The song After Carnival by calypso veteran Brigo encapsulates the angst of local artistes and the love/hate relationship this society has with them. After the chipping, the winning and feteing, all done with the artistes' music in the backdrop, what then?
Enough has been written about the lack of support for local music after the Carnival season. Unless they travel for regional and international carnivals, most local artistes tend to earn the bulk of their money between the months of December and March. But what can artistes do to ensure or augment their income after this period?This week, entertainment lawyer, Carla Parris, discusses the possibilities that exist for artistes in endorsements and sychronisation deals through music publishing.
"The endorsement deal can be very strategic not just for the artistes, but also for the entity which is employing the services or tying itself to the artiste's brand for a particular period of time. I think the industry could be boosted by tapping into a greater symbiosis between the artiste in the entertainment industry and other sectors. An obvious connection is the link between the artiste and products in the food and beverages industry or the cosmetics industry."
Rethinking endorsements
Parris said that the way they are approached in T&T needs to be re-thought.Currently, endorsement deals operate in a fashion akin to a "boys club," with only a few of the larger artistes benefitting or having management teams who understand the potential gains. She said while there were several lower profile endorsements happening, this defeated the whole purpose of the making the arrangement.
"The endorsement deal is supposed to be so bold, so prominent that you cannot think about the product without the artiste and vice versa."According to Parris, local manufacturers have not as yet been turned on to the potential value an artiste can bring to their brand and vice versa.She drew reference to the Jay-Z/Microsoft deal and Justin Bieber's collaboration with the skin care line, Proactiv in 2010.
"Jay-Z, at the time, teamed up with Microsoft to promote his memoir Decoded. Microsoft reportedly dished out about US$2 million to sponsor this book, but while sponsoring this book, it also gained maximum exposure for its new search engine, Bing, which was supposed to compete with Google."
"With Justin Bieber, you think why would a teenaged boy support an acne product? But clearly, someone within the marketing and communications department thought that it would attract the individuals who they thought wanted to use the product line: teenaged girls. They reportedly spent over US$3 million on the endorsement over a period of two years.
"From the research that I conducted, the first day that Proactiv deal went live, there were 120,000 YouTube downloads and 500,000 views of Bieber's clips."From this perspective, the tangible and intangible benefits of these collaborations between companies and artiste are certainly tempting, but Parris warned against misalignments of product and representative and, to get everything down on paper.
"Deals like this–in order for them to have the weight that is necessary–should be written contracts. It is important for the brand to choose an artiste who can best represent the brand, either in physical appearance, lyrical content of the music, the person's reputation and credibility. It has to be thought out carefully, because you don't want an artiste whose reputation could soon be injurious to your brand shortly after signing a year long deal.
You would have to have things like termination clauses, which would specify why somebody would be released from their obligation and in turn, the artiste will also have an opportunity to terminate his or her relationship with the company if he or she no longer finds it suits his our her particular purposes."But what if you are not a performer, but a songwriter? Or an artiste with a song that, for whatever reason, never made it to the airwaves.
Music publishing and synchronisation rights
"We have the unfortunate incident where our music is still very seasonal and only played at a specific time of the year. You have a big hit for the season. Or, you didn't have a big hit for the season. The question often is: how can I make some money now and then turn it into an asset that generates some income for me? That's where music publishing comes in."
Music publishers are companies that work with songwriters and artistes to promote and market their music. This includes pitches to record labels, TV, movie and videogame producers. If they like the material, the music publisher then licenses the song for a period of time for a fee. That fee is then split between the publishers and the songwriter or artiste.Sychronisation means that the music is being combined with another medium, such as with film.
Parris said one such synchronisation deal was for Bunji Garlin's Differentology, which was featured in an episode of popular US television show, Grey's Anatomy.If someone watching the episode that night wanted to know more about the song or the artiste, this is where a relationship with a reputable music publishing company would come in.
"That would have been the result of music publishing. The song would have been pitched to the music supervisor of that television show, documentary or movie as the case may be and this forms an auxiliary source of income for a songwriter or for an artiste, aside from performances.
"These are the kinds of deals we should be looking towards for our music, not just in terms of soca, but everything, from hip hop to rapso to R&B. The question is: are we linking with individuals internationally who can make those deals happen for us?"The entertainment lawyer said finding a music publisher does not necessarily have to involve travelling and she suggested an initial search could be done over the Internet.
"There are a number of publishers with an interest in Caribbean content."