In just two years, US owned Monster Energy has made a big impact on the UK market. Driven by ex Red Bull marketer Guy Carling, the brand is taking on all comers in this bitterly competitive sector, fighting the hearts and minds of the 18 – 40 year old men.

Of the ‘big three’, Monster is certainly the most aggressive in terms of imagery, endorsements and brand ambassadors. From the ‘M-claw’ logo to the ‘Loading Crap’ status bar on the US brand home page, Monster exudes a no-hold barred approach.

It’s main point of difference in brand behavior is it’s embrace of the extreme. From it’s embrace of the hard rock/ metal counter culture, the Monster Girls (‘Wild, Boisterous, Rebellious & Scandalous …changing their lifestyle to live the Monster brand – they dance, drink & party till dawn’), the obligatory extreme sports sponsorships and artist promotional partnerships. Monster has carved out a niche for itself that neither Red Bull nor Coca Cola owned Relentless could occupy. Monster is striving to build through grass roots credibility and acceptance from these niche cultural communities. And it seems to be working. Over 1 million fans on Facebook, versus Red Bull at 2.5 million (and that’s just the Red Bull brand site – there are seemingly hundreds of other project/ country sites with healthy communities) and Relentless at a measly 14,000 Facebook fans.

Monster is clearly pitching itself as the energy drink that identifies with the communities who live sports, music and everyday life to the extreme. This is encapsulated in the ‘Monster Army’ – a grass roots recruiting ground for budding extreme sports ‘Soldiers’ and brand advocates, giving them closer access to the brand and the chance to get recognized (and possibly sponsored) by the brand ‘Generals’. A very neat, motivating access point for the brand that works on many different levels.

Whilst activity in the motorsports and extreme sports worlds is focused on branded events and athlete endorsements, Monster is a brand that really comes into it’s own in music arena – particularly the live market.

For example, we loved the Monster Army Camp installation at Sonisphere UK in 2009. Activity featuring the Ball Of Steel Stunt Show, a high energy performance featuring three motorcycle riders free styling inside a 14ft steel globe set to the Monster Sound System. By night, the stunt area was transformed into a outdoor club surrounded by tanks. The set proved a welcome addition to the fabric of the festival to the thousands of revellers who were still partying under the watchtowers at 3am. We’re looking forward to seeing what experiential work the brand develops on the 2010 festival circuit.

Tactical music partnerships with major artists such as Slash and Linkin Park are the promotional cornerstone to the brand music activity with low level support also being offered in territory to artists such as the UK’s Glamour of the Kill.

Monster is has also made tentative moves into larger, global sports sponsorships – such as the branding on F1 World Champion Jenson Button’s helmet in his winning season. But this activity, although playing to a global audience outside the US – doesn’t feel right to us.

Monster is capitalising on it’s position as challenger brand, occupying the counter culture space. The key to growth is retaining it’s edginess and applying it to other sports or cultural movements. It can generate more traction and cut through if it moves beyond the cluttered extreme sports market and seeks out new creative territory to apply it’s extreme formula. It should never leave extreme sports – just not rely on it too much to tell it’s story to a challenging audience.

This week sees the start of launch of the new Marmite brand campaign. We are big fans of of emotional branding and over the past decade Marmite has become a leader in ‘brand entertainment’ – amusing consumers in innovative and challenging ways.

The British yeast extract is over 100 years old and is a British cultural icon. Introduced over 100 years ago, the formula and packaging of the basic spread product has remained largely unchanged.

Successive product campaigns have attempted to stretch and extend the brand into other categories, some more successfully than others. Marmite co branded stock cubes, breadsticks, rice cakes, cheeses – and earlier this year, cereal bars have all been launched but none coming near to the core product’s enduring success.

Once marketed on it’s health giving properties (“Good for you”) in the war years, promotion of the brand has seen some memorable campaigns. The 1980’s relaunch as “My mate – Marmite” was particularly successful.

But it wasn’t until owner Unilever took the bold move of addressing the extreme emotional reactions that such a strong tasting product elicits from consumers, that their brand campaigns started to generate real impact.

The ‘Love it or hate it’ campaigns, focussing in its divisive product truth have evolved over the past decade delivering some memorable campaigns

Marmite has always been a brand to leverage new marketing media and it’s a natural step for the brand to be playing in social media. Indeed given the emotions the brand stirs up it make it perfect for Facebook, corralling the fiercely loyal and anti-Marmite communities together.

It’ll be fascinating to watch how this latest multi channel brand campaign develops. Marmite is the first brand out of the blocks to piggyback on the forthcoming general election campaign with it’s ‘Parallel Election’. The campaign takes the Love/Hate creative one step further with a call to action for consumers to vote for one of two spoof candidates – Fay Freely for The Love Party (‘Spread the Love’) or Steve Heaving running for the Hate Party (‘Stop the Spread’). See the campaign website here

What makes the campaign truly engaging is the lengths the brand goes to lampoon it’s own product in the guise of the Hate Party which promises in the event of victory to create a Spread Offenders List, designated Marmite eating zones and even renaming the product ‘Tarmite’.

