Saturday, February 4th, 2012
Ever since Busta Rhymes decided to ‘Pass The Courvoisier’ and sales of Courvoisier jumped sharply, brands have been paying attention to the business of music. But it’s not the brands mentioned within the music that seem to matter, but the brands creating the selling opportunity that are making the difference.
None seem to have done this better than The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) and Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX).
Disney via their network of Radio Disney, television, theme parks and retail, are able to completely bypass traditional radio airplay or MTV and create massive profits and Starbucks via their new label and locations throughout the globe have created an alternative to the digital download monopoly.
The top-selling album of last year, with 9 tracks on the Billboard Hot 100 was ‘High School Musical’ – straight from Walt Disney Records. Just shy of 4 million units and ‘High School Musical 2′ hitting stores on August 14th, the Walt Disney massive branding effort has turned HSM into a complete franchise which Billboard reports is expected to account for $100 million in operating revenue.
Disney is also in command with the ‘Hannah Montana’ Volume 2 soundtrack with 642,000 units sold since July and this is also without a mainstream hit single at radio or MTV.
Next up for Disney is the debut album of the Jonas Brothers on Hollywood Records. Jonas Brothers were part of the ‘Radio Disney Incubator’, which promotes lesser known artists via the network of radio stations via airplay and interviews. Other artists worth mentioning include B5, Emma Roberts (Nancy Drew) and DaHv.
Worth mentioning – young DaHv’s new song (just received today) called ‘Suburbia/Disturbia’ with a well-worded placement for Starbucks.
