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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