Alan Yentob’s excellent documentary on the work of Oliver Sacks, reminded me to share one of the insights that I picked up at a WARC conference I attended a few weeks ago on Sponsorship Marketing. The event chaired by a good friend of citizensound, Mark Palmer, brought together some excellent speakers including Sally Cowdry, Marketing Director of O2 and Max Bonpain, Head of Brand Management at Samsung UK.

One of the speakers at the event was Peter Walshe from Millward Brown who talked about the PARTNERZ programme that they had been developing with fellow WPP agencies, including Mindshare, Mediacom and Mediaedge:CIA. The work aimed to match brands with the myriad of sponsorship opportunities available to them.

One of the key bits of their research examined a range of key ‘cultural’ activities and the level of fit with consumers. They asked consumers all over the world ‘what activity do you LOVE?” Peter asked the audience what we thought would come out top. Most people banked on sport, but a small number of us shouted out music, and guess what we were right…

Music 36%
Film 28%
TV and Entertainment 17%
Sport 15%
Gaming 13%
Good Causes 11%
Arts 9%

Source: Millwood Brown/WPP

So if your were under any illusion that Film, TV, Sport, the Arts or even Gaming were more important to human beings than Music, forget it, you don’t have to imagine any longer!

If you didn’t see the latest episode of Alan Yentob’s arts documentary series IMAGINE on the BBC last night please go and check it out on the BBC iPlayer (click the image below). Yentob’s fascinating documentary was based on real case studies from Dr. Oliver Sacks excellent book, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. Sacks is neurologist, and if you don’t know his books you may know the movie Awakenings, which featured Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams playing Sacks.

Sacks had some fascinating ideas about the power of music, but just three of the points made in the programme are worth remembering…

Music occupies more areas of the brain than language does, humans are a musical species.

Music can move to the heights and from the depths of emotion. It’s often what we turn to in moments of joy and despair.

For virtually all of us music has great power…this propensity for music shows itself in infancy…and probably goes back to the very beginning of our species.

citizensound says:

If the power of music is so ingrained in all of us, then why aren’t more brands constantly harnessing this power? Is it simply because marketing has been defined merely in visual terms, thus denying the immense value that sound (and the other senses) can play in brand engagement?

.A well-placed TV sync can provide a great deal of exposure for an artist’s music, and they get paid for the privilege! So why do so many of these opportunities go unrealised?

Could it be that brands don’t fully appreciate the impact that music can have on their brands?

Or is it that the labels can’t work out how to sync their short-term priorities with the brand’s longer-term needs?

After all, wouldn’t a hit record benefit both brand and label?

It’s certainly true to say that too few brands realise the importance of music in their brand strategy. In such a cluttered visual environment a sonic strategy would help them differentiate their brands from their competition. However, most advertising is steadfastly visual. Music is too often often seen as adjunct to an ad campaign, rather than a key part of the communication. But brands are learning fast, and are showing an increased willingness to experiment, IF the right opportunities come along.

For the record business, sync deals offer up not only a significant promotional opportunity if worked correctly, it also provides an increasingly important revenue stream for labels, music publishers and artists alike. And a good sync deal can not only help break a new act, it can also revitalise an artist or a labels back catalogue. I’m sure Phil Collins was as surprised as the rest of us to see “In The Air Tonight” go back into the Top 20, some 26 years after its first release. All off the back of a Cadbury’s advert.

Many of the best sync companies have become ‘crate-diggers’, seeking out new artists, independent music and esoteric oldies, rather than pushing household names like Phil. And it’s not just because his music isn’t very cool these days! This trend look sets to continue as brands marketing budgets continue to come under fire. As much as brands would love to have access to household names to promote their products, few have the budgets to compete, especially with procurement folk trying to drive down the cost of everything, including the cost of syncs. And as the music industry continues to favour short term wins over long-term gains, things are unlikely to change. The use of the Rolling Stones “She’s A Rainbow” by Sony Bravia could become an increasingly rare example of a brand spending big bucks on a sync deal, unless it is part of a far broader deal with the brand.

