SxSW Music 2008 :: Killer App
Editorial Blogpost from Rumblefish’s new Director of Marketing, Corey Denis
While attending SXSW, Paul Anthony, CEO, and I, Corey Denis, Director of Marketing, had the opportunity to see up close how the little-industry-that-could (that is, the music licensing industry) was on everyoneâ??s mind. Room 15 at the Austin Convention Center on March 14 unleashed the SxSW 2008 â??killer appâ? for the music portion of Austinâ??s yearly conference. The room was packed to standing room only – and the reason was clear: with an industry losing money faster than Apple can ingest new content from lesser known bands, the financial prospects of music licensing are finally appealing in such a way that this opportunity to build the New Music Economy has emerged to the forefront of a financially viable music business strategy.
Journalists from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Wired Magazine, most recently the Chicago Tribune, bloggers, new and old media (…and don’t forget Moby) found reason to comment or write their post-SXSW articles about the state of the New Music Economy and what it means as the new Tipping Point for music as a business and creative entity. The big takeaway from SxSW this year was more than a margarita and a really really heavy SWAG bag; finally an industry collectively reached a better understanding of how to monetize music and increase artist visibility all at once.
This very model is the core business of Rumblefish, and our business just grew. Weâ??re turning heads, and building our stamina for another 20+ years of business. Starting in 1996 from the depths of CEO & Founder Paul Anthonyâ??s college dorm (and car) came the Rumblefish ethos. Anthony, a Music Composition major at the University of Oregon, licensed his homework successfully to filmmakers to make ends meet. The music school got angry, but the business school took notice, and Anthony went from majoring in Music Composition to Business – and has lead a growing music licensing company ever since.
For 12 full years, Rumblefish has been quietly licensing music to HBO, IFC, Adidas, Red Bull, Video Games, Extreme Sports and brands from around the world and now weâ??re ready to make some noise. Our business model is â??the twitter of â??08â? for the SxSW Music Conference. Yep, that’s what i said: licensing music for commercials and brands is the killer app of sxsw music. For smaller projects who need music quickly and legally, we have a Music Licensing Store , singing the praises of pre-cleared tracks which are made available in our store to thousands of music supervisors searching the Music Licensing Store for emotive search terms like “humble” – or (this is true) “love at first sight.”
Rumblefish works with such great success because our company is two-fold. We are not a music library. We urge Music Supervisors to kick the canned music. We are a high level high quality music boutique, and we own our own Sonic Branding agency. We are a company of artists, regularly curating the best music from around the planet while our world-leaders in sonic branding accrue branding clients for specialized holistic sonic branding campaigns. Meanwhile, our Licensing team is regularly talking with the best film, video game, advertising and television music supervisors to assist them with their music choices, all the while pointing our partners and clients toward the Rumblefish Music Licensing Store, where any music supervisor can search our curated catalog for the perfectly emotive music, and pay for the license. Right then. Right there. Itâ??s done. Itâ??s legal. Even Vloggers have an outlet for music now â?? totally hassle free, a vlogger can use our store to legally obtain the license to sync music with their video.
One single music license takes an (underestimated) average of 30 person-hours to acquire. Licensing a track from the Rumblefish catalog takes a music supervisor approximately 3 minutes. Naturally, when the killer music app (licensing) became apparent, and apparently profitable, at SXSW 2008â??s more academic moments, Rumblefish took pride in a business model that works. We are a company of musicians growing a business that works for music. We ask our branding clients What does your brand sound like? (sm) and we seek out the highest quality music with enough confidence to offer a non exclusive agreement to artists & labels. Which means, if they think they can find a better agency to Sync their Music â?? we think they should try! (but we know they wonâ??t!) We cut checks for artists, and we forge interesting licenses (posted on our blog). It makes us proud. Businesses who use our music make more money. It makes us proud. We arenâ??t a library. Which also makes us proud.
Most common question from audiences when we do presentations: â??What about artists selling out?”
Personally, thatâ??s my favorite question. Selling Out was a viable concept for artists and labels to cling to when music sales were the basis of a viable music business. But with sales dwindling and consumption sky rocketing, it seems that the concept of â??Sell Outâ? was possibly concocted by sales & marketing departments in the old music economy, because the very concept increased the value of their product. Unless an artist â??sold outâ? you couldnâ??t consume their music in any way other than to purchase it. You had to buy it. You simply had to. But not anymore. Now, music is consumed globally in multiple formats, whether the industry as a whole is happy about it or not. Why not get paid for that consumption? Does that make you a â??sell outâ? â?? or is it just irony that the only band to name their album â??sell outâ? has licensed music to competing automobile makers? I draw my own personal conclusion: the terminology â??sell outâ? worked in the old music economy but doesnâ??t make sense in the new music economy. Things change. Even Zeppelin has a song in a Cadillac ad. Artists deserve to work at their craft and get paid to do it. Rumblefish artists will never have their music associated with Porn, politics or illegal activities. But they will get checks and exposure to new fans. Rumblefish branding clients and music supervisory clients rely on us for quality music, and regularly come back to us for more. The “killer app” in the new music economy is enabling artists to be artists. even for their day job.
