So what is cross marketing? Basically cross marketing is
taking your brand or product and using another brand or product to market your
own. Think about athletic endorsements or your favorite song being played
during a Pepsi commercial. Cross marketing is the way that products piggy back
on one another. The music business has been suffering a bit lately but the one
thing that has always thrived is the capability of artists and labels to
associate themselves wit other products. When you go to a sporting event you
will probably see many people handing out fliers or selling a CD in the parking
lot because they are taking advantage of a place where people gather. In my
opinion this is the only way to gain a real audience when you are a musician.
These tactics are not always done physically today its also done on the
web. Just because you click on a site to
watch a movie doesn’t mean the ubiquitous pop up wont appear with some new song
you’ve never heard or a clip of an artist showing their talents. Television
shows are also a key vehicle for this. The cameo appearance is cross marketing
at its best. Lets say your watching the Simpsons and all of a sudden ConanO'brien Shows up as a cartoon character he’s not only there for comic relief
he’s there to remind you that he’s relevant and hopefully you’ll tune into his
show the next night. Music is probably the easiest thing to cross-market
because it’s ever present in every facet of entertainment. I believe if you
really want to push an artist you have to find ways to subliminally insert them
into the minds of other audiences even when their not looking for them. Some
people do this with logos or even merchandise but song placement in TV and
public events is the natural way to do it in my opinion.
