Marketing Boost or Selling Out?

1990's: "Is that MC Hammer on a Pepsi commercial? Man, what a sell out."

Flash forward to 2007: "BlackBerry is the official sponsor for John Mayer's Summer Tour? I HEART JOHN MAYER!!"

The music industry is changing so much each week, it can be hard to keep up. What was once thought to be "selling out" to be associated with corporate brands is now becoming an industry standard. Or is it? This past summer, many brands like Bud Light Lime, Converse, and Caress incorporated musical promotions on their websites with exclusives downloads from artists to push their products. Who's next to follow the trend? You favorite sugar-maxed greeninator, Mountain Dew. They seem to be taking a slightly different, yet interesting, approach though.

Mountain Dew recently launched its singles-only label called Green Label Sound, with the first act being Chicago-based rappers The Cool Kids and their single, "Delivery Man." As stated in a Billboard article, Green Label Sound's goal is to take emerging artist artists and plug them into [their] system to help them break through, according to Frank Cooper, Pepsi-Cola North America VP of portfolio brands. "We are not trying to compete with or replicate the models of the traditional labels."

Really? Pepsi owns Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew owns Green Label Sound. I think it's fairly obvious that Pepsi's main focus is to push their product and rake in revenue. That's what they're in the business for! To sell for soft drinks. Anything they say otherwise can't be the whole truth. But with that aside, I do have to say, Mountain Dew is taking steps in the right direction to help emerging artist make it in a struggling industry. 

The Cool Kids are in a really good situation! Although Green Label Sound has exclusive licensing rights for a period of time for "Delivery Man," The Cool Kids, and all artists on the label, will retain their ownership. Also, even though songs are written for Green Label Sound, they are not about Mountain Dew at all. The coolest bit of incentive is that Green Label Sound artists have access to to Mountain Dew's extensive promotion network, according to Billboard, like street teams, MTV2 time and radio ad time. 

I think Pepsi can see that the only way to attract new artists to become part of a legit brand promotion contract is to actually cater to the artist. In the past, contracts like this may have screwed over artists in favor to boost sales for the brand. What am I saying? It still happens to this day. But Mountain Dew's new Green Label Sound seems to be more legit to indie artists and I think it will definitely help start up some really cool acts in the future. 

So, are they selling out? Nah, I don't think so. In today's industry, to be successful, you have to create new ways to ways to get your music to people's ears, whether it be Youtube, radio, or Mountain Dew commercials. There's a difference between finding new ways to get your music out there and changing your message because someone else owns you. 

Authenticity is becoming the new business model.