A&R Vs. A&B – Artist & Branding

Back in 1994, only a couple of years after I started producing music for TV, radio and early interactive media, I noticed the increasing number of people calling the studio inquiring about the music they had heard on a commercial. They wanted to know where they could buy the album that included the full length version of the track that they heard on the commercial.

Most of the time I had to tell them that no such an album existed.

Well, it didn't take long for me to realize an opportunity was being wasted here. So, at that point I started pitching my clients –account execs at ad agencies– with the idea to produce an album of music that included an extended version of the ad music, and several other similarly composed selections.

The result would be a promotional gift they could give to their customers upon a purchase. I envisioned hiring young rising stars and then making, say, a BMW produced-and-branded CD (or later, I conceived it as a downloadable playlist, which I alternately called Branded or Brand Mixes) that, say, new car owners could play in their 'Ultimate Driving Machine'.

In other words, I wanted advertising agencies to become music companies.

It seemed like a simple thing to do. After all,  agencies were already producing 'singles', per say in the way of jingles and underscores; and creating multi million dollar videos for them (the commercials); and buying enough media time to put them into heavy rotation (promoting TV shows and products), thereby insuring public awareness, buzz and even to some extent, mass popularity. So, what's another half mil to actually create a piece of collateral you can own (for a little while, anyway) and give to customers of the 'core merchandise'?

And now, wake up to the year 2009, and this model appears, if not quite in full swing, a viable alternate way to for some musicians win fans and to either bypass or attract the attention of record labels.

That said, I don't think it's working out quite so well for the advertisers, and that's because agencies by and large have missed one key ingredient in the production of

However, if advertising agencies are increasingly assuming the role one held by record labels why isn't the model yet working in terms of industry?

The problem has to do with how advertisers view people: Whereas Artists see Fans who relate to performers, Advertisers see Consumers who simply use products.

But this paradigm might change if the makers of products and services begin place less emphasis on creating profit and instead consider how they might create and benefit from the creation of artistic or socially conscious cultural capital.

Whether such promotions will cost more or less than traditional marketing means remains to be seen, but ROE  (the Return Of Emotion) potentially earns more loyalty and therefore generates more earnings long term (than meeting immediate profit goals).

ROE is always worth more than ROI alone, because ROE influences repeated contact with the brand, and therefore more opportunities for Consumer and Company to interact. ROE is what transforms a Seller/Buyer arrangement into a RELATIONSHIP.

In other words, ROE is what turns customers into return customers, thereby transforming them from a person who makes a casual purchase into a FAN.

Customers come and customers go, but fans will nurture and maintain a long term commitment (with Bands AND Brands) because Bands AND Brands give them REAL reasons to love them. In this respect, ROE encourages the development of exactly the kind of characteristics similarly found in relationships between two people, or a person and a pet, or any two living beings that share a mutual bond.

In no particular order, such characteristics include (and yes, some words overlap the definitions of others):

• Availability
• Dependability
• Reliability
• Respect
• Communication
• Maintainability
• Support
• Shared Responsibility
• Trust
• Integrity
• Loyalty

And last but not least:

• Free Gifts

It would be funny, wouldn't it, if it weren't also true.

At any rate, I once even fancied myself adopting a new role with the job title 'Artist & Branding'.

Didn't happen, although not doubt, with the tremendous increase in licensing music by advertising agencies in recent years, many music supervisors have already essentially taken on this role.

Regardless, since then, other's have created similarly conceived positions (not to mention produced similarly conceived promotions) with notable success. As a result, I do believe that one day in the near future –if only because I see it already happening right now– the traditional A&R role will evolve into a new A&B model. –Regardless of whether or not industry staffers ever actually relinquish the title that so many still dream of assuming, 'Artists & Repertoire'.

SOUL'D OUT!

Most of the broadcast projects I've been involved in over the last two decades can in a sense be considered straight-ahead enhancements to moving picture, game play or venue experience. Nevertheless, it was in the mid nineties that I began formulating my own uniquely formulated Brand Theology, and not long after that, that I began chasing Broadband video as it emerged from Madison Alley (Madison Ave + Silicon V/Alley, i.e. the ad tech community) byte by precious byte, well before anyone thought audio would ever get small enough to enhance the web experience in any meaningful way.

More recently –in this millennium– I've positioned myself as a creative consultant. As such, I'm asked to consult individual artist/ entertainers who believe my once so-close-to-the-sun and you'll-get-burned-proximity to brand imaging (via music production for advertising, and as a founder of a pioneering interactive audio shop) might also make me capable at providing them with some insight how to reverse engineer the publicity process in order to fuel their own creative careers.