What is a shame and threatens to ruin the whole campaign is that fact that The Hate Party has only 8 fans on Facebook at the time of writing – and the Love Party has over 260,000. More than a little suspicious and suggests more than a little vote rigging – those engaged with the campaign to vote either way will naturally check out voting on both sides. There could be trouble ahead… The ATL campaign proper kicks off over the next few days. We’ll be keeping an eye out to see how it develops towards it’s closing date of 29th April and how they generate traditional PR and leverage brand advocates – and detractors using social media – clearly crucial components of the campaign.

By the way – I’ve just voted for the Hate Party. Just to even things out a little…

Since launching in 2006, Relentless has taken looked to differentiate itself within youth culture by creating an edgy brand persona. In what must be a culturally challenging exercise for the Coca Cola Company – especially their brand and legal teams, the marketing of Relentless has meant immersing the brand in the action sports, punk rock and motor sports worlds.

The brand’s strap line ‘No Half Measures’ plays to the 500ml serving size as well as it’s ‘no compromise’ attitude. Packaging is dark and the Relentless logo suggestive of tattoo art, setting the product aside from other offers on the shelf. Cans also feature a work by poets such as Lord Byron.

Indeed art and dark imagery is central to the brand’s appeal. It seeks to align itself with creativity, achievement and unswerving attitude by celebrating those in search of fulfillment in life – those who go ‘above and beyond’ in their chosen fields – both past and present. They call it ‘Artistry’. This positioning allows the brand to explore some interesting subjects, typified in the latest music-flavoured issue of the brand’s communications vehicle ‘This is the Order’.

A graphic art depiction of the life if Paganini, a piece on perennial innovators Warp Records, beautifully shot images of motocross riders and a rare interview with David Byrne are all packaged in a ultra high end style magazine format. It’s a fabulous exercise in premium positioning, accompanied by the website for the brands community/ self curated sub culture – known as ‘The Order’

Central to the brand’s communication campaign over recent months has been the remarkable feature length documentary ‘Lives of the Artists’. Shot in locations around the world, this beautiful piece of advertiser funded programming is a case study in branded content. This sort of creative work is the envy of communications agencies everywhere – we highly recommend setting aside an hour or so to check it out. Or you may have already caught it on Channel 4 in the UK.

Elsewhere the ongoing brand campaign runs along fairly familiar territory for soft drinks brands. The brand gets experiential with the sponsorship of alternative music and extreme sports events like the Kerrang! tour, Nass, London Freeze, Boardmasters, LoveBox and Wakestock.  Sports sponsorships are pitched at the enthusiast’s end of the market with teams and drivers in motocross, BTCC, Formula Palmer Audi. Athlete endorsement in surfing, snowboarding & BMX is also a key campaign element.

Rather more creative is the brands ongoing series of events at the London Garage  - Energy Sessions – featuring an eclectic mix of artists and performance art featuring punk/ hardcore, experimental classical and electro funk sets from emerging talent demonstrating their ‘Artistry’.

As you’d expect, the brand has been very active in social media building a consumer base of over 30,000 fans across 5 Facebook communities. Surprisingly the brand has a disappointing 600 followers on Twitter. With Red Bull on 34,000 followers and Monster Energy on over 18,000, the brand has a way to go in utlising microblogging in communications. Relentless also supports it’s music positioning with a Relentless Energy Music on MySpace.

PR activity has been understandably focussed on niche media channels in music, extreme sports and motor sports. Editorial features such as ‘The best ever encores’ have been placed to highlight the launch of the Relentless Energy Shot variant along with the standard supporting campaigns for event activity.

Many brands would kill to have the kind of marketing spend and distribution afforded by such a parent brand- and it’s no surprise that their marketing activity is so eye catching. However we at Boom! love the positioning and the execution of the work. Now Red Bull is becoming a truly mainstream brand, there are even more opportunities for Relentless to push the envelope even further to create what they so clearly crave – to become the credible challenger brand of choice in the youth market. With the category filling up with competition, there is a need to stand out more than ever.

We think more innovative and PR- worthy brand-created concepts – as opposed to existing event sponsorships – would help the brand build it’s audience and further differentiate itself from the competition.

The agency in question deserve huge kudos for pulling off a hugely challenging concept so deftly. The client has taken a huge leap of faith in their agency. No only was a it a great creative – executed perfectly, but also a great example of a trusted advisor relationship. Together they have set a benchmark for the modern PR stunt and when the awards come around we will no doubt see them both receiving their gongs at Cannes and elsewhere. And deservedly so.

This is the kind of work that will undoubtably inspire agencies to proposed braver, more challenging ideas to clients in the coming weeks and months. Like the PR world’s Sgt Pepper.

Here’s to Heineken, their Heineken Real Madrid vs AC Milan stunt agency and a new level of communications creativity.

