Magnanimous Music Mogul Maneuvers Magnificent Marketing!

If you live on Earth, you have heard about the deal between Country Music Legend Garth Brooks and mega super store, Wal-Mart. Brooks, who has always proved to be a marketing innovator, has inked a deal that is sure to set the music industry on fire. Recently parting from his label, Capitol Records, the deal grants sole distribution rights to Wal-Mart.

What can we learn from Garth? First, he's all about the business, his fans, and marketing, something I speak about repeatedly both on my weekly radio show as well as in my book, The Indie Guide To Music, Marketing and Money. While Brooks has not recorded a new CD since 2001, his least successful by Brooks's standards, this marketing genius still captures headlines, creating urgency for his music.
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How does he do it? Brooks learned from his time in the trenches, when every label rejected him sometimes twice, it's all about the business. Brooks took the business very seriously and handled his contract negations with incredible savvy and skill. One of the most important negations he made was to make sure he owned the masters to his own music.
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Because Brooks owned the music, he received a higher percentage of the gross, which helped insure he covered the recoupable costs the labels receive. Ultimately, whether he was still with Capitol or not, he owned his music and that enabled him to be able to do whatever he wanted with it.
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A big mistake label seekers make when in negotiations is to let go of their rights in order to get the "prize." If you give up your rights and your label shelves the project and drops you, anything you created is theirs, even if you wrote the music. You can't take it with you unless you have a lot of money and a really great lawyer. But even so, the label has the final say.
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There is a lot we can learn from the masters and this is one lesson I hope everyone is able to hold on to; learn the business and always get legal advice and counsel before you go into contract negotiations. If you don't know a really great entertainment attorney, I have a few I would highly recommend. Here is their contact information: Jordan Keller and Miller Hogan of Lassiter, Tidwell and Hildebrand (615) 259-9344. To find out more about these two lawyers go to: http://www.lassiterlaw.com. Jordan, whose clients include the Backstreet boys will be on my show in a few weeks, so don't miss it! To a better day in every way ~ Jaci Rae "The Rae of Hope" Copyright 2005 Jaci Rae

Jaci Rae is the #1 Best Selling author of "Winning Points with the Woman in Your Life One Touchdown at a Time" ISBN 0974622907 and "The Indie Guide To Music, Marketing and Money" ISBN 978-0-9746229-4-1 as well as the host of the Jaci Rae show. Dubbed by the media as "Racy Jaci" because of her quick wit and "The Rae of Hope," for her powerful insight, please make sure to check her out at: http://www.jacirae.com To hear Jaci's popular show, with some of the top behind the scenes as well as famous bands go to: http://www.jacirae.com click on the weekly show link.

Guerrilla Marketing, Music and You

Guerilla Marketing is the use of unconventional marketing techniques intended to get maximum results from minimal resources, which let's face it; most indie musicians have minimal resources. Today, guerrilla marketing is a non-traditional, low-cost, and highly effective marketing endeavor, which when used properly can reap many rewards for the diligent user.

So what can you do to use guerrilla marketing to help further your music career? The first piece of advice I can give you is to think outside the box. Don't do what everyone else is doing. Here area few ideas to get you started:
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• Use podcasts to broadcast your music, helping to expose your music to a lot of people who may have never heard it before. Make sure that you plug your website and where they can purchase your products. • Why not go to your local library and see if they will allow you to do a free concert there in exchange for a percentage of your sales of product after your show. Libraries are in dire need of funds. • Another easy and free way to get your name out there and seen is to write reviews on every product your own, have used, read or heard. Then post the reviews on places like amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.
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Make sure to put a small two or three sentence bio at the end of each review that has the name of any CD projects you have done. You can't post your URL there; they will delete your bio. When you post your reviews, put your vanity email address inside your "real name." While those sites won't allow you to post your URL, if your URL is part of your "real name," they don't say a word. Check out amazon.com and look for one of my reviews.
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This is what you will see: "Jaci Rae - The Rae of Hope. raeofhope@jacirae.com." (Don't use a real email address or you will end up with a lot of spam. That is my website, but the email address if fake.) Why is this an important step? Because people will read your reviews and you get your name out there. Most consumers are Internet savvy and if they are interested in you, will check you out.
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These are just a few ideas. A very important part of the guerilla marketing process is the business side. In order for all of the ideas you come up with to benefit you, you have to be registered with the correct places so that when your hard work begins to paying off, other people know it as well. Here is a list of some of the places you must register:

