Independent musicians and Google Play Music All Access

If you ask me, I have one of the coolest jobs at Google: to create success stories for independent musicians on Google Play.

From my time as a music critic and band manager, I can tell you that no two musicians are the same, whether it's in the art they create or the ways they want to share that art with the world. Some artists will put their music anywhere to gain exposure with new audiences, while others are more particular about how their music is sold.

There's no right or wrong answer in this brave new digital world, which is why I'm proud of what we've built within the Google Play artist hub. 

Through the artist hub, independent musicians make the decisions about how their music is distributed on Google Play. Since there are no limits to how many albums you can distribute, and no per-album or annual fees, we've seen artists doing all kinds of interesting things with their music, like posting recordings from live shows. Still others, like The Civil Wars, Lindsey Stirling and Kopecky Family Band, have climbed our charts with studio recordings, after distributing through the artist hub.

Many musicians don't realize that iTunes isn't available on Android devices, but Google Play is. With over 900 million activated Android devices out in the world, that's a lot of potential fans for any musician to reach.

With the roll out of the All Access service on Google Play Music, we're giving musicians another option for distributing their music via the artist hub. Just as you can choose how and where your music is sold on Google Play, you choose whether to make your music available on All Access.

When you do, any All Access subscriber can easily add your music to their collection. Imagine your tracks popping up in a personalized radio station, or in a playlist handcrafted by the Google Play editorial team. I've been blown away by how spot on the recommendations are. Opening a Third Eye Blind radio station delivered songs more fitting than what I put on my own mix tape in 1998.

Independent artists can opt-in entire albums or just specific tracks for All Access.

1. Log-in to the artist hub at http://play.google.com/music/publish
2. Click on an album you want to add to All Access
3. Select "Edit Album Details"
4. Review the "All Access Setting"
5. Click "Publish changes"

The best part is that music fans in the US, Europe and Australia will still be able to buy your tracks, too (if you've opted-in to international distribution). Now you have two ways to earn money and find more fans.  

We know the money stuff can get confusing when it comes to streaming, so we've provided transparency and clarity in our Support Center.

At the end of the day, musicians want to create music, and not TPS reports, for a reason. It's our goal to help artists spend less time on the business of their music so they can get back to making it.

Cheers to the next chapter of Google Play.

Caren Explains the Cannes Lions 2012

If you keep up with me on Twitter, you were probably overwhelmed by my tweets from Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity last month in the south of France. Now in its 59th year, the festival brings together the most creative minds in business -- mostly from advertising and marketing but increasingly from other fields.


Thanks to the ever-generous Google, I was invited to the Cannes Creative Academy for Young Marketers for "Young Lions" under the age of 30. During the week, I heard from some of the industry's top creative minds in a small classroom setting, as well as the festival speakers in larger sessions.

Some staggering stats from Cannes:

• 11,000 delegates attended Cannes Lions 2012, with 90+ countries represented
• There were 34,304 entries for Cannes Lions awards, while 47% of all ad campaigns that ran last year were deemed failures by the market
• Research shows best brands in the world outperform S&P by 400%, confirming that the brand is an incredibly important intangible asset
• More #canneslions tweets were sent in a day this year than in all of the 2011 festival

If you're an ad geek like me and Don Draper, it was a week full of "pinch me!" moments (as well as business buzzwords like "earned impressions" and "creating value"). Here are some of the best things I heard and saw over the week...


The Work


Each day, the festival displayed the short list of finalists for Cannes Lions awards in each category. Other work, including videos from the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors' Showcase, was shown in sessions. Here is a pinboard of the best stuff I saw.


Favorite Case Studies


Of the thousands of celebrated campaigns, here are three that stood out for their impact and effectiveness.

