May 12 2008
OTMG = The Fifth Beatle?
Spent last week in San Fran at the Digital NARM and MusicTech2 conferences. Excellent time, got to see tons of friends and meet a bunch of new ones.
Learned a little, networked a lot, had many good conversations, but the one thing that made my entire week worth it was a comment made (and repeated) at the MusicTech2 conference.
Tim Westegren from Pandora said something to the effect of “all bands need to begin employing a full time marketer, almost as the fifth member of the band.” Since I own a new media marketing firm, this works for me! It was repeated by Dave Allen, the bass player from Gang of Four (my long-time readers may remember this post about how Gang of Four is one of my top bands of all time, so that is extra-sweet), and then Corey Denis from Rumblefish said it yet again on the Marketing panel.
It’s not a far leap to say I agree fully with this. My company has worked with hundreds of artists over the past 5 years and we see no signs of slowing – it’s quite the opposite, a continuous challenge to grow as fast as this segment of the industry is. There are so many new marketing avenues daily, and so many artists are getting clued in to what it takes to survive in the evolving music biz.
So Tim, Dave, and Corey – Thanks!
More Info
Tim Westegren – Pandora.com
Dave Allen – Pampelmoose.com
Corey Denis – Rumblefish.com
I was wondering what Rumblefish was. I got some swag from them last week. NOW I KNOW.
:-) good to see you last week, Jason! Please let me know if you have any questions about rumblefish :-)