When most people who want sponsorships think about their ultimate goal, it involves money. They’re looking for someone to fund their event, to pay for their tour, to raise money for their charity, and so on. When many business think about sponsoring someone, it ultimately involves money as well: even if it is an incredible cause, at the end of the day, they want to know how sponsoring will help them get more customers. Each party treats the sponsorship as a transaction. However, I believe it is important to shift the definition from “a cash and/or in-kind fee paid to a property (typically sports entertainment, non-profit event, or organization) in return for access to the exploitable, commercial potential associated with that property” (IEG, 2000) to something more equitable: a partnership.

Sponsorship as a Partnership

A sponsorship insinuates something more akin to a one-sided relationship: the sponsor gives money in the hope for more customers or being associated with a positive cause. A partnership denotes an agreement where both parties share the risks, responsibilities, and rewards. By approaching the relationship as a partnership, it also implies a long term agreement.

By examining how we approach sponsorships more closely, we can also identify a few other important factors that should be considered:

● Who do we want associated with our brand, event, or organization? You hear about companies dropping their advertising dollars or sponsorships of athletes all the time because they don’t want to be affiliated with improper behavior. Recently, talk show host Rush Limbaugh lost multiple major advertisers due to some of his controversial statements. However, sometimes as an artist or non-profit event, we don’t think deeply about who we are getting our money from and how our customers’ perception of us might change as a result.

● What kind of people do we want to work with? If you are planning a cross-promotional marketing campaign where you work closely with a brand, you’ll want to know their customers, their work-flow, communication processes, and their approach. Does it make sense for what you are doing?

● Is everyone getting fair value for their work? If you are getting a $20,000 sponsorship, are you providing at least $20,000 worth of deliverable returns back to the investor? Conversely, is the amount of work you’re doing worth the money/partnership or are there other ways you can get the same resources more easily?

● What are some creative ways that this partnership can be highlighted? You should be able to do more than simply trade logos on websites and your printed materials. How can you use your respective brands to drive customers towards one another? Is there a way that you can involve the employees of a sponsoring business?

Sales guru Jeffrey Gitomer puts it best: “All things being equal, people want to do business with their friends. All things being not so equal, people still want to do business with their friends.” By elevating the value of sponsorship to an established, friendly partnership, you’ll instill loyalty, and get more in return than a simple check could ever provide.

Simon Tam is owner of Last Stop Booking and author of How to Get Sponsorships and Endorsements. Simon’s writing on music and marketing can be found at www.laststopbooking.com

Source: Music Think Tank

Rapper David Banner is going direct to fans for support with the upcoming free (but please donate) release of Sex, Drugs & Video Games. In the process he’s attempting to show that urban artists can take control of their own music and media activities. The album includes such major artists as Lil Wayne and Chris Brown as well as emerging stars such as A$AP Rocky and Big K.R.I.T. The download will be available for free with a suggested minimum donation of $1.

Banner is using the campaign as the first stage of what he’s calling the 2M1 Movement as he’s hoping to get 2 million fans to download the album and donate at least a dollar each. It’s an interesting effort that seems to be much more than a publicity stunt and is definitely worth keeping an eye on if you’re concerned with alternative approaches to the music business.

Banner’s 2M1 Movement and initial release, Sex, Drugs & Video Games, is currently featured on the homepage of his website. The album will be released May 22nd via LiveMixtapes.com. In the above video he says that he is seeking to prove that “urban music is still a valuable entity.” He points out that though he’s asking for a minimum $1 donation, it’s worth a lot more due to the artists involved:

“ASAP Rocky, Lil’ Wayne, Chris Brown, Snoop Dogg, Game, Nipsey Hussle, 2 Chainz, Big K.R.I.T., Bun B, Don Trip, Maino, Kardinal Offishall, Doe Hicks, Luck and Savvy, Raheem DeVaughn, Kree, Ras Kass, J-Doe and Tank”

He also mentions that he’ll be collecting emails and will then be able to go directly to his fans adding a “big shoutout” to Louie C.K. for providing inspiration. On the website he states:

“What’s the ‘movement you may ask? THE 2M1 MOVEMENT IS TO START CONTROLLING OUR OWN MUSIC, MOVIES, AND CONTENT… PERIOD! WE ARE NOT SIMPLY CHARACTERS IN A VIDEO GAME being controlled by the invisible hand.”