And so it came to pass. The latest video – or short film – promoting saviour of the music industry’s new single ‘Telephone’ is a case study in brand and music partnership. There are 10 brands featured in the nine minute clip that further showcases Gaga’s modus operandi – to shock, provoke and challenges conventional and conservative opinion. There’s nothing new about her approach to the medium. The ‘Telephone’ promo’s airing is reminiscent of past Madonna, Michael Jackson & The Prodigy clips that became global music events in their own right. What does mark a watershed moment for brand and artist partnerships is the ease and relevance in which enfant terrible Jonas Ackerlund weaves the brands into the storyline. Rather than a product being clumsily shoehorned into the clip, the video shamelessly boasts the commercial nature of the number and scale of the multiple brand partnerships. And it works. Some are the product of existing deals such as Polaroid and Virgin Mobile, whilst other appear to be the result of bespoke deals for the promo. As the clip was always optimised for online viewing, there are no broadcast/ brand regulations to worry about. And the fact that the video has been viewed nearly 20 million times in just one week demonstrates the success of the strategy for all concerned – not least the Lady Gaga brand.

This brand fest, whilst more overstated than many current and forthcoming agreements, is indicative of the fact that the majority of artists have largely got over the ‘selling out’ notion that had previously been associated with brand associations. More and more artists are looking for alternative routes to market and are using a combination of new methods including brand support to help them gain more independent status. Many artists are looking to brands to throw them a financial lifeline as the reality of the new music industry hits home.

We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for more great examples of branded entertainment and sharing them here…

So, what’s the Mark Fuller story?

“I’ve asked myself that several times. It kinda happened by default. I was involved in still photography – working with Lord Snowdon – and I came across the Rt Hon Andrew MacPherson, the son of Lord Strathcarron. He introduced me to a rock band who wanted some clean, honest management. Clearly I was far too clean and far too honest as I was an utter disaster – I lost a fortune! I got taken loads of places with these guys who were quite influential on the London scene and I ended up running restaurants and bars when the music career went out of the window. I felt a little bit weird about this to begin with – a bit like a fish out of water. But I soon found that people liked me.”

When did you realise that becoming a restaurateur, club owner and anchor point for the London social scene – was your calling?

“I used to have the Boardwalk and a place called Little Havana and soon the media began calling me Mr Soho. At that point I realised that although I was a man who opened bottles and served plates of food – there is some sort of importance attached to that position. My stepfather, Reg, used to adore various Maitre D’s and waiters. And you realise how important these people are – people like to go out and drink and eat and it’s these professionals that make people want to feel like a celebrity. Make them feel famous. And that’s what I discovered was the key to this business – to make the customer feel like a celebrity.”

During our conversation, Fuller returned to the importance of service again and again – this clearly being his guiding principle in business. At this point in our interview, a renowned Hollywood film director joined us, having clearly enjoyed slightly more of Mr Fuller’s hospitality than he perhaps should have the previous night. When asked how he was going to spend the next couple of days – he mentioned in passing how much he would like to visit a particular house in Scotland. Within ten minutes Fuller had ensured that Sanctum’s concierge had ordered a private plane and made all the arrangements to take him to Scotland to see Alastair Crowley’s paintings in Jimmy Page’s old house on the banks of Loch Ness. He was picking up Carl Barat and Nicholas Cage on the way. Such excesses and flights of fancy are second nature for Fuller who takes pride in providing his customers with personal service.

This attention to service began with Fuller’s template for the original Embassy Club – ‘Fouberts’, a run down 1930’s haunt in Carnaby Street.

“I remember this couple used to come in regularly and order the cheapest burger on the menu. They used to a glass of tap water with it. My staff used to wonder why I used to make such a fuss of such a boring old couple who spent the minimum they could. And I said ‘they come every week and they put £7 in my pocket – they’re very pleasant – why not?’ And funnily enough one day those guys won the lottery! They came in and filled the whole restaurant up with friends and family because he remembered how kind I had been. I think that’s important.”

Fuller’s early success with The Embassy club and The Boardwalk was eclipsed by his connection with Marco Pierre White when they opened Sugar Reef in Piccadilly and White took over the food offer at Little Havana – another of Fuller’s clubs. This propelled Fuller into the world of A-list celebrity.

“That was my very first skirmish I had with celebrity. Neil Redding (celebrity and club PR) did a great job on the club. We pitched myself up against Conran’s Quaglino and won, we had a couple of celebrity parties, a BBC documentary about the building of it and we were away. After the documentary I remember that celebs attitudes towards me changed. Whereas once I used to greet the likes of Martine McCutcheon and the Beckhams and show them to their tables, now they were asking me to sit with them. I saw my takings roll and joined the treadmill of celebrity.”

Since then, Fuller’s profile has soared thanks to “6 or 7 documentaries about me plus the bit parts I have in other shows. Including repeats they number in their hundreds.” Indeed the BBC 1‘s recent ‘Rock n Roll Hotel’ show charting the building of the Sanctum Soho has ensured Fuller gains as many column inches as his guests.

“I consider myself someone who pours drinks for a living – I find it extraordinary that people recognise me and want to have their pictures taken with me. Having been close to celebrity for so long I find it extraordinary to be called one. I just did a photo shoot for OK magazine for the centre pages. They told me it felt like I should have been in there years ago because from Beckham to Spice Girls to Jimmy Page to Iron Maiden – I know everybody and everybody appears to know me.

Its a vacuous, shallow trip through the West End. What I have found is that as soon as you get into the celebrity life you can’t afford to leave those pages. Otherwise you’re finished. When you start getting into celebrity circles you start to become connected in life with other famous people”

So PR is clearly incredibly important for Fuller – what agencies does he use?

