Advertising - Publicity - Record Promotion      

 

Advertising
    by Robert A. Livingston

Advertising is the business or practice of announcing or revealing to the public that a good or service is for sale. The disclosure is presented in such a way as to persuade the public or business associates to purchase a good or service.

All commercial television and radio, and almost all of the print media is available for advertising purposes.

Advertising may be acquired by purchased airtime or page space, or procured free via printed or programmed editorials.

Commercially purchased advertising is completely self-serving. Whereas editorial advertisements are usually governed by more rigid rules that aim to maintain objectivity and fairness.

One important comparison is to note that the credibility of editorial advertising is at least five times more valuable than that of commercial advertisement.

In the record industry specifically, advertisements may be employed to publicize a new release, debut the opening of a recording studio, preview the appointment of a new record company executive, announce the signing of a new artist, relate the dates and venues of a concert tour, announce the forming of a new record company, announce the merger of competing or complementary companies, enhance the chances of an artist winning an award, or to influence the public opinion of an artist by the means of long-running publicity advertising.

In advertisements made for the sales of CDs, music publishers and record companies may promote CDs via ad insertions in the trade papers, by distributing promotional copies to radio stations (in order to get airplay) and record distributors (to facilitate promotional tie-ins), through direct mail promotional mailers, media announcements, or via time-buys on the radio or TV.

Advertisement for the sale of CDs also includes the targeting of consumers by CD retailers, concert promoters, and also by music publishers and record companies. Finally, concert tours, artist's celebrity appearances at CD retailers and on TV and radio, motion picture commercials, movie theater lobby displays, posters, point of purchase displays, publicity promotional mailers, flyers, buttons, bumper stickers, T-shirt sales, outdoor billboards, transportation billboards, back of concert ticket displays, press releases, Internet web page and wire service releases, and various publicity stunts are also used to advertise the artist's CDs and Internet downloads to the public.

Often, these type advertisements are coordinated with the CD's release or concert tour to provide maximum return on the advertising dollar.

Advertising on both the local and national levels often involves initial tests from which planned strategies evolve and are then implemented on a larger scale.

Unlike many industries where the retailer splits advertising costs with the manufacturer, the record company usually picks up the full tab for record promotion (for both the retailer and the artist).

In advertising in general, the use of songs and music (called jingles) have become the most effective means to promote a product or service. Many products and services are identified and distinguished from their competitors simply by a catchy tune. These jingles are often the cornerstone to the success of an advertising campaign.

In addition to the jingle, the use of an artist's hit CD, name, image, voice, style and even signature can be an extremely invaluable tool to enhance the appeal of a product or service.

The advertising agency must procure a use license by negotiating with the copyright owner (or his administrator representative, e.g., his music publisher, or mechanical rights agency) to enable the use of a copyrighted song.

Note: when music is used in advertising a compulsory license cannot be substituted for a use license and any unauthorized use is an infringement of the federal copyright law.

Use licenses in advertising are usually assigned for a flat fee. This fee can vary from hundreds of dollars to millions of dollars!

The amount depends on many variables: The popularity of the song and artist, the way it is going to be used (e.g., radio only, television only, radio and television, locally only, nationally), the term of use (e.g., a normal 13 week cycle with options to extend, or a one year term), the potential profit to the user, and the negotiating expertise of the negotiators.

The use of names, pictures, signatures, voices, and likenesses in advertising to solicit the sale of products and services is protected by right to privacy and right to publicity statutes and/or case law.

The right to copy an artist's readily identifiable style in commercial advertising has been exempted as a property right of the artist in at least two court decisions. It was also found not to be an infringement with respect to laws guarding against unfair competition. However, this is a gray area since in a U.S. Circuit Court it was found that the imitation of a readily identifiable voice was cause for action. Since the artist's style is often associated closely with the artist's voice, courts may in the future rule that style is also a protected right.

Advertising Endorsements

Advertisements done by celebrity artists to endorse, or give a positive testimony for a product or service, are know as 'advertising endorsements.'

The famous person doing the advertisement receives both money and exposure. With this kind of exposure, however, comes an identification of the artist with the product or service. Therefore, the artist's image will be affected.