Banner elaborated on these statements in an interview with DJ Booth, including the fact that he objects to people calling this and similar releases mixtapes:

“I’m not calling it a mixtape because we have to stop lying to ourselves by calling them mixtapes. These are free albums we’ve been giving away as of lately. It’s all original music and original raps. These aren’t borrowed instrumentals.”

Among a number of interesting comments, he also makes a point about the younger artists on the project as well as his views on the industry:

“These young cats are really focused and know exactly where they’re going. The thing that I hope to do is help motivate them and not only help them bring their vision to fruition, but help them avoid some of the negativity in this industry. Hopefully with this younger generation, we can control our vision.”

“In most cases when dealing with major labels, they wait until we get hot and then we sell our vision to them, and we stop doing the things that helped get us to that point. Why sell ourselves to them when we’re already a business owner? We need to learn to control our visions. We need to understand what we created and more importantly, understand the power of it.”

It will be interesting to see how hip hop and R&B fans respond to Banner’s efforts especially given the ongoing deluge of free album length music releases in hip hop. One concern is that he’s apparently offering the download on a mixtape site and asking for donations via his own site.

Given the psychological demotivating effects of having multiple steps to any voluntary project, the possiblity is that he’s undermining the process by breaking it up. In addition, the context of a free mixtape download site seems counterproductive.

Unfortunately, if such choices do undermine the donation process, it will most likely be read as David Banner making incorrect assumptions about his fans and those of the other artists on the release.

Source: Hypebot

Forbes has released the Forbes Five, its annual shortlist of rap’s wealthiest artists. 2012′s top earners—Diddy, Jay-Z, Dr. Dre, Bryan “Birdman” Williams and 50 Cent, in that order—were also 2011′s top earners, and rankings on the list remained the same in both years. (Confusingly, Diddy topped 2011′s Forbes Five, but Jay ranked first on Forbes’ 2011 “Cash Kings” list.) Since last year, the collective net worth of the group rose $95 million.

None of rap’s moguls are billionaires yet, but Diddy’s the closest to becoming one. He’ll launch a music-themed cable channel with Comcast, Revolt, in 2013, and sales of his Ciroc vodka are way up, thanks to the success of Ciroc Peach.

Tupac hologram mastermind Dr. Dre, who sold HTC a 51% stake in his Beats headphones for $300 million in August, still ranks ahead of Cash Money Records founder Bryan “Birdman” Williams. Cash Money’s $30 million distribution deal with Universal, signed in 2008, ends this summer. Birdman’s roster—Lil Wayne, Drake, Nicki Minaj—is one of the most lucrative in music, and he’s ready for distributors to re-evaluate its value: “Whoever gives the most benefit to my team, which is first, and to its success, that’s where we’ll end up at.”

Source: The Fader

This is the one day that all of the independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music. Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists in the United States and in various countries across the globe make special appearances and performances. Festivities include performances, cook-outs, body painting, meet & greets with artists, parades, djs spinning records and on and on. Metallica officially kicked off Record Store Day at Rasputin Music in San Francisco on April 19, 2008 and Record Store Day is now celebrated the third Saturday every April.

Record Store Day is currently managed by Eric Levin, Michael Kurtz, Melanie Nipper, and Carrie Colliton. Folks wanting to contact Record Store Day are encouraged to email information@recordstoreday.com

NOTE:

A Record Store Day participating store is defined as a retailer whose main primary business focuses on a physical store location, whose product line consists of at least 50% music retail, whose company is not publicly traded and whose ownership is at least 70% located in the state of operation.  (In other words, we’re dealing with real, live, physical, indie record stores—not online retailers or corporate behemoths).