Marketing and the Music Business vanderbilt R.J.P

Essay by BrthrbruceUniversity, Master's September 2004

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Marketing and the Music Business

Jim Halsey and Joe Sugarman spoke with our class on February 12, tying together marketing and the music industry. Halsey has had a long history in the industry, specifically in country music, working as a booking agent, personal manager, publisher, and all around innovator. For the past 28 years he has been the manager for the Oak Ridge Boys. Sugarman is well known as an innovator himself. While Halsey succeeded in getting the first country music act on late night TV, Sugarman in a way defined late night TV himself. As the marketing genius behind BluBlocker sunglasses and the pocket calculator, he invented the infomercial to facilitate a way for his product to reach the American mass audience. After selling 100,000 products every eight months, he was able to sell the same amount in one month, thanks to the infomercial. In six years running infomercials for BluBlocker he sold 10,000,000 units.

In less than fifteen years, BluBlocker became the number three name in sunglasses, right behind Oakley and Ray Ban. These numbers are impressive and show how important good marketing is for your product. The same principles used in marketing a product to a mass audience hold true for the music industry. And this is precisely why Jim Halsey and Joe Sugarman have been able to come together to work together on the Oak Ridge Boys upcoming tour.

The two themes that both Halsey and Sugarman reiterated throughout their speeches were preparation and persistence. Halsey's advice was: "Write down everything that you want to do in order to bring it into the now of your everyday life." Prepare for your goals and then work to achieve them. Sugarman advised the class to "become an expert" about whatever it takes to achieve your goals. And...