SaskMusic

Dear Percy,
When I heard that SRIA was changing its name to SaskMusic, I just about fell out of my tank. Percy, what do you think of the name change?
— Perplexed in Prince Albert

Hey Perplexed,

I have to admit, when we at SRIA first talked about changing our name to SaskMusic, I got my fins all in a knot. “What? Change the name? But SRIA just swims over my lips so easily and I’m used to it! Why change it?” I bubbled.


But then I had a chance to swim around a bit and do some thinking. And we talked more about it. And several things became clearer.


The organization will always be the Saskatchewan Recording Industry Association - SRIA - for operational purposes (incorporation, cheques, etc.). SaskMusic is just what they call a “streetname”…a name to use for day-to-day advertising, name recognition and promotions. Plus, the change is swimming right along with national trends. We’ve already seen other organizations like BCMusic and MusicYukon make this move.


Also, SaskMusic is a name that’s easy to remember. Part of doing effective advertising and branding is to have a name that’s memorable and doesn’t need very much explanation. Think about all the brand names in the sea – Coke, Yamaha, Nike, Percy – they all have easy-to-remember names. That’s what changing the name to SaskMusic accomplishes. The more memorable we are, the better our brand is. The better our brand, the stronger the organization becomes.


Another person wrote to say, “SaskMusic”? Couldn’t you come up with something cooler than that? It’s the music industry, after all!” Good question. We thought about this, too. We tried on a lot of different names in our brainstorming sessions…and then we realized that we need to sound like a professional organization to our funders and other groups. If these people perceive that the name of the organization sounded too "out there", they wouldn’t take the organization as seriously (which we want them to do ‘cause we ARE serious about the music industry.)


My no-finned colleagues at SRIA also pointed out that whenever we talk to someone who’s not a SRIA member, or who's not in the music industry - well, most people don’t have a clue in the ocean who SRIA is or what those letters stand for. So, we SRIA-ites find ourselves always explaining who we are. Using the name SaskMusic helps us because it’s a little more self-explanatory.


After I considered all these reasons, the skepticism I had about the new name, well… now it’s just water under the bridge.

Keep swimming!

Originally published Spring 2006.

These archive versions of The Session Feature Articles are posted as initially published. Deadlines, contacts and links have not been updated. Please keep this in mind when using this resource. In some cases, updates can be found in a more recent editions of The Session.