Bonjourno from Cannes Lions.This week is the Cannes Lions Festival. The most glamours gathering of advertisers I have ever attended. This is my first time here and it’s been off to a fantastic start. We started the trip yachting through the south of France over the past few days, exploring both Monte Carlo and St. Tropez. The magic of this trip so far has been the serendipity and conversations. On Saturday night, in a small town outside of St Tropez, we went to a small photo gallery show opening by a one of a kind lady named Pattie Boyd. Pattie was married for over a decade to both George Harrison from the Beatles & Eric Clapton. In fact “Leyla” is written about her! She walked me & and a small group of friends through her personal stories of her beautiful pictures, like when she went to India with The Beatles as they studied with Maharashi and changed the sound of popular music at the time.Now that the weekend is over and Cannes Lions has officially kicked off, the deal-making is heating up. It’s exciting to be in this mix, learning, listening and stoking the fire to help people better understand how they too can leverage culture & music to create more meaningful connections with their consumers and help their companies cut through the noise and stand out. I know music makes every situation better and I know music is one of the most undervalued marketing commodities in the world. That’s an arbitrage opportunity for savvy marketers that want a competitive edge. Meaningful conversation after meaningful conversation, I’m helping everyone I speak to realize that too.My favorite part of this trip so far is that everyone is here to network, announce deals & solve problems. It’s the impromptu, out of the box jam sessions at all hours that are happening at stunning venues across the city that are aiming to help all of us forge forward as both marketers and people. The overarching shared goal is “let’s figure out how we can take things to new heights”.Anyway, I feel lucky to be here. It was a last minute invite with a special crew of friends & colleagues so I’ve had to adjust my normal power packed NYC agenda and more go with the flow. I’m figuring the ins and outs as a I go but one thing that I’m certain of is that Cannes Lions is on a whole other level than any other marketing festival in terms of global clout.One more day and night in town before I jet back. Let’s see what we can create out of it.
BEATS
Riding the Nue WaveAn interview with musical tastemakers & Nue Agency founders Alex & Jesse Kirshbaum. (Genevieve Kim – Medium)
How Viacom Uses Artificial Intelligence to Predict the Success of Its Social CampaignsOver the past year, a seven-person data science team in Viacom’s ad sales group has been building a pipeline to collect near-real time information about how its social media posts perform. This way, the entertainment giant can predict how many social posts it will need to reach audience goals and what kinds of posts to use in each campaign. (Max Willens – DigiDay)
Snapchat Introduces Shoppable Snap Ads, Amping Up Its Ecommerce OfferingsUsers can access a website without leaving the app. (Ann-Marie Alcántara – AdWeek)
Young Entrepreneurs Share Their Blueprint for Music Innovation at IMS Ibiza: ExclusiveWhere do new, young entrants into the music business see the ripest opportunities for disruption and structural change? How might they be building these new opportunities from scratch already -- and how can the rest of the industry catch up? (Cherie Hu – Billboard)
The SoundCloud x Noisey Singles initiative builds on the First on SoundCloud campaign the streaming service launched in March and will select monthly tracks to launch exclusively on the SoundCloud and Noisey platforms. The song premieres will be followed by featured placement on SoundCloud playlists, editorial coverage on Noisey, listening parties, the creation of original video content -- including music videos and interviews -- and other media support by the brands. (Lilly Milman – Billboard)
Primary Wave Launches Its Own Streaming-focused Record Label, Cure8 US-based Primary Wave, best known as a well-funded music publisher, has entered the world of recorded music.The company has launched a new, digital-only label called Cure8 specifically to release cover song compilation albums. (MBW)
Botletter is Facebook Messenger Marketing and You Should Add it to Your Toolbox for Communicating with Your FansBotletter is a new online marketing tool that has really got me excited. I see so many tools and apps, but few of them really get me excited… this one did! Botletter is a bot for Messenger on your Facebook Page. In simple English what does that mean? Think of Botletter as a email for Facebook Messenger. Your fans on Facebook can now subscribe to your Page’s Messenger account, just like subscribing to a email list. (Michael Brandvold – Michael Brandvold Marketing)
The End of Owning Music: How CDs and Downloads DiedAs streaming gives the music industry its biggest profits in a decade, the CD business continues to plunge. CD sales have fallen 80 percent in the past decade, from roughly 450 million to 89 million. (Steve Knopper – Rollingstone)
Pandora Teams With Snapchat for Easier Song DiscoveryPandora users will soon be able to share their favorite songs with friends on Snapchat, thanks to a new integrated partnership between the two apps. In the coming weeks, Pandora listeners can begin utilizing a 'Share on Snapchat' option while listening to tracks via animated song cards. (Billboard)
Apple is Starting a Music Publishing Business. Huh? Last week, Apple Music announced it was setting up a global music publishing division, raising eyebrows in the music world, with industry insiders wondering what the move meant. (Talib Visram – CNN)
Haim Fires Booking Agent After Being Paid 10X Less Than Male Artists LA pop rockers Haim say that they fired their booking agent after learning that they were paid 10 times less than a similar male artist performing at the same music festival. The sisters did not name the artist or the festival. (Hypebot)
As Market Cheers Spotify's Direct Deals With Artists and Managers, Labels Mull Their OptionsOver the past year, sources say, Spotify has been offering to pay a number of artist-management firms several-hundred-thousand-dollar advances in exchange for licensing their acts' music directly to its streaming services. These deals cut out record labels and independent distributors, yielding more revenue per stream for Spotify, the musicians and their managers. Since Billboard reported the terms of some of these offers on June 6, Spotify's stock has climbed more than 8 percent, to about $178 per share, as of its June 14 close. (Hannah Karp – Billboard)
BYTES
On this episode Roman sits down with Joey Papoutsis, manager of acts like Louis the Child, Whethan, and YehMe2. We get in to the ins and outs of artist management, especially on the business side of things; the types of resources that a major label deal can offer, and how his law degree has paid off in his music career.
Surprise! Beyoncé and Jay Z, aka The Carters, just dropped their first-ever joint album, Everything Is Love. The couple, currently on their On the Run II tour, made the announcement on stage at their London stop. They not only debuted a nine-track effort, but also a new music video for "Apeshit." In it, the couple and their all-Black cast of dancers take over the Louvre in Paris because, OF COURSE they can do that.
Blockparty, a US startup looking to bring blockchain technology to event ticketing, has launched its new platform now available for download in the Apple App Store.
After a Queensbridge listening party and cover art/tracklist reveal, Nas‘ Kanye West-produced Nasir album is now available to stream. The highly-anticipated seven-track LP is Nas’ 11th studio album.
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!