“We use Sean O’Brien for TV and also Roche PR. We also do some PR in house. Matthew Freud once said to me ‘You change your PR like you change your underpants’ . I beleive good PR is about depth of contacts and I have a very good contact book myself.”

Fuller sees the paparazzi as “a necessary evil. I don’t want them in the hotel but I need them outside the Embassy Club. Press will call me about gossip for the Embassy Club and I will never reveal what goes on inside there. Although if a couple come out of there and the press want to know if they have been snogging…you know what – someone is going to tell them…. However – the Sanctum is off limits.”

Fuller’s business interests have expanded into events with Sanctum Special Events handling the VIP bars Download, Hyde Park, Lovebox, T in the Park, Sonisphere, Glastonbury, Reading, Leeds, V, Wakestock, Latitude and Isle of Wight festivals. His partnerships with Iron Maiden’s managers, Andy Taylor and Rod Smallwood has also seen him open Embassy Dubai and take over Notting Hill’s legendary seafood restaurant Geales. What is there left to achieve for Fuller?

“I love to work and I love to party. My ultimate ambition is to achieve satisfaction. I want to achieve the ultimate hotel – to leave a building behind when I’m gone. I think I’ve done that with Sanctum.”

Stuart Galbraith is arguably the most influential rock promoter in the UK and he now has his sights set on Europe. Following his acrimonious departure from the world’s biggest concert promoters Live Nation in 2007 he has created a new promotion company, Kilimanjaro, and has the backing of another corporate concert player, AEG.

Galbraith has specialised in the heavier end of the rock market, cutting his teeth at MCP with the Monsters of Rock mega gigs in the 80’s and 90’s and creating it’s festival successor Download at Donington Park. He also has considerable credentials in the more mainstream end of music promotion too, having created Wireless festival for O2 and producing Live 8 in London’s Hyde Park as well as the legendary Robbie Williams and Oasis shows at Knebworth – the home of his latest outdoor touring extravaganza, Sonisphere.

For the uninitiated, Sonisphere is a touring rock festival, headlined by superstar artists supported by artists from all persuasions of the rock market – from the extreme to the mainstream. The variety of the bill was highlighted by Metallica, Linkin Park and Bjorn Again’s performances at this year’s debut show at Knebworth in front of over 40,000 devotees.

“The concept of Sonisphere is nothing new. It’s a reiteration of events that have happened previously – Sonisphere takes the best attributes of them. For example, there’s been a touring rock festival before – it was called Ozzfest, but it only ever toured in the US. There has been a contemporary touring festival in the US – Lollapalooza but it never played in Europe. What we were looking to do was take the inspiration of the US model and combine that with over 25 years of experience of running festivals here in the UK and Europe.”

Conventional wisdom dictates that establishing a new festival on the British summer circuit takes 3 years. The first to introduce the brand. The second to reinforce and amplify. The third to reap the rewards and hopefully negate the losses of years 1 and 2. Presumably that’s where AEG’s backing for Kilimanjaro comes in.

“What we have done is taken the Sonisphere brand and bring it into markets in Europe where we felt there was an opportunity for a new rock product and in some cases take it into a competitive market. So, for example we have come into the UK marketplace which is busy – there’s Reading, Leeds, Download, Bloodstock. Does the UK need another rock festival? Probably not. Certainly not as much as Finland needed a rock festival. What we have been able to to is use Finland, Spain and Germany to support the finance of coming into the UK and effectively created a cross collateralized financial model that works as a tour. Each one of the shows wouldn’t happen in isolation but 6 events together made sense.”

“When we launched Sonisphere it was just a made up word – it doesn’t mean anything. Our ambition this year with was to establish the brand and make Sonisphere a recognized term in the rock community’s vocabulary in exactly the way we did with Download. I think we have achieved that.”

So with so much at stake – especially considering the inflated fees superstar artists can command in the new music landscape of 2009 and the not inconsiderable matter of  sterling’s weakness against the dollar on a bill of predominantly Stateside talent – establishing a strong brand from day one is crucial. What does it take to create a successful brand in live rock music? And…why the rock genre?

“The reason I like working in rock particularly is the customer. I’ve worked with them for about 3 decades. The rock customer has an enormous amount of loyalty, an enormous amount of camaraderie and the strongest sense of community than any other genre of music. Certainly in the UK and I believe certain other territories in Europe as well. The key to creating a successful rock brand is to ensure you really engage with the customer and in the UK we have certainly done that. Our website has received over 3 million page impressions. We have 10,000 followers on Twitter, 10,000 Facebook fans and over 5,000 people active on our message boards. Sonisphere has been established as a UK and European rock brand. We’ll reinforce that over 12 months of the year as we’ll use the Sonisphere brand to promote everything we are doing in the rock market at Kilimanjaro and we’ll use Sonisherefestivals.com as our sales outlet for the rock market”.

So the rock market’s sense of community must dictate that social media channels are key to success in such an aggressive marketplace?

