Can you say ‘product placement’?
p2pnet view P2P | Advertising:- Can you say ‘product placement’. About 310 times?
Those were the 5th and 6th lines in a p2pnet post on a Lady Gaga video which managed to feature that number of products in one shot.
But she’s got nothing on Apple which manages to have its glowing Mac logo front and centre in an infuriating number of movies.
And Apple, in turn, apparently has nothing on Adam Kluger who’s “built a boutique product-placement agency that’s become a cash conduit for the revenue-needy music business”, says Bloomberg Businessweek.
Revenue-needy music bidniz? That’s what it says.
The piece begins >>>
Adam Kluger is in a hurry and this Ford Explorer won’t get out of the way of his Bentley. He’s driving north from Miami to a music video shoot in Fort Lauderdale featuring both his new recording artist and his corporate client. It’s 3 p.m. The shoot doesn’t start until after 4, but still.
Kluger muscles his black coupé almost on top of the SUV’s rear bumper. “The music industry’s very laid back while I’m very, very aggressive,” he says, clutching the wheel and his BlackBerry (RIMM) in a two-handed grip that lets him type and tailgate. He’s 24, short, lean, and talks as fast as he’s trying to drive. “I just need to get stuff done immediately.”
In the past two years, Kluger has built a boutique agency that’s become a conduit between the revenue-needy music business and a growing source of cash: consumer brands. Those who have seen the parade of products in Lady Gaga’s Telephone video have gotten a taste of The Kluger Agency’s work. With a check and Kluger’s help, products end up in music videos, lyrics, even song titles.
Kluger’s newest project is managing a pop singer, an aspiring teen idol named JRandall (right). To build buzz, Kluger hired Grammy-winning singer T-Pain to appear in JRandall’s video and sing a verse for the song, a dance track called Can’t Sleep. Kluger’s funding the music and video production both by the traditional method (with JRandall’s label, Poe Boy Music Group) and with money from Zoosk, a dating website and one of his agency’s clients.
And it ends >>>
Kluger says he’ll reach $5 million in revenue this year. In March he secured an investment from Hadley Capital, a private equity firm in Wilmette, Ill. He used the funds to hire a four-person sales staff and lease a 3,000-square-foot office in downtown Miami. Then he got himself an Aston Martin Vantage convertible.
On the set of the Can’t Sleep video, Kluger paces as JRandall puts on his first costume, a sexy fireman’s outfit. Like pop star Justin Bieber, Kluger’s 23-year-old talent has dreamy hair and elfin good looks. But the lyrics of JRandall, who played a lifeguard last summer on a late-night cable series called Beach Heat: Miami, are more overtly sexual than Bieber’s. Kluger hopes teenyboppers “hop on the J Train” as they get older, he says.
The shoot is inside the Sawgrass Mills mall near Ft. Lauderdale at a kid-friendly attraction called Wannado City, complete with a mini-courthouse, carnival, fire truck, and a building that looks like it is on fire. The concept of the Can’t Sleep video is an homage to Little Monsters, the 1989 comedy in which a monster under the bed befriends a little boy. In this version, JRandall befriends a girl—who’s up late surfing zoosk.com—and whisks her away to an underworld, played by Wannado City and a lot of smoke machines. According to Kluger, Zoosk paid “in the mid- to high six figures” to appear in the lyrics and video for Can’t Sleep, and one other JRandall song, Oo La La. (Zoosk declined to comment.)
The Zoosk fee more than covers the production costs for both videos, and Kluger is lining up other brands, too. He tells JRandall that a prospective sponsor for the Oo La La video will be on hand.
“It’s a cream liquor,” says Kluger.
Randall stops picking through a tableful of sunglasses. “Cream liquor? But I’m allergic to dairy.”
“It doesn’t matter, you’ll love it!” Kluger replies.
Between takes, Kluger pumps his fist and yells “I’m Zooskin’ For Love!” (a line in the song). Just as the burning-building scene wraps, Prince gets a message on his phone. T-Pain has arrived.
Stars such as T-Pain, who’s had nine songs on Billboard’s Hot 100, are a core part of Kluger and Prince’s marketing strategy. The addition of T-Pain’s trademark auto-tuned voice (he sounds like a singing robot) will ensure that JRandall’s single gets lots of radio play and YouTube views. (The other single, Oo La La, has a guest appearance by another star, Akon.) Kluger and Prince managed to get T-Pain because Flo Rida had worked with him before, and Kluger arranged a placement deal for one of T-Pain’s budding artists. To seal the deal, says Kluger, “E-Class bought him a watch.”
As T-Pain, wearing a tracksuit and a necklace bearing a ruby-and-diamond-encrusted Kool-Aid Man, gets ready for his close-up, Kluger turns his attention behind the camera. Chris Hansen, one of his salespeople, has brought in the prospect from Cream, the “cream liquor” (actually a 30-proof whipped cream). Hansen is telling the Cream guy, who looks starstruck, “You can get the big star for the up-and-coming-artist price!” It’s a good pitch. And it seems to work. “There’s no better way to get your brand out there,” the prospect says, staring at T-Pain.
Kluger breaks into a grin.
And that’s music today.
Product, anyone?
in one shot – Lady Gaga in jail, March 14, 2010
infuriating number of movies – Is Apple cashing in on the Afghan War Diary?, July 27, 2010
Bloomberg Businessweek – He Puts the Soda in Pop Songs, December 2, 2010
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan
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December 31st, 2010 at 5:20 pm
That’s a nice scarf he’s wearing.
Do I really need to say what every red-blooded male is thinking?