Broadcast Data Systems attn: (find out who is in charge at that time) Los Angeles 6255 Sunset Blvd., 19th Fl Hollywood, CA 90028 323-817-1506 323-817-1511 http://www.bdsonline.com/

and

SoundScan http://www.soundscan.com/ Retail 914-684-5505 retail@soundscan.com Venue 914-684-5506 Fax 914-686-1556 venue@soundscan.com

I list more ideas as well as places to register your music that will be crucial to your music success in, The Indie Guide to Music, Marketing and Money and its companion The Indie Guide to Contact Information. There are a lot of Guerrilla Marketing techniques I am sure you can come up with yourself. If you want different results and what you have been trying in the past always turns out the same, then you must do something different! Guerrilla marketing is what you need to do differently.

Go after your audience with fervor and diligence, but think outside the box to get the results you desire and the exposure for your music that you need. Wishing you the greatest of successes! Jaci Rae - "The Rae of Hope TM" Copyright 2006 Jaci Rae

Jaci Rae is the #1 Best Selling author of "Winning Points with the Woman in Your Life One Touchdown at a Time" ISBN 0974622907 and "The Indie Guide To Music, Marketing and Money" ISBN 978-0-9746229-4-1 as well as the host of the Jaci Rae show. To hear Jaci's popular show, with some of the top behind the scenes as well as famous bands go to: http://www.jacirae.com click on the weekly show link.

Align The Enterprise & Make Beautiful Music Together

Q: Why is a great business like a great marching band?

A: The players in both organizations are in alignment.

Alignment? Yes, Alignment.

When a marching band passes by in a parade, the columns and rows are in straight alignment, the band members are all in-step, they play in-tune, and they are all playing the same music. Alignment separates the great from the good from the mediocre from the awful. It's the same in business.

A great business is also in alignment; all the players are aligned on their core foundational elements - mission, vision, and values. Great businesses know where they want to go and have strategies in place to get there. They inspire their people to greatness and unanimity of purpose. They get where they are going with enthusiasm, vitality, and determination. If your business is in alignment - congratulations! If your business is not in alignment then today is the day to get started.
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First look at your core foundational elements. Are your mission (the reason the business exists), vision (what you want it to become), and values (the service level and ethical manner in which you treat staff, vendors, and customers) relevant, clear, communicated often, and consistent? If these elements do not exist or have not been utilized since the original business plan was written it is like a marching band with the trumpets playing "Stars and Stripes Forever" and the clarinets playing Beethoven's 7th. Symphony - in other words cacophony and chaos - you're out of alignment.
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Once everyone is playing the same music (mission, vision, values), it's time to tune the instruments (align strategies and tactics), rehearse the music (align staff training, accountabilities), practice the marching steps (align policies), keeping the whole enterprise marching to the beat of the same drummer. Soon you will be making beautiful music together. Those watching you march past will applaud with joy at your alignment, spirit, purpose, and joy in accomplishment.
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Larry Galler coaches and consults with high-performance executives, professionals, and small businesses since 1993. He is the writer of the long-running (every Sunday since November 2001) business column, "Front Lines with Larry Galler" Sign up for his free newsletter at http://www.larrygaller.com

Advertainment is Sneaking Into Music, Movies, TV and More

The very name "advertainment" sends thrilling vibrations up the spine of anyone with marketing in their blood or communication in their genes. And it produces a strong shiver of disgust from many of my colleagues in the music industry.

"I don't want my songs to be involved in advertising," they say, forgetting entirely that by wearing branded running shoes, a t-shirt hawking Fender guitars and a baseball cap emblazoned with the Peavey logo, their very lives are involved in advertising. Plus, if they attend an awards show, they happily state the brand and designer names of everything they're wearing.