“The community and the means of us engaging with them through our social media tools such as our message boards, Facebook and Twitter are the absolute hub of the festival. We not exactly reinvesting the wheel – we’re repeating what we have done with Download but honing it and making it more effective. All we’re really doing is reinventing what we did with Monsters of Rock. Going back to 1980 when there was no such thing as the internet – back then it was letters pages in Kerrang!, petitions and voting for bands etc. That connected the rock community. Now we’ve got access to tools that we’ve never had before. The websites forum traffic peaks in the week before the festival – but then increases even higher after the festival when the fans want to share what they did, who they saw, share their photos and experiences. After the event we’ve been focussed on driving people to watch the Sonisphere show on TV on Channel 4 and a hub for the community – providing information about the kid who got injured on the fun fair, new merchandise etc. The two weeks after the event have been the busiest on the website.”

So whilst Kerrang! once used to be the primary source of interaction for fans pre and post event – this has been replaced by a whole host of commercial and social media platforms for Sonisphere.

Indeed the serious accident that befell an unlucky youngster on the festival’s fun fair has failed to adversely impact the event from a PR perspective. Well on the way to recovery, he’s been inundated by goodwill messages on the forum by concerned festival goers. Luckily the negative PR impact of the accident was contained mainly to local press and specialist website coverage and hasn’t fed into mainstream negative coverage.

“We’ve created a two hour weekly rock show on NME radio on which we’ve teamed up with Metal Hammer – called ‘Metal Hammer Meltdown’. Sonisphere’s going to be involved with that for the next 12 months – so I guess we’re the first UK festival to have it’s own weekly radio show.”

So how will Sonisphere differentiate itself in a crowded marketplace?

“First of all I think there is room in the marketplace for Download and Sonisphere. We were able to achieve a lot at Knebworth, based on the lessons we’ve learned over the past 25 years of creating festivals. We thought long and hard about where and when we would run Sonisphere in the UK. The criteria we were looking for were a site that was within striking distance of London – because London is the strongest rock market in the UK. We needed somewhere where we could camp and somewhere we could run it as a true festival. If you look at Reading and many other festivals around the country – come 11pm most things have got to finish because of the proximity of housing and other licensing issues. In considering Knebworth our first question was – can we camp? There hasn’t been a camping event there in years. The answer came back from The Hon. Henry and Martha Lytton Cobbold and later the police and local authorities – “yes we can”. Can we run music through until 3am? “Yes you can provided the sound limit come down after 11pm.” So we decided to run our two main stages until 11pm and then other entertainment until 3am. We could run until 5 or 6am but I don’t think the rock customer necessarily wants that.

We wanted to create a rock festival in the true festival tradition of, say, Glastonbury. If you look at what we built over the years at Donington – Monsters of Rock ran from 1980 through to 1996. That was just a concert. It started off with 6 bands on one stage. In its latter years I was instrumental in adding a second stage and we used a system of alternating the stages because we didn’t want people having to decide between which acts they could see. We wanted to bring that idea back for Sonisphere so we alternate our two main stages. We never wanted to have a clash like – say – Slipknot and Prodigy at Download which we picked up on our message board as something that really annoyed rock fans. Next year I’d anticipate much more activity running through until 3 or 4am and underline our status as a true festival as opposed to a big gig.”

So the format of the event also seems to have worked. So what about a crucial component in subsiding costs for a promoter in todays live music scene – the sponsors?

“I’d rather talk about partnerships and not sponsorship. All the partners we had this year added to the festival experience – that was key. The biggest partnership deal we had was with Activision which ran across all 6 European festivals but we were also able to get Activision to do activity at Metallica’s indoor tour prior to the Sonisphere dates.

Activision’s ‘Guitar Hero Metallica’ activity also promoted Sonisphere at 39 indoor arena shows running up the the 6 Sonisphere shows. They also ran regional heats and competitions to get to our festivals and meet the band. It was a beneficial deal for Sonisphere both promotionally and financially, it was a benefit to the fans in terms of entertainment and I understand it was a benefit to Activision who saw a spike in their sales in each territory as the tour and festivals progressed. We’ve yet to have an official debrief but we understand they are very happy with the activity.”

“Similarly with Monster Energy we have done 4 festivals in the territories their product is available. We are already in conversation with them about doing the whole tour again next year. They brought something very positive to the festival – in the day time they brought their ‘Wall of Steel’ stunt display team and most importantly to me they brought something very positive to festival at night – as they had their sound system running to 3am and it was still absolutely heaving.”

“The fit between Sonisphere, Activision and Monster was perfect. Audience demographics were spot on. And with Jagermeister and Jackson it was similar. They are two brands made for rock and Sonisphere represents rock in it’s broadest sense so all four brand partners were fantastic. What’s interesting for me is that instead of my previous experience of trying to shoehorn consumer brands into different genres of UK festival events – here we have one festival brand across multiple territories. We are not trying to fit a brand into multiple events – none of which may be ideal for them – but collectively make sense. What we have with Sonisphere is the opportunity for those brands whose audience is of a perfect fit to partner with us across multiple territories and we’ll certainly be looking to partner with more brands across Europe next year.”

Would you accept naming rights deal for Sonisphere?