Along the way, I've had occasion to coin the rare phrase, and redefine others which had already found their way into limited circulation, if only as a means to explain myself with necessary clarity. I stumbled through a lot of now dead ideas, but a few things I got right. Today, even if the exact phrases that I chose aren't in wide use –Rock Brands, Medici Model, Camelback Collateral and Strategic Audio Partnerships– the ideas they represent are indeed present and certainly living large.

Most people I speak to seem to be gravitating towards using a variation of the phrase 'New Music Model', 'New Music Paradigm' or 'Music 2.0'. I think all three terms are rather neutral, –a sort of non descriptive nomenclature that doesn't quite reveal anything. Fine for a cocktail party, but otherwise devoid of content. But, sure, you'll catch me using one or the other on occasion as a kind of short hand when I know the person/s I'm addressing are already well acquainted with what those terms might imply.

Music 2.0 suggests a new version to replace the current version. But the terms I chose collectively describe aspects of what I originally conceived as a parallel 'music industry' –one where independent musicians thrived using a modified 'Medici model' –whether that meant accepting a role where public endorsements were required, or in my own case, accepting work-for-hire commissions in order to pay for 'my art'.

The Medici model isn't my own invention, and its meaning is widely understood by those who know the history of the Medici family and their patronage of the arts, between the 13th and 17th centuries. Ever since, DIY musicians and artists since then have been trying to find ways to reignite its potential so that they might be able to survive our capitalist construct, integrity intact, but sans Industry.

Enter the Internet, and the Medici model is actually viable again, albeit on a more significant scale.

SOLD OUT OR SOUL'D OUT?

In 2001, a few weeks after the World Trade Center fell, I produced a group of New York Metro area session musicians and singers, under the banner Gotham Artists, in the production of a tribute song. Despite it's limited '01/'02 release on the now defunct MP3.com site ((it now lives a quiet life on the Garageband site), I continue to receive appreciative email complimenting our efforts and the resulting music.

I'm telling you this because the tools you have now, from home studio equipment to social networking sites to YouTube, all mean that you and your musical vision stand at least an equal chance –and in reality a very great possibility– of touching another soul on the other side of the planet.

And that's all it takes.

In many ways we live in a Post Sell Out World, but it still hasn't lost its heart. Get your music out there and don't worry about being too harshly judged. Ultimately, art is an experience of self discovery. If you become an international global pop star in the process, more power to you.

BRANDING WITH AUDIO AND BEYOND

So with that in mind, I'm kicking 2008 out and 2009 in with a recap of what I think were some of the most prescient articles this author has published in the first few years of the new millennium.

The third article listed below, Branding With Audio, was published by an industry trade back in March of 2001, and represents one of the first widely read articles on Sonic Branding.

"Do you know what your company is saying right now?"

You can read some version of this phrase on just about every music house, audio branding company or composer website today, but prior to the publication of this article you would be hard put to find even industry insiders asking it. Not like I'm a futurist –a term I utterly loathe– but given my background and interests, I simply arrived at the question before most.

I include the article on this list because while it was written for an audience of account executives and marketers in mind, it concludes with advice I think is (still) applicable whatever side of a co-branding agreement you may be on, artist or executive:

"Branding beyond advertising means creating an experience that is free of an overt pitch yet is compelling enough that consumers will nevertheless identify it with your brand. If you've produced a CD, for instance, folks will listen to it while they eat, work out, make love, and your company will be the underscore to their lives. Oats may be oats, but if I'm making babies to your music, then chances are my babies will be eating your oats".

Agree or disagree, either way, I hope it provides continued food for thought (no pun intended). It's 2009 – you don't need a multi national to fund your project in order to draw fans from around the world.

here's to making a big noise in the new year,


Terry O'Gara

* * *

From the Critical Noise Archives

From YR 2000
ROCK BRANDS: Tomorrow's Rock Star Marketing Partners

From YR 2000
Convergence And The Composer
Originally published in Shoot Magazine, August, 2000

From YR 2001
Branding With Audio
Originally published in Clickz, March, 2001

From YR 2003
EXPERIENCE: Traditional Packaging Not Required

From YR 2003
This is Where the Story Ends

From YR 2006
Music as Collateral: Using Audio to Add Value

From YR 2007
Music as Collateral: Compatible Archetypes

Co-Branding as an Alternative to 360 Deals

While presented as 'new music paradigm', the term 360 describes a wishful number of revenue streams flowing back to a traditional label, based on a traditional loan to an artist signing an otherwise traditional agreement.

Which is not to say you should never consider participating in such an agreement.

If your current income is zero, then a 360 deal makes great sense.

