The Miracles of Cross Marketing

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.  

What To Do With All This Music?

What should we do with all this music? This is a question that I hear often fro managers, artists and D.J’s. Often time’s artists find themselves with an extensive catalogue but no real outlet or platform to share all the music. Sites like Sound Cloud and MySpace are a great platform to share music and YouTube is a great place to share videos. The sites I have previously mentioned offer a way to expose yourself to the public but its hard work to make your songs go viral.

I have noticed that many artists overproduce. These artists simply spend too much time and money recording and producing music. The time and money these artists spend creating music could easily be better spent marketing past or current projects instead of starting new ones. Too many artists record just for the sake of recording. I believe an artist should feel free to create at will but consideration for the marketing plan should take precedence of perpetual recording at a considerable cost per hour.

Every artist must decide whether they simply want to be a working musician or a celebrity/ superstar. There is considerably more work from a marketing standpoint that goes in to creating a superstar. For instance, image reigns supreme in the pursuit of superstardom. Accessibility to the public is also very important and the seclusion of studio recording does not lend it self to a sustained marketing campaign. In my opinion an artists should treat recording like athletes treat sports, never stop practicing but save your energy for the game and don’t over exert yourself in preparation.

So what do we do with all this music? We test singles with our core audience and pick the ones that garner the best reaction. Market your single to the best of your ability by performing and perhaps finding ways to cross promote the song through commercials, movies and other forms of entertainment. Stop finding new singles to promote half heartedly while the first is still under promoted.   

Why Separate The label From management?

The TLC biopic on VH1 created a lot of outrage due to the questionable practices by the former manager of the group Pebbles. Most of the problems that occurred should have been foreseen considering that LA Reid who at the time was pebbles husband also owned the label they were signed to. Most people would call this a conflict of interest but technically its not since the companies are separate entities. Managers play a big role in the career of an artist and they should also be a level of confidentiality between the two.

A husband and wife are as close as two people can be and having that level of intimacy between management and the label cannot be healthy for the artist. Record labels are known for being shrewd but if they have such an advantage they will be at an unfair advantage. The movie depicted a group who were grossly underpaid and overworked. The problems they had were to be expected because their manager basically worked for the label.

The record company is a business and their goal is to make money. An artist has many other goals such as stardom or just simple creation of art but while the artist is focusing on these things a manager must handle the business to ensure the artist is taken care of financially. A record label should never hire managers, attorneys or accountants for their artists those people must have your best interests in mind. The group suffered many financial hardships due to management even though they were one of the top selling groups of all time. Artists have to learn how to say yes or no to certain proposals from the label but the person who’s responsible for teaching the artist should be management. Because of the closeness of management and the label TLC suffered.   

The Real Gate Keepers

The entertainment industry is full of tastemakers and talented individuals but over the years the consumers have been exposed to the real gatekeepers of the industry. The Internet and companies like Napster started a revolution that got associations like the RIAA and The MPAA up in arms over their dissemination practices. No one ever expected music and movies to be totally free but somehow the Internet found a way. The RIAA and The MPAA became the only levee between the art that is made for the public and the methods of actually collecting dollars for that service.

Companies like ASCAP and BMI have a service that allows artists to profit from their art when displayed for public consumption but they don’t necessarily put you in a position to make that money. There services are essential if you want to have your music and videos played on television and radio. The main goal of these associations is to insure the artist and make sure the material he or she creates is protected and paid for at market value. The more a person delves into the entertainment business the less you identify with the consumer at least from a fan perspective. Industry professionals want consumers to pay fair prices and not pirate their product but the web makes it too tempting for many of them.

The MPAA And RIAA must be proactive about techniques that deter piracy and reward genuine purchases. People want value and with more and more content on sites like YouTube people are less likely to go buy a substandard album or even watch T.V for their music videos. Companies like South BY Southwest offer a superior product simply because they empower the artist. A place where you can debut a clothing line a movie, video game or and album is the perfect platform for the fast moving A.D.D culture we live in. I relay on the MPAA and the RIAA to watch out for my interests as a businessman but as a consumer I wonder if they have a remedy for the shift in technology and information sharing.

The Science Of Viral Vids.

Today I’d like to write about Kevin Allocca The Trend tracker for YouTube. Kevin’s Ted talk is titled “Why videos go viral”. I chose this presentation because the entertainment business is being filled with individuals discovered on YouTube. I was curious to see if there was a real formula to get over a million views. Kevin makes it clear that there is no formula but there are factors in creating a viral video.

First Kevin talks about tastemakers, which play an important part in the process. Almost every viral video has been mentioned, re-tweeted or posted on social networks. The “Friday” song by Rebecca Black is the perfect example the song had comedic potential so many tastemakers including web clip shows shared the vid and even did spoofs until the song topped out at 200 million views.

The other factor Kevin talks about is the unexpected. I believe humans are inherently inquisitive so they love to see things they haven’t seen before. People will flock to see a double rainbow if they haven’t seen it before but if you add unexpected funny commentary things can get interesting. We like to think about artists like Justin Beiber when we talk about artists who where discovered on You Tube and Kevin and I agree this will become more common over time basically making the web the place to have national auditions.

The last factor Kevin talks about is community. Web videos like “Prancersise “ and “Friday” lend themselves to hilarious spoofs that create great interactions within the general public. These interactions increase viewership even more.  So the consensus is who really knows which videos will go viral. What we do know is that the ones that do tap into all or one of these factors every time. This is great information for someone in the entertainment business because now we at least look for these factors in the marketing process to increase our chances of reaching a large audience.