“I think I would be only if the product or brand in question had a resonance with the customer. As much as I never like to turn down good money, I think I am unlikely to consider a naming rights partner before 2011. Sonisphere needs to develop it’s own identity first and then we’ll consider whether any commercial brands are the right fit.

68% of our audience is between 18 and 34. And of that 63% is male. I can see a lot of scope for video games partnerships going forward. Also for telephony. They just have to understand our specific demographics. I’m sure if you did a survey of the Sonisphere audience there will be just as many people with mobile phones as there are at T in the Park, Reading or Wireless. We’re not mainstream – we never will be but I am hoping our partnership income will increase in year 2. I’m happy with what we’ve done in year one.
We spent a great deal of time, effort and money ensuring we ran a smooth festival in year one, ensuring our brand partners were happy as well as the bands and the customers. I think that despite a little niggle here ad there, everyone went home very happy. I think we will get repeat business from our partners and I think we will get new ones next year. There are already conversation going on with beer brands regarding pan European deal next year.“

What other great examples of brand partnerships has he seen in the last 20/30 years?

“There’s more brand activity in live music than there ever has been before. Deals such as Hard Rock Cafe for Hyde Park have now developed into what I see as a perfect branding partnership. Equally if you look at Snickers at Download which ran for 3 years. That was good – they brought the Snickers Bowl to the event – but it didn’t quite fit as well as Monster or Activision have at Sonisphere. They brought something positive to the event (the Snickers Bowl street sports installation) but it wasn’t quite what our rock audience was about – whilst Activision, Monster, Jackson and Jaegermeister were absolutely integral to what Sonisphere was about this year.”

And how about the Wireless shows you created – how do they rank?

“I can remember the very first pitch that myself, Julian Campling and Simon Lewis (from Live Nation) went to and to be quite honest – we heard what O2 were looking for in the UK and we built something for them – Wireless. Wireless at Hyde Park was built on a bespoke basis for O2 to get their sponsorship money in. It then developed through the years. Wireless is very much a mainstream city centre, sanitized event and as such I think has suffered a little from this in its ability to attract cutting edge artists – but it’s ok. It is what it is.”

So in one fell swoop in 2009, Galbraith has introduced a unique model into the European festival circuit and placed a stake in the ground in the UK live rock market. It’ll be fascinating to see how this develops. Judging by his past successes and the current mergers in the live music industry and wider economy, 2010 looks set to be the year that Kilimajaro will capitalise on the upheaval.

Copyright Boom Dialogue 2009

Following years of uncomfortable wrangling with sponsors such as Carling, Orange and Strongbow, Festival Republic has made the clear decision to take a back to basics approach to the basic commercial model for the festival and focus on artists, massive promotion (through  the BBC broadcast deal) and tickets. By returning to the core values of the Reading (and Leeds) brand – the very best current alternative entertainment – and not so subtly introducing their own ‘Festival Republic’ identity to consumers, Festival Republic have delivered something rare in the UK festival market – a commercial free zone.

On walking around the packed Reading site I was really surprised to see no mobile network or handset sponsors. No activity by Tuborg or Gaymers and minimal branding in the bars. Whilst the other staple sponsor of today’s music festival – the energy drink – was restricted to a installation in the guest area – impressive though the Relentless tent was.

Melvyn Benn has clearly set out his stall to strengthen the core Reading and Leeds brands and shun the lucrative naming rights deals that must be knocking on his door. He’s not allowing any commercial partners to dilute a brand that he has helped build up over 25 years of delivering the very best festival experience to consumers. It’s a brave promoter that can turn down that level of sponsorship deal, especially in today’s climate. But then again – what other English festival can put a healthy number of tickets for next year’s event on sale without announcing any acts? Only Scotland’s T in the Park can match that kind of confidence from the fan in a festival brand – fans know they are going to see the hottest bands of next year and they know they’ll have a great time with their mates doing it.

The band has never had any difficulty attracting corporate sponsorship for their tours or album launches. An association with the worlds biggest evergreen band and the scale and global appeal that delivers has been a key factor in a number of sponsorship deals in recent years. Perhaps most prominent in recent years was the Apple tie in that delivered a global TV advertising platform for the band for the ‘Vertigo’ track, promoting itunes and ipod whilst announcing their return at a time when record companies could only dream of that kind of marketing spend for their superstar artists.

It was a surprise, then, to discover a few months ago that Apple’s arch rivals in the smart phone category, RIM, were sponsoring U2’s huge global trek in support of the Blackberry. What bold new initiatives was the partnership going to deliver? What new technology would be showcased? It was certainly going to be big – but how was it going to be clever?

Sure they would release a limited edition handset – that’s to be expected. But how would RIM provide the cutting edge and benefit to U2 that would deliver a true partnership with benefits not only to both parties – but the fans who are turning out in their millions to see this concert spectacular?

“This tour announcement marks the first stage of a relationship and shared vision between RIM and U2 that we expect will lead to new and innovative ways to enhance the mobile music experience on the BlackBerry platform for U2 fans. We look forward to sharing more details as the relationship unfolds.” was the quote from U2’s manager Paul McGuinness at the time of the announcement. That sounds like a holding statement if I ever heard one. In other words – ‘Thanks very much for the money. We’ll do you an ad and let you do some branding stuff at the shows and maybe we’ll do more when you get your s**t together!”