• Nike Fuelband by Nike + R/GA (Titanium Grand Prix winner)
• Help, I Want to Save a Life by Droga5 (Grand Prix for Good winner)
• Hilltop Reimagined for Coca-Cola by Google and Grow Interactive (Mobile Grand Prix winner)

Soundbytes: Quotes from the Experts

“Search the right place, not the bright place.” - Morihoro Harano, founder and chief of creative at PARTY Tokyo

"The revolution is coming from all sides... and I hope what we witness is the rise of the independents." - Dan Wieden, co-founder and global executive creative director of Wieden+Kennedy, on the changing agency landscape

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance a heckuva lot less.” - Joe Tripodi, EVP and Global Marketing Officer of The Coca-Cola Company

"Leadership is the responsibility you have to articulate your ideas in the face of 'no.'" - Jonathan Mildenhall, Vice President of Global Advertising Strategy at The Coca-Cola Company

“Fax machines don’t have APIs” - Michael Scissons, CEO of Syncapse, on bringing companies into the present of techology

“We’re always inclined to chase the new, new thing... but it’s about pace.” - Michael Wall, President of Lowe & Partners, on bringing your customers with you when you're selling tech

"When you're a young client, you make the mistake of thinking that creatives want a big white page, but really they want more concise things." - Laurie Coots, CMO of TBWA\Worldwide

"I didn't write 'Just Do It'... I just did it." - JR, street artist and TED Prize winner, on art versus advertising

"If you ask creatives what their job is, all of them will say the same thing: to do good work." - Tor Myhren, President of Grey New York

"Our desire to measure ourselves is unique and universal." - Stefan Olander, Vice President of Digital Sport at Nike, on the insight that lent to Nike Fuelband

"The problem with advertising is you buy the drink, but don't have the friends... you buy the 4x4, but don't have the freedom... you buy the promise, but end up buying the wrong product." - philosopher Alain de Botton

"Great advertising deeply impacts the ways executivies think about and talk about their companies." - Jean-Marie Dru, Chairman of TBWA\Worldwide

"You can never expect the young people to learn if you don't let them speak... let them get involved." - Val diFebo, CEO of Deutsch NY

"Does anyone ever start at their best? That would be so depressing, to start at the top and work your way down." - Debbie Harry, lead singer of Blondie

"Nobody expected a '10' was possible... the scoreboards could not accommodated a '10.'" - Nadia Comaneci, star of new Visa campaign, on earning the first perfect score at the Olympics in 1976

"Do well and do good." - President Bill Clinton in his keynote on advertising responsibility

Caren Explains Tree Cenergy, Copyrights and Being a Blacklisted Blogger

Today I received notification that someone is out to get me. I cannot tell you who, exactly, but they are already on the attack.

It started when I got a very longwinded, vague email from Blogger that said I have apparently infringed on the copyrights of someone involved in a blog post I wrote nearly six months ago. The post proclaimed the awesomeness of a hip band from Philadelphia whose name rhymes with "Tree Cenergy." [This band is growing very popular, by the way].

The blog post in question refers readers to two mp3 downloads that were made "legally" available on other sites. I wasn't hosting the files myself, and I made sure -- before posting the links -- to read up on the referring sites' download agreements. In doing so, I was assured that the referring sites (SPIN and Stereogum) had permission to post the mp3s. I even listed a disclaimer that said something to the effect of, "These sites have proof that these downloads are allowed."

Blogger advises that I remove the offending content and repost. But to be honest, I have no idea what I did wrong. Knowing this detail would be helpful to "prevent future violations." Instead, I'm going to be blacklisted on the DMCA clearinghouse. Super.

So let me stand on my soapbox for a second and make two different but tangental arguments.

First, I applaud you copyright holders for fighting for your rights. No one values content anymore and that needs to be remedied. The proliferation of mp3 blogs and aggregators has only perpetuated the notion that content should be free. Consumers feel entitled to get it. And if you take a stand and say it isn't allowed to be free, there are still plenty of places to stream it (Grooveshark, for one). If you treat the symptom, you don't ever cure the disease. So maybe I deserved a slap on the wrist.

But, if a musician values his copyrights he should make sure his business team is on the same page. When I was at Paste, I used to get tons of emails from publicists and labels encouraging us to post mp3s for our readers to download. These businessmen were treating mp3s as loss leaders for other revenue streams, like touring dollars and commercial licensing fees. Not that artists are always okay with that strategy.... In 2007 Band of Horses pulled out of a Wal-Mart commercial after going back and forth about the implications for its image.

That there is no industry agreement on mp3 sharing on music blogs has only further muddled the perceived value of content. If the majors say "No!" but the indies say "Yes!" what happens to when an indie band is upstreamed to a major label? My guess is the major suddenly go looking through archives to yank down files that the artist published as an indie; heck, the indie might even look through the archives once a band gets somewhat popular... it is certainly suspicious that this notice was issued six months after the blog publication...

