The Swami knows: it's gonna be a hit!
By Dennis Wolfe -- Tongal Head of Music
Don’t you wish you had a few thousand shares of Facebook, Netflix or LinkedIn before they went public? Wait, you do? Well played. Enjoy your home in the South of France.
For the rest of us, the lure of being there “before it went big” is as scintillating and alluring as, well, winning the mega-ball, getting a Maserati for Christmas or discovering that unassisted human flight has been possible all along.
The key, of course, is either being on the inside, or knowing someone on the inside, so you can place your bets early before the stakes get high. Well, Tongal reader, consider yourself connected.
No, we’re not offering you pre-IPO shares of Tongal. We are, however, offering you early access to something you may have never even considered: the next big hit in pop music. Honest. (I’ll explain....)
We all know that music sells, and that invariably some of the most memorable campaigns are those that really leveraged the power of a compelling song. Like these: Mountain Dew’s Kickstart, Apple’s iPod,
Cadillac’s SRX, and Microsoft’s Bing. What do all these have in common?
1. You may or may not remember the product, but you DEFINITELY remember the song. And modern search will turn up results for both, reinforcing both the artist AND the brand.
2. These artists were merely “emerging” when the ad came out, but the ripple effect of the spots on TV plus the songs on the radio drove massive awareness for the artist, while blessing the brand with a halo effect of pop-culture cool that is impossible to buy.
So where does Tongal fit into all of this? Do we have some sort of hit-predicting crystal ball, or Jimmy Iovine on speed dial? We wish. What we DO have is a music industry insider on staff, with over 16 years in the biz, a Grammy, and lots of colleagues at all the major labels and management companies. So we know what’s coming before the general public, and that’s where you can get an edge.
(Confession: I know all this stuff because that insider is...me. Please accept my apologies for all the bragging -- I promise I'll never do it again.)
But this is what I want you to take away from all this: The DIY ‘netterati would have you believe that the labels are dead. Not true. They are alive and well and remain an artist’s best hope for breaking through the clutter. And breaking through means spending money – lots of it. Indeed, the labels are placing massive bets on their emerging artists, and if you’re a savvy marketer (who knows an insider) you can double down on these investments.
What would it mean for you and your brand if the next Mumford & Sons or Black Eyed Peas or Ed Sheeran was in YOUR ad campaign? The beauty of partnering with artists on the way up is that they’re more likely to say yes in the first place, and they’ll gladly accept a smaller check to play ball. Try calling Fergie or Beyonce today and see what that’ll cost you. A new Maserati will seem cheap…
So if expanding your reach and appealing to millennials are in your mandate for the year, consider teaming up with an emerging artist and let the music do the talking. The multiplier effect is real, and how awesome will it be to say that not only were you there BEFORE they hit it big, you were part of the REASON they hit it big. You can tell that story forever.
…While you – sorry, your driver -- looks for a place to park your Maserati.