However, for an artist who has already established a revenue stream, a 360 deal only becomes a reasonable choice when all parties to the contract, having full understanding of their responsibilities to the other parties, and with full transparency can be held accountable for the execution (or abdication) of said responsibilities, so in effect, contract each other.

The label only wants to pay you on the net of record sales? Therefore likewise, carve out an agreement whereby they are only paid on the net of touring and merch; and like any good manager, hold them accountable for the fulfillment of specific, measurable responsibilities (that entitle them to the agreed commission). To me, that sounds fair and equitable.

The ideal 360 deal –from the artist's perspective– should therefore look a lot like a CO-BRANDING agreement, albeit where one partner (the source of funding) remains invisible, logo real estate notwithstanding.

With the exception of limited work-for-hire agreements (one-off commissions), no one in the new millennium should enter any kind relationship whose execution would compromise an artist's integrity.

Nobody should, but people will. As much as record companies are accused of being greedy, musicians are often equally guilty of signing draconian agreements in order to satisfy a lust for fame and celebrity. But this is not the always the case, of course, and in fact, as previously indicated, 360 deals make sense for some acts, and one may even make sense for you.

However, in our Post Sell Out World, you're a free agent. So, if you're going to sign a 360 deal, you don't necessarily have to do it with a traditional music label. Instead, you can do it with a collaborator of your choosing, for terms agreeable to both of you.

You might sign with the entity who gives you the least control but the most money; or you might choose to collaborate with a company that offers you less money but more creative control. Ideally, you will enter into either a limited term equity partnership or accept a 'Project Underwriter Sponsorship'.

FYI: Per the 'PBS Red Book', "PBS defines an "underwriter" as a third party that has voluntarily contributed cash to finance, in whole or in part, the production or acquisition of a PBS program. Money from such sources used toward research and development, or for packaging or repackaging a program, ordinarily counts as underwriting as well".

For our purposes, a Project Underwriter Sponsorship is defined as an agreement between a two or more parties whereby one or more has voluntarily contributed cash to finance, in whole or in part, the production of a an artistic project, in this case a musical recording by a specific artist/s and the subsequent promotion of the project, in return for credit for having done so.

Neither co-branding partners nor underwriters may necessarily have a history recording and distributing music. If we speak strictly of a 'new music paradigm', they usually do not.

In fact, for the purposes of raising funds in order to record, tour and pay the rent, EVERY company is a potential record company –from the local shops on Main Street to whomever happens to top the Fortune 400 list in a given year, and whether they sell futuristic widgets or old fashioned potpourri.

Of course, not every company can provide distribution, but depending on your specific needs you may or may not need a major label network in order to fulfill your own professional and artistic goals.

The important thing is that such deals are structured as mutually beneficial CO-BRANDING contracts, or as corporate sponsorship of an artistic enterprise, but never as label/bank providing a lopsided loan to the customer/artist. Because if all you need is a loan in order for your dreams to come true, there are cheaper ways to secure that loan, even in today's economy.

More to the point, artists can stop doing business as applicants for loans, if they find a way to position themselves as suitable investments in another company's or collaborator's business strategy.

Bands and Brands

In a recent article I recommended reading Jon Pareles excellent article published a few days ago in the New York Times ['Songs From the Heart of a Marketing Plan' (12/24/08)].

Briefly, Pareles notes, laments, and finally accepts the increasing (and seemingly unreversible) trend of bands aligning with brands.

I don't share Pareles' pain, except in my own dreamy romantic notion of 1979, which now seems a long, long time ago.

Otherwise, Pareles' recent article gives me no reason to think that we aren't continuing a shift in this direction, so if you're not comfortable with the way things are going now, the ride is going to be a rocky one indeed. For better or for worse, such ideas are perhaps more valid than ever, because before they were only concepts. Today, it seems like I bear witness to their evolving manifestation every time I hear about a new co-branding agreement between an artist and a product, service or experience.

What is so interesting to persons my age (anyone north of 18) about these relationships is that only ten years ago they would be framed as a story about an artist selling out. Now, they are presented as a Band and Brand aligning in strategic partnership for mutual benefit, to the surprise of just about nobody.

Maybe that's because what makes these agreements so uniquely post millennial, is that they are indeed constructed as co-branding agreements, and not merely conceived as another traditional sponsorship or endorsement deal. Those kinds of brand/band relationships are so yesteryear.

Pareles laments that artists can no longer be independent without record companies to support them. But perhaps the reality is that now, more than ever, artists are free to remain independent, for no longer beholden to record companies, they can still make a pretty good living –if they can find another source of funding to serve as a music industry surrogate.