If the product or service has a reputable public opinion, it may well enhance the celebrity's reputation. On the other hand, a product that becomes tainted in the public's eye, may well color the reputation of the artist.

Endorsements and testimonials are governed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). According to FTC regulations, an endorsement is "any advertising message (including verbal statements, demonstrations, or depictions of the name, signature, likeness or other identifying personal characteristics of an individual or the name or seal of an organization) which message consumers are likely to believe reflects the opinions, beliefs, findings, or experience of a party other than the sponsoring advertiser."

The FTC regulations require that all affirmative claims for products be verified before the advertisement is presented to the public. The celebrity who endorses a product or service may be held liable if he personally guarantees the product or service. For this reason, a celebrity may want to have independent verification prior to making any claims or testimonials.

Further, if the advertisement gives representation that the celebrity endorser actually uses or has used the product, then the celebrity must be, or must have been, a bona fide user of the product.

In addition, the advertiser may only use the endorsement where the advertiser has good reason to believe the endorser continues to subscribe to the views presented.

Often, product endorsements are very lucrative. Each deal requires negotiation between the parties involved. Six and even well into seven figures can sometimes be commanded by superstars. The deal may be for a single endorsement, or repeated commercials. Commercial repeats would bring in ongoing residuals and the deal may last for a period of weeks or even over several years.

Other endorsements may be done in return for valuable consideration such as merchandise. Equipment manufacturers may offer the use of their product in exchange for the artist's endorsement, for example.

And finally, some endorsements, such as political or charitable testimonies may be done for free...

The above is only a partial example excerpt...

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Advertising

 

 

 

 
Publicity
    by Robert A. Livingston

Publicity is an advertisement or action designed to attract public attention to, or interest in, a person or commodity, e.g., in an artist or record. This action is usually performed by a publicity agent called a publicist.

A publicist, then, in the music industry, is the person who manages the notoriety and advertisement of an artist or group...to include the services and goods they offer to the public.

Publicity is kind of a first cousin to record promotion. They often parallel each other in both time of occurrence and mode of operation. In fact, the line separating the two is often clouded.

Record promotion is the act of providing support through advertising and publicity to ultimately reap a profit from record sales.

Publicity, one could deduce, is a part of record promotion. However, since publicity is advertisement or action designed to attract public attention or interest in the artist and in his products and services, others could conclude record promotion is a part of publicity!

Actually, from the overall perspective, publicity has the wider scope. Publicity operatives are utilized to "sell the total artist"--from CDs, music video DVDs, T-shirts, concerts, biographies, motion pictures, and TV appearances, to fan club memberships!

Publicity is centered around the "visibility" of the artist and concentrates on press and other mass media vehicles.

To zero in even more on what publicity is, one other area often confused with publicity needs to be defined--public relations.

Public relations, like publicity, aims at drawing attention to the artist. But unlike publicity, its main purpose is not to sell products and services. The main purpose of public relations is to create, build, and sustain a favorable reputation or public image of an artist and to enhance the growth of his career. The image promoted is often a multi-dimensional one. The intent is to capture an audience or following of a wide variety of people, i.e., to induce mass appeal.

A public relations (PR) campaign will try to influence or form a positive public opinion toward the artist. A publicity campaign, on the other hand, is launched to sell a commodity. A PR campaign is generally a national or worldwide "process." A publicity campaign is more often a local or area "event" (although it can, in some cases be a nationwide or worldwide "push"). PR and publicity campaigns are often run simultaneously by coordinating the various people and agencies involved, e.g., where the record company synchronizes efforts with the national PR firm and the artist manager.

Public relations is almost always handled by a PR firm. Often, especially with nationally known artists, publicity campaigns are also implemented by a company with nationwide contacts. But, for many artists, it is possible for their own manager to do much of the publicity work--especially if it is local or in a targeted area.

Publicity, as can be seen, is a very important part of an artist's career. A well organized and correctly implemented publicity campaign is often the difference between profit and loss in the sale of the artist's products and services. Many untalented artists have been monetarily successful because of their prudent publicity undertakings. Conversely, many talented artists have dropped by the wayside because they were reluctant to, or unable to, implement solid publicity programs.

To properly plan and carry out a publicity campaign the publicist must know the legal and substantive aspects of publicizing an artist. He also needs to have the procedural or tactical expertise. He must have or find the proper contacts and outlets to access the public.

