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HYPEBOT - Why Big Brands Use Indie Bands

Why Big Brands Use Indie Bands

Big brands are turning to indie musicians for the soundtracks to their marketing campaigns. In an interview with Forbes, Eric Sheinkop, CEO of Music Dealers, the company responsible for bridging the gap between indie artists and some of the largest global brands said “Ads need to do more than just advertise a product or service. They need to bring real value to their consumers and music is the strongest way to do it." So why are the best known brands in the world opting for unknown artists?

Deborah Wahl, CMO of McDonald's cleared things right up when she told Forbes “Sometimes there’s more room for flexibility, innovation and co-creation when working with an indie artist." Big brands don't necessarily want to battle the Taylor Swift's of the music industry who have already established a notoriously strict vision for their work. The room for collaboration is appealing to marketing visionaries. 

Later, Sheinkop shared "By using the right track in a commercial, a brand creates a stronger connection with the viewer that lasts beyond the 30 seconds that the ad airs. It extends the role of the brand in their consumers’ lives beyond the product, being a part of daily conversations and becoming a trusted filter for people to discover new music.”

Music Dealers recently announced that their efforts to connect indie artists with global brands has resulted in the generation of over $15 million in earnings for independent musicians globally. “The awe inspiring aspect of this achievement is that before Music Dealers many of these artists did not have a foot in the door, let alone a significant source of revenue,” Sheinkop told Forbes. 

Joe Belliotti, Head of Global Music Marketing for Coke, was quick to speak to the upside of forging such partnerships: “For a brand like Coca-Cola, exploring independent artists provides a deep well of creative talent, while often providing a more cost effective opportunity to further leverage both the artist and the music beyond a traditional TV spot. We have found that costs associated with live performances, streaming concerts, PR events, creation of additional digital video content can be lower than those same costs associated with more established talent."

Bellioti elaborated on the important role music plays in the emotional connection between brands and their consumers: “Music helps to create a deeper emotional connection to marketing,” he said. “Music can amplify a brand message and extend the reach of a marketing campaign into pop culture in ways traditional advertising does not. Music is as important in connecting the meaning of and emotion behind a brand with a consumer as a brand’s logo, visual identity or campaign tagline.”

Why Big Brands Use Indie Artists

Why Big Brands Use Indie Artists

In 1989, a professor at the School of Music at Ohio State University named David Huron penned a paper entitled “Music in Advertising: An Analytic Paradigm.” In the paper Huron wrote that when it comes to the use of music in advertising and branding “music can serve the overall promotional goals in one or more of several capacities.”

Nowhere in his paper, however, did he write that the music which serves the overall promotional goals needs to come from an established, big name, big label artist. 

On the contrary for it is the music itself that serves and meets the goals and needs and in the case of some big name brands, that music comes via independent artists. Brands such as McDonald’s, Coke, and Airbnb are among the many that utilize indie artists.

And the company that helps facilitate the use of indie artists with some of the biggest brands in the world is Music Dealers, who not all that long ago, proudly announced that they had earned over $15 Million for independent artists all over the world.

“The awe inspiring aspect of this achievement is that before Music Dealers many of these artists did not have a foot in the door, let alone a significant source of revenue,” says Eric Sheinkop, CEO of Music Dealers.

The Benefits of Brands & Indie Artists

So why would a big brand, who can theoretically work with any artist, choose to work with an indie artist, one who may not have the same cache as a more well-known artist?

“For a brand like Coca-Cola, exploring independent artists provides a deep well of creative talent, while often providing a more cost effective opportunity to further leverage both the artist and the music beyond a traditional TV spot,” said Joe Belliotti, Head of Global Music Marketing for Coke. “We have found that costs associated with live performances, streaming concerts, PR events, creation of additional digital video content can be lower than those same costs associated with more established talent.

For Deborah Wahl, CMO, McDonald’s, working with indie artists provides a sense of adaptability. “Sometimes there’s more room for flexibility, innovation and co-creation when working with an indie artist,” she told me.

She added that McDonald’s is also very cognizant of the power of their brand, especially as a means to aid others adding that the team at McDonald’s also likes sharing their brand power to help someone else on the way up. “Comes from the entrepreneurial roots working with so many of our owner/operators who often started with nothing but a dream!”

Jonathan Mildenhall, CMO of Airbnb, says indie artists are essential to their brand. “Working with independent musicians is a key element to our creative success. Authenticity is central to our brand’s values, and collaborating with indie artists has helped us put Airbnb’s DNA into every piece of work that we do.”

People Have Higher Demands From Brands Nowadays

That line above comes directly from Sheinkop in speaking about the world brands live in today and the role music plays when it comes to branding. 

“Ads need to do more than just advertise a product or service. They need to bring real value to their consumers and music is the strongest way to do it. By using the right track in a commercial, a brand creates a stronger connection with the viewer that lasts beyond the 30 seconds that the ad airs. It extends the role of the brand in their consumers’ lives beyond the product, being a part of daily conversations and becoming a trusted filter for people to discover new music.”

Powerful words indeed and echoed by Wahl and Belliotti.

“Music can play a powerful role is communicating the emotion of the story that we’re trying to tell,” said Wahl, adding that “it’s important to have the unique music voice that helps communicate the personality of our brand” and that “music can be as effective as visuals or copy.”