Of course, you don't even need the construct of an 'Industry' to make it happen. You just need revenue and a means to enable distribution.

But speaking of surrogates, the co-branding paradigm isn't just for indie artists, either. The model is finally being put to test by some of today's biggest pop stars.

The Eagles not only inked a deal with Wal-Mart, the retailer is featuring them in a $40 million ad campaign. Think about it. This isn't your typical endorsement deal, and in fact it's the polar opposite of a 360 deal. It's co-branding: There are no masters or servants here, and no one is endorsing anything. Rather, separate parties share an agreement towards a common goal, or to reach parallel but individual goals.

Along these same lines, earlier this year Jay Z left "his longtime record label, Def Jam, for a roughly $150 million package with the concert giant Live Nation that includes financing for his own entertainment venture, in addition to recordings and tours for the next decade" (The New York Times).

It's also old news by now, but in 2007 Live Nation struck multi million dollar pacts with both U2 and Madonna. At the time Madonna told the Associated Press, “The paradigm in the music business has shifted and as an artist and a business woman, I have to move with that shift” (MSNBC).

Pundits may argue the relative merits of such deals, but whatever you do, stop thinking of recorded music as a primary revenue source. The music simply gives access to a lifestyle and an Experience. It may or may not convey a deeper message, but it certainly is the songwriter's (and performer's) own sonic branding.

So, the Dance Diva's albums might not sell like they used to, but she continues to deliver a premium experience for which fans are willing to pay a collective 200 million per tour. The value of the actual songs on the free market? Who knows –at this point all the merchandise –including the albums– are souvenirs of an experience. Is this good or bad?

It depends what's more important to you: The so called integrity of a given song, or the experience delivered by the music. Hey, guess what –you can actually have it both ways:

Art is flexible that way!

Don't believe me? Listen, Music can save your soul on Sunday; score a sound track on Monday; pitch products on Tuesday; create venue ambience on Wednesday; act as a study aid Thursday; accompany you to the gym on Friday; rock the house on Saturday; –and come back Sunday morning and save your soul all over again!

Rise of the Creative Class and the New Value of Art

As others have noted, we have in a sense, moved from the era of the MBA to the age of the MFA. The creative classes are no longer starving in garrets, but changing the way you see and hear the world, beginning with the iPod you're listening to right now. Never mind that the baby boomers who popularized rock are now retirees. Everybody who was once an anti-establishment outsider, today is a representative of the (culturally) ruling classes.

Interesting, too, to note that with the rise of the creative class there has been a noticeable decline in the value of art. Sure, Van Goghs and Picassos will continue to fetch millions of dollars at auction, but what about commercial art? Or more to the point: What is the real value of reproducible works?

Similarly, if you can carry a thousand songs (or more) around with you, then really, how valuable is each individual song going to be to the listener? Songs, like singers, as the saying goes, have become a dime a dozen. And actually, they're worth even less than that – I mean, whose paying for music these days, anyway, but adults of a certain age?

In light of that, it's simply practical to consider, that if you're an artist, who is the real client/customer? Is it the individual who enjoys the free entertainment? Or is the person or company who funds its production? Every band knows the promoter is the real client. In this regard, the audience can be viewed simply as a way to measure value any given band has to a given promoter. In other words, a sold out house means very good Nielsen ratings and your band stands a good chance of being renewed, so to speak.

Network television has always had to deal with this balancing act (between art and commerce). The content is ostensibly created for the enjoyment of non-paying masses. But the customer is actually the advertiser who makes the programming possible. Producing content within such a model isn't necessarily selling out, if you're working on projects that don't compromise your ethics. But you may have to work within certain limitations regarding format and style and whether or not such content is appropriate for a given demographic. Does this make it less art? I don't know. Tex Avery and Chuck Jones gave their best years to Warner Bros., and I don't think of either of them sell outs.

Outside poets and painters, I can't think of any art form that isn't in some way collaborative, and therefore subject to compromise.

The question is not whether you must do one thing or the other, but are you clever enough to do both?

Can I re-contextualize my relationship with my clients in the way an athlete frames his or her relationship with a sponsor? Will doing so compromise my artistic integrity? Does Tiger Woods alter his swing on behalf of his sponsors? Absolutely not (except in so far as he always tries his best), and yet his sponsors are all too happy to associate themselves with Tiger, even on a losing day.

The interesting thing here is that you don't have to pay to see Tiger's 'performance'. If you catch him on TV, you can watch him for free. His appearance on your Television is complimentary, offered by advertisers who hope you'll consider this act of charity the next time you make a purchase. And yet Tiger appears to be making a healthy living without compromising his ideals. Granted he might lose sponsors if he suddenly started stitching in political statements next to the sports logos on his apparel, but he might also attract others for just the same reason.

