Great article in the Wall St. Journal this week by the lead singer of the band “OK Go”. His assessment of the music industry is directly relevant to all media, and all creative professionals.
“We’re just moving out of the brief period, a flash in history’s pan, when an artist could expect to make a living selling records alone. For several decades… the recording industry managed to successfully and profitably pin it down to a stable, if circular, definition: Music was recordings of music. It was the perfect bottling of lightning: A powerful experience could be packaged in plastic and then bought and sold like any other commercial product.”
The same is true with movies, photography, magazines, you name it. Digital distribution, no longer constrained by the controls that can be placed on physical materials, has made the product intangible, easily replicable, and readily abundant. No more controlled packaging, no more commercial product (or a significantly reduced one).
The new path emerging is merchandising around the media, events, and of partnering with benefactors seeking something other than a direct financial return on the art/media. This last one is how art has work for most of history. Much like the model I recently discussed and am exploring for an ambitious art project, OK Go is finding brand sponsors for each of their well-defined creative projects — be it a music video, performance, or new CD. Unlike the traditional financial backers of such efforts, the brand sponsors seek a marketing return, not a cash return on the investment.
“Now when we need funding for a large project, we look for a sponsor. A couple weeks ago, my band held an eight-mile musical street parade through Los Angeles, courtesy of Range Rover. They brought no cars, signage or branding; they just asked that we credit them in the documentation of it. A few weeks earlier, we released a music video made in partnership with Samsung, and in February, one was underwritten by State Farm.
We had complete creative control in the productions. At the end of each clip we thanked the company involved, and genuinely, because we truly are thankful. We got the money we needed to make what we want, our fans enjoyed our videos for free, and our corporate Medicis got what their marketing departments were after: millions of eyes and goodwill from our fans. While most bands struggle to wrestle modest video budgets from labels that see videos as loss leaders, ours wind up making us a profit.”
It takes a large existing audience or a project with big PR potential to pull this off on a national or international level, though potential partners exist at all scales. The key when going after a media project is to know where to look for the right partners, and to know how to make the offer a win for them as well as for you. The media world is changing in this regard.
“Still, this model isn’t much use to unknown bands, since companies tend to bet their marketing money on the already established. This brings us to one part of the old record industry that no one seems to know how to replace: the bank. Labels aggregated the music industry’s high risks. Even if there are newer, more efficient models for distribution and promotion in the digital era, there aren’t many new models for startup investment.”
I think it’s more critical than ever to pursue projects of scale that you believe in, and to be a part of the greater conversation in the creative community. But that’s not enough. Artists also need to come out from behind the wall of their work, and enter a direct conversation with an increasingly engaged public who has a potential interest in the work. This is a long slow process, but this is the new startup investment — investing in the audience.
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