Music forum to look at artist-sponsor harmony
The future of the music industry is a hazy one but some of the signposts may be glowing in neon -- like the kind hawking McDonald’s hamburgers and Pepsi sodas.
Sat Bisla, organizer of the just-announced MusExpo 2008 conference on music and entertainment, said one of the key areas of focus at the forum will be deals between international corporations and music artists.
Bisla pointed to the multiyear deal between the Black Eyed Peas and Pepsi that had the Grammy-winning hip-hop and pop collective going far beyond the usual jingle duties in promoting the soda. The Peas tailored a single, “More,” to the “Pepsi More” campaign, but the group also had a prominent and public role in designing cans, advertising and a fan-interactive website for remixing music. They toured in more than a dozen countries under the company’s banner and shared stage time with Pepsi promotional programming.
That may make some purists of the rock era cringe but Bisla said marketplace realities and changing comfort levels with artists-as-advertising mean more to come.
The fourth annual MusExpo, which emphasizes emerging artists, music and its reach in global markets, will take place April 27-30 at the Hyatt West Hollywood. Evening tie-in showcases of unsigned artists will be at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip. Speakers this year include songwriter Dianne Warren, Ticketmaster President Sean Moriarty, Dixie Chicks manager Simon Renshaw, and Paul Tollett, founder of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. For registration or more information, go to www.musexpo.net.
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