Musicians and brands have a lot in common. At WORLDZ on Thursday, alongside the dance duo Krewella and their esteemed manager, Jake Udell, Nue lead a master class on what brands can learn from musicians. We discussed the artist “roadmap,” how to achieve market share, and the ways in which these ideas converge around the traditional business cycle and brand growth. We call it the “Rockstar Business Plan.”The Rockstar Business plan consists of:1) Product - Whether it's a great track or a gorgeous piece of merch, everything starts with a solid product that delivers against its promises, is beautifully packaged, and is highly marketable.2) Vision & Personality - Aside from having raw talent that can be marketed, you need someone who has a clear vision of where they want to end up, who understands how their identity and personality can develop over time, and who is genuinely in touch with the purpose of their product.3) Team - Who you surround yourself with is a difference maker in terms of degrees of success. Identify what you don't know and what you’re not good at, and find people who can not only fill those voids but who have done so in the past and can apply their experience to your project or product.4) Audience - Maybe you have three friends that show up to every show, or 100 fans that watch every video you post online. You have to pinpoint who else can be targeted and interact with them to bring more people into the fold.5) Distribution - Once you have a scalable audience, you need distribution. You start with what I call “smart exposure”: getting your art in front of the right people, on the right playlists and channels.6) Partnerships - Once you have distribution in the bag, you can align yourself with the best partners to open up doors to new audiences and crossover opportunities. Be strategic. Be ambitious. Always deliver.7) Global - You want to be global in this day in age, but it takes time. Once you've locked down your market, you can start to expand, to think globally, and lay down broader markers for success.At the event, everyone had the opportunity to display their knowledge as we broke into groups with an activity called Matcha Fizz (also a delicious cocktail, by the way).Back in New York, it’s a new week with Fast Company's Innovation in town and Halloween activities ramping up. I’m going as the festival highlight of my summer: David Byrne.
BEATS
What The Music Industry Can Learn from Chef’s TableThe importance of competing on innovation ecosystems, not just on finished products. (Cherie Hu – Medium)
Splice Payouts to Artists Hit $10 Million, Acquires Capsun ProAudio and Sample MagicThe company announced today that since the inception of Splice Sounds in 2015, it has paid $10 million in royalties to music creators who distribute their sounds through the sample service. According to Splice, the figure represents a doubling in revenue paid out to artists by Splice in less than a year. (David Weiss – Sonic Scoop)
Why Spotify's RapCaviar Playlist Should Spinoff The most powerful playlist in music would be better off as a standalone company that still collaborates with Spotify. (Dan Runcie – Trapical)
Richard Branson Is Launching a New U.S. Music Festival in 2019Now Branson, alongside Virgin Produced CEO Jason Felts and KAABOO music festival founder Bryan Gordon, will attempt to disrupt the festival industry with Virgin Fest, a music festival set to launch in the U.S. in late 2019 that he announced after the unveiling of his Hollywood Walk of Fame star October 16th. (Jason Newman – Rollingstone)
3LAU on the World’s First Crypto Music Fest, Featuring Zedd and Big SeanFrom Coachella on down to the Gathering of the Juggalos, there are now far too many music festivals to count. Amid this glut-a-palooza comes a brand-new entry, Our Music Festival, taking place October 20 at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre and featuring Zedd, Big Sean, Matt and Kim, and Charlotte Lawrence. But OMF is different from your Bonnaroos and your Electric Daisy Carnivals in one key way: It’s the first-ever blockchain-powered music festival. The event has its own cryptocurrency, a token also called OMF, which for now can be used to buy merchandise. (Mark Yarm – Breaker Magazine)
Conversations with five cultural influencers and corporate executives who'll be attending WORLDZ 2018. (FlOOD Magazine)
Art of a Manager: Music Brand SponsorshipsEarlier today I had the pleasure of speaking at WORLDZ with Krewella and Jesse K from NUE on what it takes to create a rockstar business plan. (Jake Udell – Art of a Manager)
Taylor Swift is Smart Enough to Not Let Her Shows Sell OutIf a popular artist sells out their show, they have likely made a big mistake. Although sold out concerts sound good and are often used to assess the success of an event, they are mostly just a sign that prices were set too low. The winner is not the artist or the fans, but scalpers and ticket resale companies like StubHub. (Dan Kopf – Quartzy)
The Evolution of Tour MerchAs Billboard struggles to keep up with increasingly complex marketing strategies, it’s worth asking: when did merch drops become so controversial, and are the industry’s biggest players using it to game the system? (Jake Hall – Highsnobiety)
Much-loved Music Player of The 2000s, Winamp, is Getting a Refresh Next Year Winamp, the legendary music player which was a staple of early 2000s computers, is getting a refresh for the streaming era. It'll become an audio app which brings together music, podcasts and streaming in one place. (Johnny Lieu)
BYTES
Arianna Huffington sits down with Apple Music's Head of Content, Larry Jackson, to talk about everything from the life lesson he learned from Whitney Houston’s struggles and why he thinks creating boundaries is crucial for success.
Lil Wayne talks about business; his ties to Birdman and Young Money; being uplifted to continue pursuing rap; meeting Drake and Nicki for the first time; and fatherhood.
Infltr is the only App that let you edit anything: Photos, Videos, Live Photos, Depth Photos, Animated Gifs & Moments.
There’s a lot of hype around Dominic Fike, and for good reason. The artist from Naples, Florida has just released his debut EP titled Don’t Forget About Me, Demos this week, but major labels were trying to sign him even before it dropped. Eventually signing a reported multi-million dollar deal with Columbia Records, we now have a six-track, 14-minute release that shows us what he’s all about. You’ll be seeing and hearing even more of him soon, that’s for sure.
This week's newsletter was carefully curated by the Nue Agency staff and our editor Maria Tejada If you think we missed something this week or have any suggestions/comments for next week's newsletter, let us know!