The advent of hundreds of new cable and satellite TV channels had offered up new opportunities for sync, with many small brands (and programme makers) entering the TV advertising marketplace for the first time. And many of them will need music. But these new entrants into the marketplace simply can’t afford top dollar, playing into the hands of anyone that can be more creative than the major labels and their publishers.

citizensound says:

For the music industry to really take advantage of the sync opportunities on offer they need a real shift in their mindset, and find new ways to do business with brands. They need to think more long-term and be more strategic, they need to understand that brands planning cycles are very different from their own, and learn to compensate for that. And they also need to able to turnkey their offerings to deliver real partnerships that work for both themselves and their new brand partners. And as we’ve seen brands will find another way to source music if the big boys wont play ball.

Volkswagen seem to have taken the concept of the ‘sound of their brand’ to heart when it came to their latest ad campaign for the VW Golf. Now cars and music have always gone together, so using great music in a car ad seems an obvious thing to do.

VW’s agency DDB built on the connection between cars and music, and literally connected the sound the car makes with the sync music for the advert, by hooking up with Paul Hartnoll, formerly of ground breaking UK techno duo Orbital, to produce the music for their latest campaign.

The track, entitled Gob Smack, is made up from the sounds recorded in and around the Golf during the shoot. The track has even been released as a digital download, although bizarrely there’s no mention of the connection with VW, and when you go to the VW Golf website there’s equally no mention of the advert or the music. A real missed opportunity.

iTunes certainly understands the importance of syncs on music fans, as they are currently offering a 24 track ‘Music in TV ads’ collection for sale, featuring everything from the the music to the wonderful Drench advert (Brain’s from the Thunderbirds strutting his stuff to Snap!), through to the latest ad for Berocca featuring 80’s synth-pop duo Blancmange (and if you were wondering where they got the idea for this ad from, check out this fantastic homemade video for US band OK Go).

citizensound says:

Both brands and record companies rarely seem to realise the potential of a what is often perceived as just a sync deal. The right music with the right creative work - Jose Gonzalez and Sony Bravia springs to mind - can provide the brand with a sonic logo that reminds consumers of the brand every time they hear the music, even when the ad campaign has long disappeared from our TV and Cinema screens. While the humble sync deal can offer record company and the artist’s the opportunity to build a longer-term relationship with a brand, opening up a whole range of new channels to finance, market or distribute their products. So lets start joining the dots.

So have Starbucks given up on music or are they just refocusing their attention?

When it was announced this week that they were to pull out of their record label Hear Music and hand over this business to their partners the Concord Music Group, an obvious reaction was ‘So what went wrong?’

This news was further compounded when it was announced that the entertainment division was to be put under control of the Chief Technology Officer Chris Bruzzo…geeks in charge of creative development? Surely this means that the whole Hear Music exercise has been a failure?

Well, it hasn’t been a failure in my view. For many of the classic artists, it has worked. First Ray Charles sells over 5million units. Paul McCartney sold more than he could have imagined. Meanwhile, Hear Music tempted Joni Mitchell to record again - which in my book is worth the whole exercise in itself. It also started to offer an alternative distribution and marketing solution for many other artists like the immensely talented and underrated Sia.

Has it been a success for Starbucks customers? Well, from a sonic retail perspective, Starbucks can teach many other retailers how to think about the effect of sound on a consumer’s experience in-store (See posts passim).

Starbucks have a head start on other brands in terms of understanding the power of music in the consumer’s connection with their business. Yet, the news clearly suggests that all is not well at Starbucks. So what can we make of the changes?

Shifting away from CD to digital is good business sense, though making the assumption that the CD is completely dead for the Starbucks consumer is a huge one. There are over 6000 options of coffee in Starbucks, so having a choice of formats for the music - “CD or download madam?” - is not a bad idea.

The bigger challenge for the new head of the entertainment division is how to ensure that the experience in-store is not undermined by this move. The danger is that a shift to digital entertainment will leave the coffee-house experience somewhat muted.

