Beastie Boys' Nasty P-O-P Hits Record Stores

Something fishy is going on in record stores across America. To encourage retailers to squeeze in one more CD display in an over-crowded environment, Capitol Records created an unusual dump bin and counter display. Since June, a giant sardine can display has hooked the hottest spots on the floor in support of the Beastie Boys' new release titled "Hello Nasty."Lacking only the oily, odiferous aspects of actual sardines, the display mimics a sardine can, complete with key and contents. The concept stems from the album cover artwork chosen by the band."Creatively, that's what they wanted," says Steve Rosenblatt, vice president of marketing for the Hollywood, Calif.-based record company, attempting to explain why the three band members are depicted lying shoulder-to-shoulder inside a sardine can. "With a band the stature of the Beastie Boys, they tell us what they want," adds Rosenblatt.When the album cover arrived featuring the boys lying in the sardine can, marketers at Capitol Records asked themselves, "Now what can we do to market around that?"The answer was obvious. At least it was to Doneen Lombardi, director of creative services. "She took one look at it and said, 'We could make sardine cans as dump bins!' " recalls Rosenblatt. However, until she located Englewood, N.J.-based Henschel-Steinau Inc., her fellow marketers doubted it could be done.The marketing executives at Capitol embraced the opportunity to do something unusual. The last few Beastie Boys covers featured black-and-white photos that Rosenblatt describes as "less lively." The new cover "gave us a lot more to work with," he says.Constructed of silver and black corrugate with a four-color process litho header, the displays won retailers' approval. "We've had nothing but incredible feedback from retail -- consumers are gravitating to it," he reports.Ultimately, the secret to a dump bin's success, he says, is popularity. "If it's cool and the clerks like it, it will stay up longer." Plus, he adds, the better looking a display is, the better location it gets.Early response was so favorable that the dump bin got into stores before the CD itself did. "Generally a dump bin goes up the day the product arrives," says Rosenblatt. But by inserting a cover stamped with a street date over the sardine can, the display built pre-launch excitement. "Most retailers put it up two to three weeks before the album came out," he says. "When the street date hit, they opened it up and filled it with product." The CD was released July 14."As long as this is a hot record, we think the retailer may keep it up six to eight weeks," he says. "It's a cool dump bin, a hip band and it's selling records."Stocking 60 CDs, the dump bin version features a key jutting out at the upper left corner of the lid, which is pulled up to reveal six facings of the CD.A modified version of the larger unit holds 20 CDs. "Space is a problem for the smaller retailers," notes Rosenblatt. "We made the counter piece so that everybody can get involved." The colors used on both provide visual impact."I know that this dump bin got us additional sales. We sold a million records in two weeks, and that dump bin gave us extra visibility."

Beastie Boys' Nasty P-O-P Hits Record Stores

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