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photo: GETTY IMAGES (BLACK EYED PEAS) OVERVIEW: On their rise to stardom, the Black Eyed Peas have been escorted by a parade of corporate backers, including BlackBerry, Levi’s, Honda, Apple, Verizon and Pepsi. Marketers love the Black Eyed Peas for the rainbow ethnicity of the band’s four members, its global fan base and its popular party anthems. Will.i.am says corporate partnerships are as important to the band’s success as the music sales. LINKS: |
TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS
By John Jurgensen Selling records used to be the secret to success in the music business. For the Black Eyed Peas, it has been all about corporate connections. About 30 minutes into every concert on the Peas’ recent tour, band leader will.i.am would perform a freestyle rap, riffing on text messages sent by audience members. It was a chance for him to enjoy a moment in the spotlight. It was also a moment in the spotlight for the tour’s primary sponsor, BlackBerry, which delivered the messages scrolling up two huge screens on the stage. Indeed, on their path from L.A. hip-hop group to global pop sensation, the Black Eyed Peas have been escorted by a parade of corporate backers. From BlackBerry to Levi’s, Honda to Apple, Verizon to Pepsi, brands have padded the group’s video budgets, sponsored its tours and showcased band members in prominent places. When Apple was preparing the 2003 launch of the iTunes store, The Peas’ “Hey Mama” became the first song associated with the ad campaign’s dancing silhouettes, a point of pride for will.i.am, the band’s frontman. MAD MAN For will.i.am, wooing potential corporate partners has become an integral part of his job as band leader. “I consider us a brand,” he says, describing how he makes his pitch to potential partners, complete with PowerPoint presentations. “Here’s our demographic. Here’s the reach. Here’s the potential. Here’s how the consumer will benefit from the collaboration.” If will.i.am wasn’t in music, “he’d be the best ad executive on Madison Avenue,” says Randy Phillips, president and CEO of the concert promoter AEG Live. “I’ve never seen anyone more astute at dealing with sponsors’ and companies’ needs and understanding their brands.” Marketers love the Black Eyed Peas for the rainbow ethnicity of the band’s four members. They like its global fan base, and its popular party anthems like “Boom Boom Pow” and “Imma Be.” They like that the band achieves the near-impossible in these post-Michael Jackson times—making both kids and their parents feel cool. All this has turned the Peas into what seems like the only pop ensemble that a fragmented America can agree on. Even aside from the corporate cash, the Peas are poised to be one of music’s top earners this year. Their album “The E.N.D.,” released last year, has sold more than 7.3 million copies world-wide and spawned five top-10 singles on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. A rough estimate of the band’s income from U.S. music sales—not including licensing, publishing and other revenues—topped $10.1 million in the past year. Will.i.am says corporate partnerships are just as important as music sales. Not long ago, the band was lending its music for relatively small fees in exchange for the exposure—a common strategy for emerging acts. In the lead-up to their 2003 breakout album “Elephunk,” the Peas made deals with Best Buy, Apple and the NBA, piping their music into households through multimillion-dollar ad campaigns. “It wasn’t about the check,” says former manager Seth Friedman. The promotional blitz continues. Within the last year or so, the Peas’ TV performances have included an NFL season-kickoff show, New Year’s Eve in Times Square, the Grammys (they’ve won six), a Victoria’s Secret fashion show and the season opener for “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” for which they summoned a flash mob of synchronized dancers to downtown Chicago. At one time, being partners with a big corporation was considered bad for a band’s image. But that began to change when advertisers began to seize on counterculture themes to sell products. First they targeted baby boomers, from the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up” for Microsoft to John Mellencamp’s Chevy commercial. Then, as CD sales plummeted in the era of downloadable music, younger bands rushed to find other sources of income and publicity. The Peas were among the fastest learners of the industry’s new formula. SHILL.HE.IS? The band still hears criticism that they are corporate shills or sellouts. “You have to take the criticism, and sometimes it hurts a lot,” says Fergie, also known as Stacy Ferguson, whose entry into the group in 2002 coincided with its first mainstream hits and a steady string of brand deals. (The group also includes Allen Pineda, a Philippines-born rapper known as apl.de.ap, and Jaime Gomez, known as Taboo.) Will.i.am shrugs it off. “I get the credit from the brands. They know,” he says. “I used to work with the marketing people and the agencies, now I work with the CEOs of these companies.” One Friday night during the recent tour, before a concert at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif., will.i.am gulped a fistful of vitamins. He had just come off a run of about 20 meetings, many of them with tech companies based in Silicon Valley. They included a sit-down with the heads of Twitter and a speech to employees about music and social media. At the St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco, he hosted a fund-raiser for his i.am scholarship fund that was attended by about 50 tech industry leaders. Among them was Symantec CEO Enrique Salem, who came to the concert the next night with a gaggle of kids lined up for a photo with band members. Will.i.am, born William Adams Jr., was raised in the public-housing projects of East Los Angeles. Now 35 years old, he cites Run-DMC’s 1986 song “My Adidas” as an influential blend of art and commerce. “When I moved my mom out of the projects,” he recalls, “I did that with a 30-second song for a product,” Dr Pepper. While Fergie is arguably the group’s biggest star, will.i.am, as the Peas’ primary producer and songwriter, is “the captain of the ship” on corporate matters, she says. Will.i.am also had help from a team of well-connected music industry veterans, including manager David Sonenberg. Mr. Sonenberg used to manage producer Jimmy Iovine, who is now the chairman of the Interscope Geffen A&M record label, home to Eminem and Lady Gaga. Interscope signed the Peas in 1997. Since then, more than 26 million Peas albums have been sold world-wide. “I wish I had 10 of them,” Mr. Iovine says of the band. ‘MAZEL TOV’ Of course few of these deals would have come about if the Peas didn’t have a flow of accessible hits to support them. The recent single “I Gotta Feeling,” with its refrain “tonight’s gonna be a good night,” has already become a staple of wedding DJs, sports stadiums and YouTube videos. “I’d pay any amount of money for that song,” says Marty Bandier, head of Sony/ATV. An especially nice touch, Mr. Bandier says: the line “Fill up my cup, mazel tov!” The inclusion of that Hebrew congratulatory phrase makes the song a must-play for bar and bat mitzvah receptions. Will.i.am says the band has struck the right balance with the music in its corporate strategy. “You have to use it right,” he says. “It’s a hammer and a nail. Most cats are just walking around with hammers as necklaces. I’m like, ‘Did you know it could do this? Boom boom! I’m gonna make a house.’”
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