulate the programs and strategies for moving the Association forward. They will continue.
Some of you say, “Someone from my company has already responded.” But we are interested in your opinion also. You may not agree with that other person at your company that responded – you may be the future leader of that company – or you may be the leader of that company and you’ve delegated to someone else. It is important that we hear from all of you because collectively that helps chart the way for the future of this Association.
However, there's nothing like some good old face time with your customers to find out what's really going on. The same as you know – the same as you making those sales calls.
So I hit the road. First LA, then London and then back here to New York -- where we held strategic planning meetings with representatives from nearly 35 member companies, trying to discern common issues, common concerns, common goals and objectives for our changing industry and its association.
First off, let me thank everyone of you who participated in the process. It was remarkable how many valuable man hours you donated sitting around the room with me, my staff members, and a couple key board members to share your thoughts and opinions.
Secondly, let me share with you the findings, all of which were more recently quantified across the entire membership via an online survey.
Who are we as an organization? Fortunately, our name change was on target -- thank goodness, since I don't think I could have survived yet another branding exercise at this time. I’ve been through the ITA, IRMA and now IRMA to CDSA, and I hope my successor will be successful in taking us through our next brand change that will be taking place sometime in our future.
At all three meetings, and reiterated again via the online survey, it was agreed that CDSA should focus on serving the needs of companies that service content holders. It was agreed that we deliver content. We store it. We package it. We deliver it.
By and large, though, the membership differentiated these roles from actually owning it and creating it.
That's not to say that we don't want content holders part of our club. Anything but. In fact, a significant number of respondents added that content holders should play an important role in the future direction of the CDSA and its activities.
We need our customers' input and participation in order to help us establish the right goals and objectives -- the so-called "burning issues" that our industry needs to address on their behalf.
What are those "burning issues?" (And, by the way, out of the three different strategic planning sessions, there was tremendous consistency over the burning issues that were identified.
In order of importance, here's what the CDSA rank and file identified and prioritized on our behalf.
(1) Promoting physical media
(2) Anti-piracy & content security
(3) New storage media formats
(4) Expanding CDSA membership
(5) Digital distribution
(6) Environmental responsibility
(7) Asset management
I might add that issues one through three were the most significant ones, with the differences between two and three almost indistinguishable.
Not surprisingly, the survey identified a similar but slightly different top three burning issues for our customers:
(1) Anti-piracy & content security
(2) Promoting physical media
(3) Digital distribution
Not surprisingly, protecting their property is most important, protecting their current content delivery system is next important, and coming up with new channels of distribution third on their list.
These findings are important for us to recognize if we are going to attract more content holders into the mix of our membership. And, yes, you emphasized that you wanted more content holders to participate in our organization moving forward.
In order of priority you wanted to see more participation from:
(1) Games publishers
(2) Home video studios
(3) Business software
(4) Music labels
I'm proud to announce here today that we've already taken action on this last point.
Electronic Arts -- the leading game publisher -- has just joined our membership and just joined our board of directors. And they will be working very closely with us to develop a security standard for the digital distribution of media. We will be auditing their digital providers and certifying that they do have the security in place to protect that content. They will serve as a pilot for that particular standard. That standard will then be rolled out to many other content holders who have asked for a similar program.
I would expect to see more content holders on the board as we make an aggressive outreach program.
What other actions are we taking in response to this input and our new strategic plan?
Anti-piracy?
You may have read about the recent launch of a post production security certification program with Deluxe Digital. That particular standard was approved by our Board of Directors yesterday and I’m happy to announce that Deluxe Digital Services is the first post production facility to be certified under that program.
You may have seen an ad for our 100+ certified replication plants in Variety. Expect more to come.
New storage media formats?
Welcome new members like SanDisk to our Association. Please join us as a sponsoring organization at the Storage Visions Conference at CES. And expect to hear more about a Hollywood Storage Summit next year.
Environmental responsibility?
Milliken recently hosted the first meeting of the CDSA Environmental Responsibility for Media Packaging Subcommittee, which I’m sure will be discussed later on in further detail during today's session.
The Board has also approved a standard where we are certifying plastic DVD boxes as being free of hazardous materials. You may not be aware of the fact that there are boxes in the marketplace that do contain hazardous materials. They are not coming through our normal, legitimate channels. But you can go to some trade shows and you can find them in some booths, and if you take a real good sniff, you can smell some of the hazardous materials that are contained in some of those boxes. They are low-cost boxes, they are re-grinds..
Milliken & Company did some very extensive testing on the behalf of CDSA and the marketplace and as a result of these efforts we developed a standard and a procedure to have independent laboratories test DVD boxes and certifey them free of hazardous materials. Our job is to identify and communicate to content holders and to replicators those plastic DVD boxes that we certify, through independent testing laboratories, that are free of these hazardous materials.
Digital distribution?
Welcome another newcomer to our ranks -- SyncCast, featured on the cover of the October issue of Mediaware magazine.
Another one that you are going to be hearing about in the digital distribution area is CacheLogic, who I think is going to be more involved as we move more into the digital arena.
And what about our membership's most burning issue -- probably the one that keeps us all up at night wondering what's ahead: promoting physical media?
This isn't just one move. It's every move. It will underscore all our activities moving forward. We will emphasize it with the addition of content holders who share a similar business objective. Your content holders want physical media to survive for the foreseeable future as they ramp up digital distribution of media.
We will emphasize this with the addition of new storage companies from the flash memory and hard disc categories. We will emphasize it as we take a leadership role in the green movement and as we help establish a way for physical media to coexist with digital distribution in the years ahead. Most significantly, we will embrace the objective in the core of our new mission statement.
You’ve told us you want CDSA to take a more active role in promoting our core business.
You want us to take on an advocacy role for our industry. This is a major change from previous strategic plans that wanted us to provide more of a forum for information exchange.
You also said that you wanted your association to emphasize the importance of "innovation" to our industry, the priority of providing "safe and secure" storage solutions to content holders, and representing only "responsible" companies who recognize the significance of intellectual property and the value of our global environment.
Your new mission statement?
CDSA is the worldwide forum, advocating the innovative, secure and responsible delivery and storage of entertainment, software and information content.
I am proud to represent an industry association with such a mission statement.
For the first time in years, I think it says it all.
About CDSA
CDSA, the Content Delivery & Storage Association (formerly IRMA, the International Recording Media Association), is the worldwide forum advocating the innovative and responsible delivery and storage of entertainment, software and information content. Founded in 1970, this global trade association's membership includes companies involved in every facet along the digital and physical media supply chain. Beginning with the audiocassette, through the home video revolution, and into today’s digital delivery era, CDSA has always been the organization companies have turned to for news, networking, market research, information services, and leadership. CDSA also publishes the professional journal Mediaware that provides "Executive Strategies for the Advancement of Content Delivery & Storage."