Legal Aspects of Publicity

The legal factors concerning publicity center around what is called the "right to publicity." The right to publicity is the legal exclusive right of a person (or his heirs) to commercialize the character and substance of himself. This right is granted by state civil statute (in some states via criminal statute), or case law.

Another right that often becomes involved is called a "merchandising right." A merchandising right is a right, under state common law, to exploit and market the name, signature, picture, image, likeness, biographical material, and/or success of a person by any means, e.g., on T-shirts, posters, in editorials, books, movies, cartoons, etc..

A third right that applies here is called a "name right." A name right is the right to legally use a name. This right is protected by state common law, the Lanham Trademark Act, and in some cases, indirectly by the federal copyright law (e.g., when the name is embedded in copyrighted material).

In summation, the law basically gives the artist the exclusive rights to his name, likeness, and substance if the operation of these does not infringe on a right of another who has previously established such rights (in rare instances, depending on jurisdictional laws, a court of law may rule against someone who actually established use first if a second party's later use is more widely associated with the name at the time of litigation).

In general, rights to a name are established by use and by the existence of public notoriety. In other cases the rights may be established by procedure in accordance with law, e.g., with the Lanham Trademark Act. Since these rights (for the most part) fall under the jurisdiction of civil law conflicting claims or uses must be resolved by litigation (as opposed to police action) and court judgment carried out under criminal law.

The law then, prohibits the unauthorized use for profit of the artist's name, likeness, and substance. So, before a publicity campaign can begin, these rights must be assigned (by contract) to the publicist, other manager or agent, or to the record company. Many, if not all of these rights, are often assigned to the record company in the artist's recording contract. If this is the case, the artist, his publicist, manager, or other agent could be denied the right to publicize!

Substantive and Procedural Aspects

A publicity program has two dimensions--substantive and procedural. The substantive aspects of a publicity campaign are the:

1) What,
2) Who,
3) Where, and
4) When,

and the procedural has to do with the:

5) How.

But what about the "why?" Well, it comes into play and keeps the mind occupied if everything else fails!

The substantive deals with objective facts. The procedural is the process that puts the facts to work. It is more subjective. It has sort of a "personality" to it. The procedural will reflect the artist manager/publicist's own experience and attributes.

When the substantive aspects are addressed the manager/publicist will have to address many questions. The following is a list of some of them:

What?

1) What is the message?
2) What are the ways available to package and convey the message?
3) What are the delegated responsibilities of all concerned?
4) What will the costs be?
5) What yardstick is used to measure the success or failure of the campaign?

Who?

1) Who will hear the message?
2) Who needs to hear the message?
3) Who wants to hear the message!
4) Who will pay the costs incurred to get the message out?

Where?

1) Where would the message be introduced?
2) Where would it be proclaimed later?

When?

1) When would the message(s) go out?

How?

1) How does one package and convey the publicity message?
2) How long before meaningful conclusions can be drawn about the success of publicity endeavors?
3) How does one determine which conclusions are the meaningful ones?
4) How long does one push the message...

 
The above is only a partial example excerpt...

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Publicity -- A Closer Look

 

Record Promotion
                  by Robert A. Livingston

The typical ingredients needed to enable a successful record promotion campaign are:

1) Money,
2) Artist notoriety (which may exist because of his prior success, the success of his associates, or from planned and/or unplanned public exposure),
3) Timeliness of the release,
4) Ability of the promoter to get airplay in the proper market(s),
5) Ability to coordinate all the publicity generating factors involved,
6) Luck, and
7) Quality of the product.

If these are present, it is beneficial for the promotion campaign itself to have:

a) A planned course of action, and
b) A promotion man (or agency…independent record promoter) with a good track record, contacts, experience, clout, persistence, personableness, good health, and the ability to cope with the stress involved in working an irregular schedule with long hours.

Promotion Strategy

Ordinarily, the course of action starts with initial promotion and later with national promotion. Unless, of course, the artist is a superstar and can implement his promotion at the national level at the outset. Or, if he is so established that large quantities of records can be manufactured and shipped to record stores without initial radio airplay.

