sign of the times...

A New Song and Dance for Branded Content
Euro RSCG Buys Majority Stake in Music Content-Production Company The:Hours
By Rupal Parekh   Published: July 07, 2008
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) --

Branded content is whistling a new tune as Havas ad agency Euro RSCG Worldwide today said it has bought a majority stake in an independent record label and content-production company.

The company, called The:Hours, launched earlier this year as a music content-production platform to service brands as well as to distribute music via a deal with Universal Music Group.

The:Hours created original music for a worldwide Cartier campaign that broke in May. The campaign included songs from Lou Reed and Marion Cotillard, whose portrayal of Edith Piaf in "La Vie En Rose" won her an Academy Award for Best Actress. On the record label side, it recently signed the band Fires of Rome, whose lead singer penned a single for the movie "Fantastic Four."

With offices in Los Angeles, New York and Paris, the company is led by Alexandre Sap and Leslie Dubest, founders of Recall Records, and entrepreneur and media/entertainment industry player Fabien Moreau. In New York, The:Hours will sit inside Euro's creative department. Work already has begun on custom music campaigns for some of Euro's clients, but an agency spokeswoman declined to identify which ones. (Jaguar, Dos Equis and Danone are among those on the agency's roster.)

The move to acquire a record label, a first in the agency business, comes amid sweeping changes in both the music and ad industries, which are constantly recalibrating to figure out how to best evolve their businesses and compensation models.

"It's an amazing time to be in our business and there are huge opportunities to be seized by those agencies that create new future-facing business models for their clients -- we believe that music is one of those hence this exciting initiative to acquire our own music agency and record label," Euro Global CEO David Jones said in a statement.

The partnership will allow Euro to "direct access to artists, music supervisors, industry entrepreneurs, music publishers and distribution networks such as Universal and iTunes," said Mr. Sap, The:Hours' CEO, in a statement.

Going forward, Euro plans to acquire another U.S.-based boutique record label to integrate with The:Hours, as well as a publishing catalogue of roughly 10,000 tracks that would be a source of proprietary content for Euro RSCG's creative teams worldwide, an agency spokeswoman said.

what say ye?

Tags: advertising, artists, branded, brands, breaking, brilliance, bullshit, business, entertainment, future, More…marketing, music

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Permalink Reply by Bret Teegarden on July 13, 2008 at 11:14am

There are two ways this could go...

1) Could be incredibly stimulating for the companies and artists that align themselves with this model

2) Yet again, people who know nothing about music, calling the shots and taking advantage of creatives

On the surface, it appears that the agency is looking for ways to decrease it's cost to use creative content.

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Permalink Reply by iV on July 13, 2008 at 11:30am

it will be interesting to see where it goes.

and certainly, it's a way for the agency to decrease cost to use creative content. i don't have an issue with that strategy. there are some highly creative folks at these agencies, many of whom actually do know something about music. and branding. and marketing. if they can bring a high level of profitability to the picture, there's every reason to believe that artists will benefit both monetarily and creatively from the relationship.

and for the record, knowing something about music doesn't mean: a) you won't be a dictatorial asshole calling the shots and taking advantage of creatives or b) you can run a business.

emi has made an interesting choice in who they've selected to fill major roles in the company in its current restructuring. again, time will tell. if anything will "save" the majors, it will be someone with vision. perhaps we need to look outside our ranks to find the folks who can see the dots we don't, and help us figure out how to connect them.

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Permalink Reply by iV on July 16, 2008 at 9:01pm

as per my earlier comment, i think the jury is still out on what all the ramifications will be (if they manage to survive some of the transitions.) but that said, i'm not as doom and gloom.

any one who has followed the trends knows that original music isn't as necessary when there are easy artist licensing opportunities and good quality music libraries available. any music house on top of their game will adjust their business model to adapt. i've seen our budgets affected most by two things: 1) repercussions to the outlandish spending of the 80's, where agencies are now accountable for every line item in the budget and music is often not a premium ticket item and 2) better music libraries that cost a fraction of what it would cost to do original music.

agencies/brands still value a good score and an original composition. but the competition is fierce. so you continually have to find ways to differentiate your own brand as a music supplier.

i doubt this move signifies that everything will be a buyout. the fact that this is a move that allows agencies to benefit from both publishing and master copyrights means that they will also be looking for ways to capitalize on the licenses themselves. As to SAG and AFM, the large agencies that can afford to buy these labels typically have signatory status. and putting themselves on the contractor lines of those sessions is another way for them to generate revenue.

there's no reason why this arrangement can't benefit both the client/agency and the artist. obviously, it all depends on the contracts. i've seen some traditional label deals that that leave the artists very little at the end of the day. and some of these agencies will have marketing strategies that can potentially break an act in ways that traditional labels can't. believe me. they want the success stories. they know that good pr is as valuable as cash upfront. they have a reason to try to beat the labels at their own game.

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Permalink Reply by iV on July 16, 2008 at 11:36pm

thanks for the compliment, though i'm only a lowly musician with a laptop, too. chalk it up to the writer in in me who understands that the pen is mightier than the sword.

believe me, i understand that the business isn't always fair. i have a few stories of my own. i have a journal with those stories, narratives written to remind me what those moments felt like...a reminder that i want to do business differently. treat creatives differently. call me a cynical optimist: i know the love of money is the root of all evil. but i don't automatically assume that because i'm a creative, i'll wind up screwed. there have been times when there has been extra money at the end of a job...and the artist or the composer or the writer got it.

look around. there are artists who are benefiting from the help...and they're certainly artists who could use it. artists like yael naim, rosi golan, blue merle, reactor, psapp, kate havnevik...and the list keeps growing.

that you don't agree with me is your right. but it need not be simply because you're an artist. artists are continually finding new dots, new ways of connecting them, changing, adapting, appropriating. that's what makes the current zeitgeist so exciting and terrifying at the same time:

the possibilities...

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Permalink Reply by Brian H Krause on July 25, 2008 at 8:14am

I agree with that last statement for sure. I definitely see that the old-school way of making money on music is dying, and the "new" business model has yet to fully emerge. Whoever finds it is going to wind up on top (at least for a while). I spend a lot of time wracking my own brain to think outside the box and find a new way to approach the industry from my side of things. I'm still waitng for that stroke of genius, though.