Belliotti says the role of music in branding is one of emotion. “Music helps to create a deeper emotional connection to marketing,” he said. “Music can amplify a brand message and extend the reach of a marketing campaign into pop culture in ways traditional advertising does not. Music is as important in connecting the meaning of and emotion behind a brand with a consumer as a brand’s logo, visual identity or campaign tagline.”

WILLIAM BLAIR AND 1871 WELCOME BEN HOROWITZ, MAYOR EMANUEL, McDONALD'S DON THOMPSON AND J.B. PRITZKER FOR DISCUSSION AND BOOK SIGNING

McDonald's President and CEO Don Thompson took everyone by surprise today when he introduced Silicon Valley venture capitalist Ben Horowitz, who was in town talking about his new book, “The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers.”

Mr. Thompson said he and Mr. Horowitz and their wives met each other at a black corporate directors conference some years ago co-sponsored by John Rogers Jr., founder of Ariel Investments LLC. Mr. Horowitz was a speaker that day, too, and the two men hit it off.

“We both love music, we both love to cook and we both like to smoke," he said, prompting stunned silence in the room at the 1871 tech center at Merchandise Mart.

Mr. Thompson quickly followed up by saying, “We smoke food!” The crowd burst into laughter, and there was a comment from the audience, “Are we in Denver?”

The event was pulled together by the men's wives, Felicia Horowitz and Liz Thompson. They sat in the front row along with Ms. Thompson's other pals: Amy Rule, the first lady of Chicago, and Laura Van Peenan, managing director of investment banking at William Blair & Co., which co-sponsored the event.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel introduced Mr. Thompson. Chicago venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker conducted the Q&A with Mr. Horowitz. You can read more about that here in John Pletz's On Technology blog.

Other notable names in the crowd included Fieldglass CEO Jai Shekhawat, 1871 CEO Howard Tullman, PrivateBank CEO Larry Richman, AvantCredit Business Development Director Donald Richman, William Blair partner Richard Kiphart, Balyasny Asset Management Senior Managing Director Louis Conforti, tech entrepreneur Mark Tebbe, GoHealth founder Brandon Cruz and Liam Krehbiel, CEO of A Better Chicago, a nonprofit that funds education-focused nonprofits.

Ben Horowitz dishes on himself, other tech titans

April 17, 2014

With tech stocks getting smacked around, it's useful to get a little perspective from someone who knows what a real beating feels like.

Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Silicon Valley venture fund Andreessen Horowitz, reminded a throng of tech entrepreneurs and investors how painful things can get when he visited 1871 today as part of a publicity tour for his book, “The Hard Thing About Hard Things."

Mr. Horowitz was CEO of Loudcloud, a pioneer in cloud computing a decade before investors decided it was the new, new thing. The company raised more than $100 million at the peak of the dot-com boom and somehow managed to go public before the ensuing bust unfolded, narrowly avoiding bankruptcy.

Between the IPO and his first earnings call, 40 percent of his customers went under. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks happened just a few months later. His company's stock crumpled, eventually withering to a mere 35 cents per share. (Ultimately, it recovered to $14 and he sold the company for $1.6 billion.)

Although Mr. Horowitz is one of Silicon Valley's most revered venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, he offered some sobering, humbling tales about being a rookie CEO. “You don't always get to choose between something horrible and something great,” he said. “A lot of times, you have to choose between horrible and cataclysmic.”

Mr. Horowitz also dished on the struggles of other Silicon Valley legends, including Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Andreessen Horowitz was an investor in the company. While Facebook went public in the biggest Internet IPO ever and today is valued at more than $150 billion, he recalled that in 2007, “it was running out of cash, couldn't raise money and the whole executive team was trying to convince (Zuckerberg) to sell the company.

“It was not easy. Half the tech publications in Silicon Valley were actively campaigning to have Mark Zuckerberg fired as CEO.”

Mr. Horowitz also praised Groupon Inc., which his firm invested in, though the company's stock has been battered as well. “Groupon has got many haters,” he said. But Groupon has "been successful. What they've done is amazing.”

Follow John on Twitter at @JohnPletz.

MUSIC DEALERS AND MCDONALD'S

Music Dealers ups work with McDonald's

by Tom Pakinkis 
2 days ago

 

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Global music licensing agency Music Dealers has increased its involvement with McDonald’s as the restaurant chain looks to make music a bigger part of its brand marketing – starting with the Sochi Winter Olympics.

McDonald’s approached Music Dealers in a bid to work smarter with independent artists and drive value for its brand through the use of music. 

In October 2013 Music Dealers lead a ‘sonic identity’ workshop for the company “to help them find their sound, guide them to strategically use music to drive value for their brand and create consistency in their music selections”.

“It's been a long time since music was a priority for McDonald's in their marketing campaigns,” Eric Sheinkop, Music Dealers CEO and co-founder told Music Week. “In the past music has been a complementary decision but the brand wanted to refresh the sound of its content.”

With Music Dealers, McDonald’s chose to use New Zealand hip hop artists The Wyld for its Winter Olympics TV ad campaign titled ‘Celebrate With A Bite’.

“McDonald's has one of the largest opportunities to share independent artists and their music with the world,” added Sheinkop. “By realising the untapped potential they have to connect with consumers and share great music they came to Music Dealers to help them achieve their objective.”