One hopes that Starbucks does not retreat, turn it’s music commitment into yet another music download site and forget that sonic branding is felt most of all by their customers in-store. They may be right to consider promoting books in-store (in fact this makes immense sense), yet the power of music could be better harnessed by brands, Starbucks included.

A thought for Starbucks:
Ever thought about getting local artists to play in-store, so supporting local art, giving something fresh to the customers and positioning yourself as the ‘local coffee house’ at the same time? It means acting small, not acting big.

During our DIY panel at the Venice Festival of Media, the panellists were inevitably asked about what we thought about the recent deal between Proctor & Gamble TAG deodorant spray and Def Jam records.

In case you haven’t heard, TAG records has been set up by both parties to find new hip hop talent and promote them through integrated marketing approaches that P&G have immense experience in.

The rumours state-side is that the marketing budget will be a ‘multi-million dollar’ effort

Given that exposure is what so many artists require, connecting with a brand to secure increased exposure seems good business sense. For the brand, they have a chance to appeal to the urban demographic in the U.S. and are seen to be giving something back to the community. This fits with the P&G ethos shared by Bernhard Glock, their head of global media and communications, at Venice, which separates this deal with the rather ridiculous offer by McDonald’s to pay Hip Hop artists to mention their brand name in lyrics!

So on the face of it, it seems like a great move.

However, our panel at Venice were not 100% convinced. And I also have a couple of reservations.

First, the marketing budget will promote the artist first or the brand first? If it is the brand first, that is still a good opportunity, much like a sync deal can help get an artist exposure. However, I would encourage the artists to manage their expectations of what the marketing budget will achieve for them.

Second, my concern rests with Def Jam. This name is more than a label. This is one of the few labels that stood for something more than just music. My concern is whether the legitimacy of the Def Jam name might get eroded due to this deal, no matter how well intentioned all parties are.

This is the difficult path that all artists, managers and labels face as they look for alternative revenue streams.

citizensound says:

Deals with brands will become less of an issue though as more artists and fans find brands that get involved with the right spirit. It feels that the spirit is there in the P&G/Def Jam deal. However, the proof in the pudding will come on three fronts:

First, the brand shifts more units

Second, the artists are credible and get the break they deserve

Third, the music fan loves the music

When I stood up to start the panel at Venice, I was looking for a way to immediately frame the topic so that the audience understood what they were about to sit through.

So I mentioned a journey I took on the 137 bus in south London one day…

There were five kids on the back of the bus. One had recorded some beats on his laptop the night before. He had uploaded them to his phone to play them to his friends on the bus on the way to school. The friends told him which beats they liked and which ones they didn’t. The kid then deleted the ones from his phone that his friends didn’t like. The ones they liked, he bluetoothed the tunes to them all.

Now for me this summed up what is DIY culture, and why for me the rise of DIY music culture is so much more than a mere fad. Right on the back of the bus, I witnessed the CREATION, DISTRIBUTION, MARKETING and CONSUMPTION of music amongst those five kids.

And it happened without the help of anyone from the ‘music industry’. The help of handset and laptop manufacturers maybe, but no-one from the ‘music industry’. This is as pure a version of DIY music as one could imagine.

This is the challenge for the music industry to work through. How are they relevant to the kids on the back of that bus?

It is also for brands to work out if they wish to get involved in music in ways other than writing a massive cheque to a major artist and hoping that the celebrity factor rubs off on the brand. (Don’t get me wrong, such deals can be highly successful, benefiting fan, artist and the brand, but involvement within the DIY culture can provide different benefits for the brand, artist and fan).

Seeing this DIY music culture in action really excited me. This gave me the inspiration to dig deeper into DIY music culture. First, I carried out some research in 2007 with Dr. Gauti Sigthorsson, lecturer at Greenwich University, and now an honorary citizen of citizensound. Anyone interested in finding out more on this, I will post up some interesting snippets we found out in later posts.

