I read an interesting piece in Advertising Age, mostly about energy drink sponsorship of major Heavy Metal tours. Sifting through all of the talk of how it’s a perfect marriage of product to demographic (young males), I found a few interesting quotes.
The question, in my mind; Can Heavy Metal exist without corporate sponsorship?
John Reese has partnered with Van’s Warped Tour creator Kevin Lyman to create the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival.
“We’ve lowered prices. We’ve tried to create a community aspect,” Mr. Reese said. “These corporate sponsorships — they’re the only way to run a metal tour. You can’t make any money charging a lower price without some sort of subsidy.” Mr. Reese said metal tours had always charged more than other tours for tickets and merchandise such as T-shirts.
Those T-shirts, at one time, were worn as badges of courage by metal fans. The shirt was a statement; “I am outside of your mainstream and proud of it”. That’s why they could get a higher price-it stood for something.
Frank Guernsey, VP-marketing at Rockstar, said that to grow its share (the brand trails Red Bull and Monster), more-aggressive tactics are needed.
“I prefer this model to Ozzfest,” he said. “If we’re going to invest in this kind of tour, we need it to be name and title. We’re not an afterthought, or a little logo at the bottom.”
Somehow it seems that Heavy Metal has devalued itself. What Guernsey is saying there is, that the tables have turned. The brand isn’t trying to gain a foothold by associating itself with the music anymore, it is making it clear that the brand is the straw boss.
Mr. Reese, meanwhile, sees the burgeoning relationships between bands and brands getting only cozier, thanks to psychographic research.
“The record labels are already in enough trouble, but personally, I am waiting for the band that releases its album through a [consumer products] company in the next two years,” he said. “That’s coming. No doubt.”
So, he’s talking about going beyond what Hot Topic has been doing for a while now. He’s talking about a consumer product, like an energy drink, being the record label.
Heavy Metal, along with all of the various sub-genres, has existed all of these decades now, by bands promoting and fans embracing the outsider aesthetic.
The question I started with; Can Heavy Metal exist without corporate sponsorship?, may be off the mark.
The real question is…
Can Heavy Metal exist with corporate sponsorship?
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Tags: corporate sponsorships, energy drink, John Reese, kevin lyman, Music, Ozzfest, Rock
Sans Direction wrote,
Imagine any of those Metal logos you showed a while ago with “Brought To You By Red Bull” underneath. That dog just won’t hunt.
Sans Direction’s last blog post..Oooh! Shiny!
Link | June 20th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Pat Darnell and Fair Weather Friends wrote,
I am reminded of Paul Revere and the Raiders as I think of the T shirt badge of courage identity crisis.. frewdian slip bypass subsidy marketing ploy. Don’t ask me why.
Red Bull GmbH launched the “Austrian” version of Red Bull in… the United States (via California) in 1997.
There are examples of people suffering heart disturbances after drinking eight cans of Red Bull.
Jagbomb… [not to be confused with Judge Advocate General, JAG] …is a cocktail combining one shot of Jägermeister dropped into a glass of an energy drink, Red Bull. It is referred to as a “Jäger-Bull” in Germany.
Heavy Metal is distraction.
So, while buying a organically grown t-shirt sporting John Lydon and a bald Britney image, at a Tommy Lee-Anderson, jr. concert I might someday rise up and say, “Give me some bull piss while I’m distracted, and put some other stuff in it… surprise me.”
Pat Darnell and Fair Weather Friends’s last blog post..BuzzKill Word for the Century: Levee
Link | June 20th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
PT Barnsmell and Charge it to light Brigade wrote,
I’ve been thinking, rather than writing just now. I think the reason I am so frothing loquacious in Pribek’s neighborhood is because many of these issues, or non-issues, are seen by me for the very first time. I have been surrounded by the medium of sound generation, but have never really studied it.
So, in one sense I apologize for benign innocence when it comes to music and its propagation. However, if no innocent; no fun at the party.. no?
I don’t mind being led into non-business structures; and I don’t want anyone to hold back, just because I’m the Lewis of Martin and Lewis.
This occurs to me as I see other comment makers have already one time or another thought in depth about issues that come up between gigs. They relate on a completely different scale of comparisons.
I for instance thought about the deaths of Allmans, and bought Eat a Peach, but never gave it serious thought.
My fun has been in looking up what the heck is at issue, and finding a thread of truth, then turn it all around into a pride fight.
Thanks for support and hats off to those who portend flammable as inflammable, and art as music when in the hands of anarchists. Amen(d)
PT Barnsmell and Charge it to light Brigade’s last blog post..BuzzKill Word for the Century: Levee
Link | June 21st, 2008 at 9:49 am
Pribek wrote,
“There are examples of people suffering heart disturbances after drinking eight cans of Red Bull.”
Thinning of the herd.
Bull bile.
Link | June 21st, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Pat Darnell and Fair Weather Friends wrote,
My brother found out recently how to curb squirrel and deer poaching his garden… Coyote Urine, yep and not from the dancin’ girls at the bar… Coyote Urine is bottled and supplied to his Nurseries, and he spread it around at known predator entrances to his garden.
“Yes, it worked like Sherman tanks guarding the gates to my garden. Squirrels retreat as if their tail is on fire,” said Dave.
Pat Darnell and Fair Weather Friends’s last blog post..Untitled
Link | June 22nd, 2008 at 8:58 am