More often, however, the main objective of the promoter, both initially when breaking a record and on an ongoing basis, is to get radio airplay. The promoter must attempt to get his record added to a station's playlist and rotated on a heavy basis. Stations that play contemporary releases will only have a playlist of 20-40 records. That is to say, they only play past, current and up and coming hits.

Since there are hundreds of records released across the nation each week, airplay time is always at a premium. Competition for this time is, to say the least, fierce.

Record Distributor

The record distributor functions as a middleman. He is a wholesaler that operates between the record manufacturer and subdistributors (one stops and rack jobbers), or the manufacturer and the retailers. Some distribution operations are owned by major record companies. Nationally, there are only a few major record distributors but major record labels may have 15 or more distribution branches. Other record distributors are independently owned. Some independent distributors ("indies") have the capability to handle national distribution while others only operate in local or regional areas.

If the promotion campaign is being launched by an independent record company with minimal operating capital and a limited distribution network, the promo man would have to weigh his situation and obtain the most cost effective means of distribution.

The promotion man would try to lure the distributor(s) into stocking his record by making them aware of the sales in the breakout areas. He would inform them of listings on any tip sheets or radio station playlists, etc..

Promotion copies would be packaged to draw attention. It must be remembered that all distributors receive more records than they can handle. It is the job of the promo man to break the ice. This is a key function. The more innovative he is, the better his chances are to succeed.

Acquiring an established distributor is very important. This is because it can bring some long awaited promotion help--and at the right price…free! That's right, a good record distributor could shoulder much of the promotion of a record! He has established contacts and clout. He can "push supply."

Even if the distributor accepts a record, the promo man must still keep in mind that the distributor has so many records to push that some will only get his passive attention. So, the more he feels the record is a potential monster the more active will be his input.

Therefore, the promotion man must make him a believer!

If the distributor believes, he will try to place the record in as many locations as possible. He will do his share of contacting radio stations, etc., since his profits also increase with sales. The more he believes the more he will push, push, push.

Promotion Tactics

At the national level, a wider scope of promotion tactics are implemented. Normally a concert tour would be launched. Free tickets and other hoopla in connection with record stores and radio stations would be staged as media events.

A fan club could be started. It is often advantageous to check out other successful fan clubs and copy and improve on their techniques. The innovative promo man will pull out all the stops with merchandising gimmicks such as posters, T-shirts, buttons, etc.. He will improve on proven gimmicks and create new ones.

He might use "stunts" such as securing "in store air play" at record stores. He would try to relate gimmicks to the artist's uniqueness. For example, he could introduce a new diet plan the artist uses. He would try to play on the points that could get the media buzzing. Video could be used in some way, e.g., a short video of the artist arm wrestling a gorilla, or kissing a buffalo...if they play it on the 5 o'clock news--great!

Tying in with other promotional events or products could prove beneficial. He would encourage record retailers to sponsor and pay for their own local advertisements (called institutional advertising). He would push for airplay on the store's stereo system or provide window display posters, etc.. He might even co-sponsor direct mail promotion via the retailer's customer mailing list. He would attempt to get his record reviewed in news print and magazines.

The opportunist promo man would utilize free advertisement as much as possible, be creative, and not give up!

Internet Promotion

The Internet provides another alternate way (or supplemental way) to promote a CD or to push the artist's music downloads.

To promote a CD via the Internet, the record label or artist could put up a web page and use it to allow patrons to sample the songs.

If the end user then wanted to buy the CD, he could order it right from the website (with the delivery of the actual CD disc made via UPS or other ground delivery service).

Also, the web page could allow the end user to buy the music in files and download them to his computer and ipod on the spot.

Alternate promotion methods on the Internet involve the use of MP3 hosting sites, Music Usenet postings, and Music Zines.

Music Zines are music related "magazines" sent via e-mail. Many Music Zines offer to review CD's and publish the review in their Zine. If the review is positive, the Zine will usually give instructions to the reader on how to purchase the CD...

The above is only a partial example excerpt...

If you happened on this web page while surfing the Internet, and are interested in reading the full discussion, that discussion is found on the LaCostaMusic.com TMBIO Members Website...

Join TMBIO

Then Go To This Web Page to Read the Full Commentary:

Record Promotion -- A Closer Look