So I’ve been on the Blackberry website and cant find any specifics? They are a long way into the tour – surely if there was a ‘innovative way to enhance the mobile music experience’ it would have been announced by now? There is a short clip on the website that hints at some sort of online co branded platform or app – but what is it? And where is it?

The partnership is an interesting one. One which heralds RIM’s full blooded entry into the cut and thrust of the entertainment industry. Last year I witnessed some of their ‘toe in the water’ activity at Wireless festival in Hyde Park, London – ‘show your Blackberry for a free beer and come into our tent’ but that was about it. At U2 I was expecting to be wowed by a brand sponsoring one of the biggest global tours in the past few years. I was expecting something really innovative – a declaration of intent to take on Apple when it comes to apps, handsets and music. Lets set aside the fact that the Blackberry U2 tour ad looks exactly – and I mean exactly – like Apple’s Coldplay clip for “Viva la Vida’… how were they going to make a splash and be different?

Well they didn’t. There were three branded tents on Wembley Way, staffed with promo teams. Ok – all fairly straightforward experiential stuff – range of handsets on show and TV monitors playing the ad on a loop. In terms of interaction I walked up and examined the Blackberry Storm “Have you got a Blackberry sir?” No – I’ve got an iphone. This was met with a withering look. “What if I did have a Blackberry?” I ventured. “Then you’d get a free pack of screen wipes”. Right. So If I’ve already got a Blackberry then that’s fine – I’m in the club. But if I have anything else it’s goodbye, sir…What a wasted opportunity. The Blackberry experiential teams should be looking to covert consumers in addition to rewarding their existing customers. The brand should be tapping in to the community and seeing everyone as a potential customer – not turning away the very audience they are looking to convert.

So other than screen advertising at the stadium – which must have been obscured by the huge staging structure to a sizable chunk of the audience – and ‘Blackberry loves U2’ banners – which does seem a rather weak campaign platform on which to build a sponsorship – that was it. And the experiential units had disappeared on the way out so they missed those customers who didn’t feel like engaging with them on the way in. Sure they got branding on the tickets, gig marketing and so on – but it was all rather disappointing. Apple certainly don’t have anything to worry about from RIM when it comes to converting this audience.

Sadly Blackberry projected what is already clear – they are a business brand desperately trying to compete in he entertainment space. Until they bring some innovation and benefit to the audience they are looking to sway – they are always likely to be way behind the curve.

Update March 2010 – the online activity was finally revealed here

James Brown, the UK publishing world’s last great trailblazer has his sights fixed on a return to the men’s media marketplace – one that he largely created more than 15 years ago.

“I’ve started thinking about working properly in the media again.  I sold IFG (to Dennis Publishing for £6.4m in 2003) and found myself in a position where I didn’t really have to work. Since then I’ve spent a few years focusing on family stuff,  like taking my son to school for the first four years of his life.”
But Brown has been a long way off early retirement. “I’ve been working with a lot of media owners,” he reveals.  “I like having the freedom to do work I find really enjoyable.”  This consultancy work has included strategic development stints for Live, Time Out, Quintessentially, Reader’s Digest, Disappear Here and Jamie magazine. ” It’s a measure of Brown’s reputation in publishing that polar opposites feel they can benefit from his creative spark.

“Going back to when I first started consulting I helped the Indie launch its media section and worked with the Mail on Sunday in changing the Night & Day supplement to ‘Live’ and I’ve done about 30 talks for companies as diverse as advertising agencies, Kraft cheese, and Classic FM!

When you’ve had fantastic jobs like NME, loaded, Leeds United and Jack it’s not always easy to maintain that standard without creating new things all the time. So I went off to explore very different but very successful companies and it was interesting, I sat with the editor of the Mail on Sunday at the time when all that scandal was brewing about drugs and David Cameron and he was deliberating how to handle it, and at the other end I’ve worked near the heart of that brilliant whirlwind that is Jamie Oliver and his company. And then at another extreme I’ve sat in Pleasantville and talked about how Readers Digest needs to become younger to capture the new middle aged. And between all that I still get to write about Leeds for FourFourTwo, Primal Scream for the Observer Music mag, boxing for Men’s Health and fantastic hotels for Quintessentially. So it’s been low profile but it’s been stimulating and at my busiest it was only ever a three day week.”

His corporate speaking engagements have led Brown to appear at business leadership conferences alongside the likes of Cameron and former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan. “I talk a lot about transformation in businesses and markets. People forget that although Loaded has now sold over 30 million copies, we were outsiders – outsiders within a big company. Felix Dennis said in his book ‘How to get Rich’ that the greatest triumph of Loaded was managing to get IPC to produce it.”
Although public speaking and publishing consulting is clearly something he enjoys, Brown’s love of writing has also clearly not diminished over the years. “I really enjoyed writing the Men’s Health column.  It’s about being a 40 year old guy who didn’t drink and had a kid rather than being a 28 year old guy who drank heavily and behaved like a kid. I’ve also just written a piece for FourFourTwo about Leeds United. That’s a great magazine I’m lucky enough to be able to write about things which are my passions really.”
Browns lower profile in recent years appears to have as much to do with his changed lifestyle than his business dealings. “I’ve been quietly working. People can only understand abstinence if they have experienced excess and Loaded was a very, very excessive personal time. I just needed some time away.” So much did Loaded form the zeitgeist of the time that Brown was approached by  Hello to photograph his wedding.  But being a celeb is anathema to a private family life and Brown chose not to take up the offer.