They further ignore the fact that radio itself is a form of advertainment. What gets played has little to do with musical accomplishment or artistic merit, but is directly related to the backing of large corporate distributors. I have been told to budget anywhere from a quarter of a million dollars to $350,000 in promotional costs to obtain national radio play on (the appropriately-named) commercial radio stations. Is it any wonder that corporations are seeking ways to build a little brand awareness into the songs?
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Turn on any rap, urban or hip hop station and you can start counting the product mentions in the lyrics, some paid-for, some just happenstance. In the electronic-pop field, I have done it myself. On my "Electro Bop" album are songs such as "Paranormal Radio" (which begins as a documentary about American Technology Corporation's HyperSonic Sound system), "Sheena Sez" (about talk radio host Sheena Metal), and "Check the Tech" (about the joys of watching the TechTV channel).
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Has this advertainment hurt acceptance of the album? Not that I've noticed. Many e-mails from around the world cite "Paranormal Radio" as their favorite track. Not one person has complained about the ad messages, I assume because the audience for my dance-oriented music is pleased to receive information about technology and a far-out rock-talk jock such as Ms. Metal.
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Ads and entertainment go hand-in-wallet in many other ways, some pretty strange. In music alone, we have all wondered about Bob Dylan's "Love Sick" in Victoria's Secret commercials (not to mention Mr. D himself smirking between shots of the lovely bodies wearing the lingerie). But don't overlook Keith Richards in the "Cover Girl" ad while "Honky Tonk Women" plays, or Willie Nelson's "Red Headed Stranger" in the Herbal Essence spot, or Iggy Pop's liquor/drug/sex-soaked "Lust for Life" blasting throughout the Royal Caribbean commercials. (Love to work with the Account Executive who was able to sell that concept!) By contrast, Sting crooning from the back seat of a Jaguar seems a very model of demographic compatibility.
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And that's the point: ads and public relations are routinely dismissed as silly, annoying, intrusive or a waste of time right up to the moment when they are delivering facts the reader or listener wants. Then, suddenly, the sponsored message is viewed as helpful and instructive. Therefore, the trick is to achieve the right match between audience and message.

One problem is choosing your media. Just listing advertising outlets can be daunting: TV, radio, outdoor, newspapers, magazines, transit, direct mail, Internet banner. Many of these have subsets: paid inserts (advertorial) in newspapers and magazines, sponsored "newsbreaks" and infomercials on broadcast media, static or animated announcements at stadia, those dreaded 'Net pop-ups, brand names on sports uniforms and equipment (can you say NASCAR?), etc.

One of the most enjoyable categories for producers of both music and advertising is viral 'Net marketing, which has had some notable success stories such as BMW Films, the Seinfeld AmEx campaign, and of course, Burger King's Subservient Chicken.

We haven't even considered cooperative advertising, which can be anything from myriad logos at the bottom of an event poster to the branded music tones and flashing-light Intel trademark that ends every other commercial for someone else's computer products.

But it extends further. Consider: Magazines that sell cover stories; product placement in movies and TV (and yes, live theater); branded clothing; bumper stickers; even fliers stuck on parked cars. There are ad messages on private automobiles (and those anti-humanistic trucks that some insist are called SUVs). Pull up behind a vehicle in traffic and you can read an ad for the car dealership on the license plate frame, plus another piece of public relations for the state on the plate itself. (Come on, you don't think it's hype to put "Land of enchantment" on every vehicle licensed in the state of New Mexico?)

You might think that this plethora of options makes it easier for firms to get their messages across to their targeted demographics, but a good case can be made for the opposite view. TV audiences are turning to Tivo and pay-per-view. Radio audiences are discovering XM and Sirius Satellite Radio. Newspaper readership is becoming an oxymoron. Motion picture audiences can be heard groaning, mocking or booing the pre-feature commercials.

This means there are a lot of people working on new ways to get the product benefits into the brains of the consumers. I do it with humorous radio scripts and subliminally seductive music, but there are going to be some innovations in our industry, and at the risk of appearing foolish, I'm going to make a few predictions. Within the next few years, we'll see:

* Debit card scanners in TV sets, so you can order during a commercial with the flick of your remote.

* Barcodes in songs, so you can download from iTunes by swiping your XM or Sirius player with your Visa or MasterCard.

* Credit cards built into wristwatches, so your "plastic money" is always close at hand.

