Music gets Branded

Adam Kluger, CEO and founder of the Kluger Agency, sees great prospects in the music product placement industry. He recently sat down with Minyanville?s Tal Pinchevsky to discuss the business.  

?Brands are tripling their revenue because of a mention in a Jay-Z song,? says Kluger. ?So we go after the companies and partner them with the demographic. If you hear an artist talking about his new Fila sneakers, you?re going to think about it when you go shopping.?

This week Kluger is handling a new music video for Atlantic Records featuring the artist Flo Rida. The music video will work around the product placement of a dating site.

?We worked with the director and wrote the entire video around the product. So the video has Flo going online, looking for a love interest in the video,? described Kluger. ?This song was not going to be a radio single, but it?s so perfect for a video that we were able to get the brand to pay enough that we could make the song into a single.?

Musicians have been referencing to their favorite products since time immemorial. Janice Joplin mentioned ?Mercedes Benz? and the Beach Boys? ?T-Bird.?

However, one of the most obvious partnerships came in 2003, when hip-hop artist Busta Rhymes released the song ?Pass the Courvoisier?. The mention gave the cognac company a major spike in sales that led to another contract with Rhymes.

It is slowly becoming clear that brands have a place in the music industry. They have been there before but, nowadays, companies get to pay artists to get better exposure. Whether its product placements in music videos or product mentions in song lyrics, this is a partnership that can last because it can benefit both sides.

As described by Pinchevsky: ?With a greater variety of artists engaging in this kind of branding, and fears over artistic integrity subsiding, labels couldn?t be happier. A recording industry in decline for almost a decade is now using branding to offset production costs for albums, videos, and tours.?

?It will get to the point where the brand is paying for the entire production of an album,? explains Kluger. ?The labels and artists will not have to put up any money. So everything is profit. That?s 2 years away, not 10.?