So what does UK publishing’s enfant terrible think about the current men’s magazine sector?  “The media market has changed and magazines haven’t.  I think what we did with Loaded – which FHM and Maxim followed – has had a massive influence on today’s television. If you turn on channels like FX and Bravo, Sky and ITV 4 they are full of that kind of content for men.  On TV, men are fantastically catered for.”

And how about the vaunted demise of the men’s monthly magazine?  Brown feels that TV, the internet, freesheets and weeklies are all decimating the market once ruled by Loaded. “You get a free men’s mag with The Mail on Sunday. You get a free men’s mag from the guys at TalkSport. You get a free men’s mag in ShortList.  Then you’ve got weeklies. If you are a young guy coming into the market you may pick up Nuts or Zoo. The monthlies have just become old fashioned. They haven’t changed. Why would you want to go around in a horse and cart when people have got cars? The publishing houses’ biggest mistake was not developing complementary titles.” He warms to his theme. “They just haven’t gone out there and said, ‘Lets have a proper go at producing more magazines that cater for men’. I get so many men telling me they have nothing to read. There’s lots of media choices for young men out there but nothing anyone would want to wear as a badge. I don’t think anyone would pick up ShortList or Live – as good as they are – and go: “That’s my magazine”. People used to feel an affinity with Loaded or FHM but they don’t any more.”

We ponder the latest ABC figures, showing drops of between four and 20% in the sector. As bleak as the numbers are, Brown reckons they may be padded. “I think a lot of publishers today are rather economical with the truth when it comes to ABC figures. I was recently on Radio Four discussing the demise of Maxim with a publisher who was claiming one of his titles was selling 130,000 copies when everyone in the publishing business knows that it’s doing about half that number in reality. You talk to people who work for that title and they are ashen-faced! Just look at how thin the mags are now. The advertising has disappeared, too.  I feel sorry for them because it must be so hard right now working in those businesses; watching your advertisers disappear. If you work at the big mags like FHM and Loaded you are seeing the audience disappear and if you look at the likes of GQ and Esquire the advertisers are struggling. It’s a really tough time.”

One senses that Brown is itching to make a play: to show that the man who defined the lad phenomena of the nineties still has what it takes.  Family aside, then, why hasn’t he staged a comeback in the market sector he still clearly loves?  Clearly, the Dennis deal still rankles. “It was like an aggressive takeover with a smile. They said we’d all keep our jobs and then turned around and let the finance director, the creative director and myself go… so that was frustrating. In retrospect I perhaps should have had another crack at doing it again right away, because I really enjoyed doing Jack.”

Then came the surprise of our conversation. Despite the changes in his own lifestyle and the bottom dropping out of the magazine market, a twinkle appears in Brown’s eye and he drops a heavy hint about when that comeback could be. “Next year is a World Cup year. It’s a good year for men. You’ve got to know when to move.  I do wish there was a great men’s mag.  I’d have done it earlier but the ad market’s f**ked. But you’ve got to be bullish. I’ve got two creative ideas ready to go: one’s a magazine; one’s an internet proposition. It’s very exciting – they look great, people I’ve explained them to want to invest! I’m going to write my book. And then I’m going to get back in.” I can’t resist pressing for more details. “I’m on fifth album syndrome.  NME was my first album – that was great.  Loaded was the second – that was great. GQ was the difficult third album – perhaps the wrong style… The fourth album (IFG Jack and Viz) was just good fun.  Now I’m sitting in a weird wood with some folk music!”

So what about the format? Surely a new mens title would be much more integrated in the digital space than the current crop. “The flagship brands on the internet – Google, YouTube, Facebook and MySpace before it have replaced the social glue that magazines once offered.  Loaded used to bring all men’s interests together in one place – today a search engine does that. Let’s say you want to know more about Johan Cruyff. Today you type it in, and see footage of him playing, footage of him as a manager. You can read opinions about him, interviews with him, his biography… and it’s all instant.  One of the things that made Loaded successful is that we told a lot of guys about a lot of people they had never heard of.  For example, when we ran a 4,000 word article on Oliver Reed there was a good chance that around half the younger readers had never even heard of him, as his heyday was in the 60s and 70s.” “All magazines ever did was deliver information that allowed people to bond. Guys used to share this info in the pub or on the way to a football match or a weekend away. Now it’s all instantly accessible through social networking on the PC or handheld device. We’re hooked on it because you get everything you need. You get company and stimulation.”

Brown is perhaps sketching the outline of a new breed of magazine that will be fully integrated with a vibrant online community (maybe using the blueprint of Brown’s existing low key message board onemickjones.com) rather than treating digital as a bolted on afterthought. As ever, the touchstone will be great content.

Can Brown make a spectacular return with his ‘fifth album’? You wouldn’t bet against him.

© Boom! 2009

Photo credit Michael Birt