Nick and I also ran a panel at In The City in 2007 on this very topic, exploring what artists need as support functions in order to survive as a DIY artist. As an example of DIY music culture, we invited Rob McCulloch to join us on stage, a guy who invited his fans to pay what they want for his CD…18 months before Radiohead. Average price for his CD was £11/€15/$22! Admittedly smaller audience, but impressive nevertheless.

This and more inspired citizensound to choose this topic for the panel. But it all started with those 5 kids on the 137 bus in London…

Come back to the blog as we will be sharing more on this.

Well, our panel at the venice Festival of Media 2008 went really well.

The topic was a great one (if we say so ourselves), but what made the session were the great panellists and the audience.

There is nothing worse for me than a panel that answers with Yes, No or Maybe. We all want a panel that is inspired to really let loose. We were blessed with four people who didn’t hold back at all.

So a huge thank you to:
John Ingham, CEO of ESP and MOG blogger extraordinaire;
Maarten Steinkamp, SonyBMG CEO Continental Europe and a man who speaks his mind;
Martin Stiksel, Last FM CEO and someone who forgets more about how people relate to music than I know;
Jon Webster, Chairman of the Music Managers Forum, and a man who held back from sharing too many stories on stage.

One person in the audience told me after that he couldn’t mistake this panel as a music panel as everyone swore freely, but more importantly, expressed themselves very openly.

It seemed to inspire the audience too, as they were fantastic. When we over-ran by 15 minutes, I invited the audience to attend the next session in the main hall. I said I was happy to stay, so did the panelists. The audience stayed put, leading to overrun by 40 minutes…causing chaos for the organisers! (Sorry Clare, Charlie and everyone at CSquared!)

The questions just kept coming. It was fantastic. So thanks to Lucy from Diesel, Steve King and John Taylor from ZenithOptimedia, Graham Duff from Universal McCann, the guys from Nokia Procurement (I know you were out there!), the fantastic lady from Future Magazines (contact me please!!!), Olivia from Media and Marketing, Mariana from CSquared, Martin Sambrook from Billetts and Tom Bowman from BBC Worldwide, the guy at the back who asked about Apple, and everyone else who I have forgotten!

Neil Barnes, co-founder of the rather excellent but sadly missed Leftfield, has produced the music for the new Audi TV ad, which debuted on UK TV last week. For the track, Barnes has teamed up with former Leftfield producer Nick Rapaccioli. The advert sonically interpreted the movements of gymnasts, using undulating
beats and rhythms, mixed with sounds recorded from the new Audi R6. Now that’s what we call the real sound of the brand!

This is not the first time that Barnes has produced music for a major TV ad, Leftfield’s music has been used by both O2 and Vauxhall, while the track ‘Phat Planet’ was famously used in the Guinness White Horses commercial that was voted number 1 in Channel 4’s Top 100 Adverts poll.

The ad is now on the Audi homepage, so go check it out. And here’s that amazing Guinness ad one more time….

citizensound says:

Neil Barnes has used Audi’s own product to define the sound of the Audi A6. Why is it that so few brands think about their brands aurally, especially as we live in such a visually cluttered society, where stand out it increasingly hard to find? Why do so few creative and branding agencies pay any real attention to the brand’s sonic image?

The rise of DIY culture is not restricted to the music industry. Brands know that they have to earn their place in the consumer’s life. Improved insight on how to gain and build trust is ever more important. A full page advert that states how wonderful the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility policy is, will not suffice. The truth is in the detail. We adapt to the new realities or we carry on as before, pumping out the same messages through digital or vintage channels.

We Do…or We Die.

The fact that the Venice Festival of Media exists is confirmation that the advertising agencies are no longer automatic first choice for brands who seek assistance in engaging with consumers on their terms.

What exactly do clients need as support to help solve their business and marketing challenges?

Is it a big network with lots of dots on the map, or is it more about the people they get round the table?

Are there moves back to a fuller service agency model or towards a loose collective of people whose office is their laptop?

You can find out more about this very subject at our DIY: Do… Or Die session at the Venice Festival of Media 2008 from 1:45 to 2:45 on Tuesday 15th of April at 1.45pm