The music business has morphed to become part entertainment, part advertising, part technology, and part anything goes.
Everything about music is changing: how it’s bought, created, distributed, listened to, searched for, discussed, used, and shared. It’s very different than it was just five years ago, and has created many new opportunities for smart marketers.
Yet very little about how agencies use music has changed in that same five years. Isn’t this business supposed to be about big ideas, creativity, and innovation? Is licensing an iconic rock song an innovation, or is it a way to compensate for lack of an original idea? Is searching for music with iTunes or MySpace really anything other than a faster path to mediocrity?
As the ex-CEO of music company Elias Arts, and now an investor/strategist in the music business of the future, I’ve worked with agencies, client companies, and music companies–and have been a client CMO myself–so I am in an good position to have a 360 degree perspective on how this transformation is being handled.
I got a fine look at this when I presented a seminar on audio branding to client marketers and agency producers in Denver for the Advertising Production Resources’ annual production conference. APR is a production consultancy, founded by Jillian Gibbs, who places experienced production experts inside corporations to become communications partners with their agencies, not merely cost-containment advisors.
Denver was an opportunity to talk to client brand managers and agency producers . My observations are:
1. Nearly everyone on the client side is interested in the power of music as a branding tool, and how new approaches can enhance that power. There is great interest in viewing music as an own-able asset rather than a disposable production element, and in synergizing a brand’s music across its many consumer touch points.
2. Many agency creatives and producers are also interested, but they are too busy, not knowledgeable enough about music, happy with the status quo, or not experienced enough to see the need.
3. When exposed to some new techniques for using music–and agency producers and creative see how positively their clients react to these innovations–there is the realization that music is so powerful that it should be treated on par with picture and copy.
This means you may need to have on staff–or retain an expert music company–people who are as expert in music as art directors and copywriters are at their crafts. You could include brand-based music direction in the creative brief, and think about it at the start, on a parallel path to the visual elements, not tacking it on at the end of a production and forcing it into an ad.
You can create the partner to the brand visual standards guide: an audio identity guide, that informs everyone who touches the brand which music will be used to reinforce the brand, and when and where. More importantly, you might consider thinking about music as the essential partner to the brand’s visual logo and giving it the same level of attention.
Martin Pazzani (martinpazzani@mac.com) is a CEO-in-Residence at BlueStone Partners in Beverly Hills.