* Links to product sites in every scene of DVD movies or computer games. Do you want the shoes in the Tony Hawk Pro Skater game? Click-click-click and they're on their way to you via FedEx (note product placement for the big competitor to United Parcel Service).

* Broadcasts of infotainment and advertainment will pop up everywhere: in public restrooms, at the Starbucks, at traffic signals, at the gas pump, on your mailbox, in the packages you purchase, in the parcels that arrive at your door, etc.

* Captive broadcasts. Just as you can preview the music on packaged CDs (available in EU now, but coming soon to the USA), the product benefits, price points and warranty information will play as soon as you lift up a product in the store.

* Digitized logo placement in the rebroadcasts of syndicated TV shows ("Hey, we can sell the product placement another three times!")

* Branded ingredient lists on menus.

* Corporate artwork that takes you on a virtual tour of the company.

* Interactive ads, where you get to play Jerry Seinfeld and/or Superman (or the driver of the BMW) in a five-minute escape from reality (and from reality TV).

* Holographic projections of commercials from postage stamps, car and house keys, magazine covers and ad pages, etc.

And these are just the changes we'll be seeing in the next few years. We're not even discussing the opportunities for advertainment once we move beyond traditional broadcast methodology; when microchips are embedded under your skin, YOU will be the receiver for TV, radio, satellite, telephone, and global positioning system signals. And at that point, the possibilities for marketing communication via advertainment are going to become truly mind-boggling.

Are these prospects exciting, frightening, or both? My view is positive. After all, a lot of these new forms of communication are going to need my scripts and my music.

# # #

Scott G is president of G-Man Music & Radical Radio. His music is on commercials for Verizon Wireless, Goodrich, Monaco Motor Coaches, BAE Systems and more. A creative director of the National Association of Record Industry Professionals (NARIP) and a member of The Recording Academy (NARAS), he writes about music for MusicDish.com and the Immedia Wire Service. The G-Man's albums are released by Delvian Records and are on Apple's iTunes. He can be reached via http://www.gmanmusic.com.

Advertising Agency Jingles & Music

I can only speak from experience. I am finding that more and more advertising agencies are utilizing the magic of jingles and music to brand their clients products and businesses.

A classic example of a jingle that launched a successful long term campaign worldwide in the public consciousness was created by my teacher at UCLA and Academy Award winning songwriter Al Kasha.

In 1972, after reading about one of the worst airline crash disasters in history, Al wrote "Fly the Friendly Skies of United" and approached the beleaguered airline with a positioning statement and catchy melody that would position United Airlines as the leader in security and air safety for nearly thirty years. Even when they dropped the music, they continued with the positioning statement "The Friendly Skies". It was, and remains a clear cut stroke of Branding genius.
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Another very popular agency tactic in recent years is to secure the rights to popular songs and utilize the familiarity factor to generate correlation and familiarity with the product.

The cost to secure broadcast rights can vary. I have heard of rights for single market broadcast usage going for as little as $4000 and as much as $60,000 and up... These rights are negotiated with publishers as copyright owners. The agency will then hire someone like me to record a version of the song as a "sound-alike" or to give it an original twist.
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Securing the rights to a song does not grant the user the rights to the recorded work. If you are interested to getting the rights to a recording performed by an specific artist, you need to negotiate with the publisher AND the record label. Two separate negotiations and potentially a very expensive proposition. It can become even more than two negotiations when you have a song that was written by three or four co-writers. I recently heard of an agency who was trying to secure the rights to the song "What a Wonderful World" and had to negotiate separately with three publishing companies in order to secure the rights to usage.
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So I can tell you with certainty that music is thriving in the business of advertising. As my good friend, co-writer and talented singer/songwriter Harold Payne says in his soon to be classic song Music Speaks:
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"Music Speaks louder than words It's the only thing that the whole world listens to Music speaks louder than words When you sing, people understand" c2006

Barry Volk is a former producer/staff songwriter for ABC/Dunhill and Screen Gems-EMI Music Publishing, a 20th Century Fox solo recording artist, Musical Director for the West Coast Theater Company and National Director of Marketing for Metro Networks/Westwood One. His music production company, Barry Volk's Sound Advantage http://www.soundad.com creates and produces jingles and custom music and comedy spots for radio and TV advertisers worldwide from small market to national in scope.