As an artist, I wonder, what would happen if I started thinking about myself as a brand with mission? How would my life change if I actually conceived a personal vision statement? Would any of that negate my self perception as an artist? Why aren't more artists thinking the same way?

As it happens, in 2008, a lot of artists –and individuals– certainly are.

In their book Born Digital, authors John Palfrey and Urs Gasser call children who were born into and raised in the digital world 'digital natives'. The tag makes sense now, but I suspect when historians look back at our age, they will also note how post Gen X generations were also perceptibly Branded @ Birth.

Welcome to the Post Sell Out World

In case you missed it, Jon Pareles writes a great article in the New York Times titled 'Songs From the Heart of a Marketing Plan' (12/24/08).

In it Pareles notes the increasing phenomenon of artists aligning with brands. It is a trend which produces conflicted feelings in the author. For even as Pareles laments the reality of musicians actively (and some would say shamelessly) seeking out corporate sponsors, he simultaneously accepts the situation, if only because the circumstance is now so blatantly manifest. There's just no going back.

Early in the article Pareles acknowledges:

"I know — time for me to get over it. After all, this is the reality of the 21st-century music business. Selling recordings to consumers as inexpensive artworks to be appreciated for their own sake is a much-diminished enterprise now that free copies multiply across the Web.”

I've shared Pareles' pain, but personally I am over it. So, Welcome to the Post Sell Out World, I guess. What I mean by that, is not that we –this consumer society– has suddenly abandoned its core principals, but that, like 'copyright', we understand its time to change the definition of 'selling out'.

It may still include entering into a contract that commits one to executing actions one would not do otherwise simply for the sake of getting rich. But it does not include a co-branding agreement where all parties entered into the agreement benefit mutually.

It's ironic, but by the this standard, artists of yesteryear who knowingly signed a draconian major label contract simply in order to satisfy a lust for fame and celebrity are the sell outs. But an independent artist who enters and agreement with a fashion house in order to produce an exclusive line of branded apparel is not.

On a micro level, I went through my own struggle with the issue of selling out when I started producing music for commercials in the early nineties. It sounds hilarious now, but in 1994, I was really just trying to come to terms with the fact that I was using a potentially 'God Given Talent' to sell French fries.

Oh dear, the moral dilemma.

And as hip and cool as it sounds to some, to have a career where people making million dollar videos are asking you what kind of music should adorn their moving image, producing music and sound design for TV commercials was not what I was thinking when I was honing my songwriting and composition skills as a kid.

But maybe, identifying the 'right' sound for a specific utilitarian use was in fact my real 'God Given' talent. Cause no one was banging down the door for my songs, but I was very good at using music to influence the purchasing habits of millions of people around the world.

Good? Evil? Maybe beyond good and evil. Anyway, I did enjoy what I was doing.

Fast forward to the present and today I primarily work with artists hip to personal branding and are trying to figure out ways to use both traditional and new social media in order to build and sustain their careers. I've hopped the fence from advertising into entertainment, but -initially surprising– the landscape is still very much the same.

If Pareles overlooks anything in his article, it's that pop music was ever appreciated for its own sake. Or maybe it was, but if it got recorded, released, promoted and distributed, someone somewhere was trying to make money.

There's also big difference between 1969 and now. Forty years ago music provided the score to a generation and a movement. Because culture is intangible, the music only appeared to exist in its own right. But it never did, it was fueled by –one might even say 'carried by'– youthful energy hungry for broad cultural change.

At the time, even the most melodic Beatles tunes sounded like noise to Bing Crosby fans, and even the most inanely conceived and dumbest pop tune seemed inherently capable of stoking the fires of revolution. But today, once rebellious rock songs sound just limp enough to be included on the playlist at at your local supermarket. And the same people who once disdained the rock sound are now singing Michelle ma belle all the way to and from their bridge games or the shuffle board deck.

It's both funny and interesting how tastes not only change, given time, but the way we listen, and what we actually hear, can simply transform reality.

And the new reality is that rock has gone mainstream. Having done so, it's become the voice of the establishment. No surprise then that if you're in the business of selling rock'n'roll in the new millennium, then you're going to have to figure out a way to distribute your creative assets to the Man.

So, the real question now is not whether mixing art and commerce is evil –romantics will still lament– but simply: If one is an artist, and knowing the history of advantage traditional business entities have had over artists, just how does one navigate the capitalist construct without getting taken stepping on a metaphorical land mine, just because, say, you have an MFA instead of an MBA, so to speak.