The news today is that Proctor and Gamble is getting into the music business. Just as Starbucks is going in the opposite direction and exiting the CD sales business, more brands are jumping in to fill the void left by the collapse of the CD retail store business. Music sales in the UK were once again down 11% over the same period in 2007.

For the labels, attention from product companies is a good thing. I see the logic here. CD sales are plummeting and online sales are not filling the void, a company comes along that wants to license the record label’s music to promote a brand and it appears that a match has been made in heaven. Rhianna had a lot of success this way working with Totes Isotoner to help them improve sales of umbrella’s. Umbrella was the title of her hit song, I wrote about her arrangement with Totes here.

Proctor and Gamble, and other companies using music to promote their brands, are jumping in deeper though:

“At a time when online file-sharing is rampant, record stores are closing and consumers are buying singles instead of albums, getting into the music business might seem like running into a burning building. But as record labels struggle to adjust to a harsh new digital reality, other companies are stepping up their involvement in music, going far beyond standard endorsement contracts and the use of songs in commercials. These companies — like Procter & Gamble, Red Bull and Nike — are stepping outside of their core businesses to promote, finance and even distribute music themselves.”

I believe all of this extra-curricular activity by these brands may pay off for them in the long term. The music fan has shown her willingness to buy music online although only singles, not albums. Album sales are no longer the preferred format. The labels created this nightmare for themselves when they scrapped the single as a sales format. They blamed their losses on file-sharing online but they ignored their own disastrous moves in the market place. They weren’t listening to their customers. And then they began to sue them. Even Apple can’t persuade music fans to buy albums.

There is a lesson here though and it is one that Starbucks learned the hard way. Brand and product companies should not get too deep into the music sales business. The P&G deal with Def Jam may work well as it is a joint venture where presumably each side does what they do best - Def Jam runs the label side, P&G markets its product with Def Jam music and pays for everything.

I discussed the following issue in a recent post: To the music fan music becomes cheapened by being used as a commodity to sell products. The artists behind the music have their celebrity enhanced and they then go on to use their brand to sell more products. Music fans understand that music is now a commodity and refuse to pay for it. The music industry and the artists both complain that no one pays for music and to account for the decline in sales accuse us of stealing it online. The commodity is over-priced; no one is buying it.

Unless you are a brand with a product to sell.

After reading Nubby’s post on The Power of Celebrities as Brands I came across a post on Sasha Frere-Jones’ New Yorker blog where he talks about Jeff Leeds, a music reporter for the New York Times, who was recently laid off. Frere-Jones has entered into an email discussion with Leeds where they discuss music writing and criticism today:

LEEDS: I’m not sure that it’s so easy anymore to write about the art without acknowledging the commerce or vice versa. It’s also just more fun, as a writer, to inhabit the middle. There is a case to be made that the cultural role and the experience of music now are just inextricably tied to commerce and the new ways that artists and listeners perceive each other. Even as a fan, isn’t your relationship with music and artists at least somewhat different depending on whether you subscribe to e-music, share a station with a friend on Pandora, or watch someone’s show on your cell phone? Is U2 still the same U2 if they’re in an iPod ad? I think the message and the medium are much more intertwined than they were ten years ago.

FRERE-JONES: This behavior parallels the world of online friendships, at least in form. People who could just as easily call or e-mail each other decide to make conversations public through blogs or Twitter or MySpace comments. The platform chosen for each message changes the effect of the words, who can read them, and how long they will hang in the air. (The Web is creating a multiple-exposure version of memory: words remain, reappearing over and over, even if nothing more than cocktail chat. “Nice dress!” echoes in the hall of mirrored servers. An LOL is not an LOL is not an LOL.)

LEEDS: I think that sort of transparency, where we’re all declaring our positions publicly, is here to stay. In music it means that all these little tribes and congregations of fans can mobilize in really powerful ways. And that in turn is contributing so much to the changes you see in the relationship between the artists and the machinery, the industry underneath and around them. It’s a crucial space to watch. I always think of music as Patient Zero in all the disorder that is changing everything in entertainment and media, including, by the way, newspapers. It’s worth paying close attention.

Leeds and Frere-Jones are suggesting here that transparency, aided and abetted through the use of social media, affects the way that music fans “perceive” the artists and the music industry. With its machinations no longer hidden from them, fans interact differently with their favorite musicians. As musical artists use their celebrity to sell products one area where this perception could become dangerous is over-exposure.

In an article in the New York Times, Nothing Sells Like Celebrity, the story of the teenage R&B pop star, Rhianna, her song ‘Umbrella’ and her deal with the umbrella manufacturer, Totes Isotoner, is typical of the arrangements made between a celebrity’s brand and a product these days:

“Rihanna and her representatives wanted Totes to do more, however, than merely use her [song] to peddle a product. They wanted Totes to create customized umbrellas featuring sparkly fabrics and glittery charms on the handles — all recommended by the emerging star and her team. Totes also guaranteed the singer a percentage of the sales of the umbrellas”.

Apparently the arrangement between the star and umbrella company was successful but what does this say about the future of music as an art form? As Leeds says - “I’m not sure that it’s so easy anymore to write about the art without acknowledging the commerce or vice versa.” To paraphrase him - Is Rhianna still the same Rhianna if she’s in an umbrella ad? Do her fans blur the line between seeing her in a video on MTV and then seeing her in a Totes ad?

Sales of hip hop and R&B music have dropped off precipitously lately and many have blamed the over commercialization of the music and its ties to products; too much bling in other words. Does hearing a song repeatedly through an advertisement cheapen the artist and the song? And then in turn, does social media - Facebook, Twitter etc, allow these “little tribes” as Leeds calls them, share the idea that ‘too much exposure is quite enough thanks, we’re moving on to the next artist’…become gospel? I think so. Leeds and Frere-Jones are on to something.

As these all important “little tribes” spin off into tightly-knit social groups online, all of which will independently coalesce around their favorite subjects, be it knitting, hang gliding, musicians, movies, actors et al - the large social media sites and networks will fracture into millions of laser-precise spin-offs. As Frere-Jones says, the words and messages of these “little tribes” become “echoes in the hall of mirrored servers.” As he also says, the web and social media are “creating a multiple-exposure version of memory,” - is that U2 on MTV or U2 in an iPod ad, I may ask myself?

Beware all marketers who intend to try and reach these ever-shifting, nomadic, online groups; as I said in a prior post - the people who are members of these groups don’t exist, only their personas do.

The music industry should be careful too. Music becomes cheapened by being used as a commodity to sell products. The artists behind the music have their celebrity enhanced and they then go on to use their brand to sell more products. Music fans understand that music is now a commodity and refuse to pay for it. The music industry and the artists both complain that no one pays for music and to account for the decline in sales accuse us of stealing it online. The commodity is over-priced; no one is buying it.