Perhaps I trusted too much in SPIN and Stereogum's policies; or perhaps it isn't the mp3s that are the problem, but a picture I posted instead? I guess only The Man knows for sure.

You can bite the hand that feeds you, Music Industry, but at least give an explanation after you sink your teeth in.

Caren Explains Zeppelin, Springsteen and Strategic Marketing

Four years ago, I mistook John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin for a mandolin-totin' nobody... at best, I thought him a member of Widespread Panic.

It all happened when I was sitting in a tent backstage at Bonnaroo, sneezing incessantly and waiting for my allergy medicine to kick-in. It was hot and I was miserable. That's when Jones walked in. He politely and unassumingly introduced himself as "John" while I tried not to sneeze in his face. Then he walked into the other part of the tent to play the mandolin for a camera crew from CNN.

A handful of people rushed in to see this legend play his instrument, while others (like me) went about business as usual.

#hugelifefail

I recognized neither Jones' star power or musical prowess, despite the presence of CNN. I guess I just wasn't looking (or listening) hard enough.

I thought of this encounter during our last HBS session of Strategic Marketing in Creative Industries, when Professor Elberse challenged me and my classmates to predict whether people can identify true talent without marketing cues or signals. As an example, she referenced an experiment that took place in 2007:

What happens when world-renowned violinist, Joshua Bells, plays six difficult pieces on his $3m violin... at a DC Metro station during rush hour?

Some classmates guessed that there would be a mob (as did The Washington Post initially expected), whereas others said he would go unnoticed.

Here's what happened...

Talk about a humbling experience. Bell made $32.17 that day, whereas he normally earns $1,000 per minute for a performance.

The Jones and Bell examples hint at a question underlying the entertainment industry: Can people recognize quality without cues?

The contextual factors are certainly important, like time, day, location and competition. My classmate, Luis (a chart-topping musician in South America) also brought up accessibility. Pop songs are, not surprisingly, more recognizable than those crafted for the violin (or mandolin). When you have only a few seconds to catch someone's attention, this is especially critical.

To support Luis' point about accessibility, here is a video of Bruce Springsteen performing on a street in Copenhagen some twenty-odd years ago. While The Boss didn't cause near riots, he certainly drew more of a crowd than Bell did...

I think we would all prefer pure talent over manufactured fads -- the show without the business. But if Springsteen can't make it on the streets, who of us can?

12 Memorable Super Bowl Commercials of Old

Are you ready for some football? (I sure am).

But since I don't have a vested interest in the Colts or the Saints, I'll be rooting for the commercials. Go advertisers!

While we wait to see which brands will surprise and delight us this year, here are twelve great commercials from Super Bowls of old.

Caren Explains Evangelism, Idolatry and the Unveiling of the iPad

This week's edition of The Economist features a cover story on "The Book of Jobs" and how the iPad stands to revolutionize three industries at once.

Perhaps it's because I read a lot of tech blogs, or because I hang out with the "Tech Tribe" at HBS, but the excitement leading up to the iPad's unveiling seemed a bit irrational, not to mention sacrilegious.

'At last,' TechCrunch wrote in a headline, with an implicit sigh of relief, while NPR observed this is the 'Most excitement about a tablet since Moses came back down with the 10 Commandments." The Economist noticed this fervor, too, describing it as "verging at times on religious hysteria."

The fact that so much attention has been given to one product is strange in and of itself, yet not surprising, given the cult-like collection of brand evangelists that Jobs and Co. have attracted over the years. It's a tough marketing and operational challenge to go mainstream without isolating hard-core users, but Apple has done well at it -- something surely considered when Apple was named "Brand of the Decade" by AdWeek.

That's what makes the negative reception of the iPad so interesting. To many of its biggest fans, Apple's iPad is a let down. TechCrunch's new iPad vs. A Rock post illustrates the disappointment quite effectively, while The New York Times notes, "To its instant critics, [the iPad] was little more than an oversize iPod Touch." And then there are the Twitter feeds flooded with maxi-iPad jokes....

The Economist does not touch on this criticism, and mentions only Apple's successes, furthering the idea that Jobs can do no wrong. But what the disappointment around the iPad indicates to me is that some of the cult members have snapped out of their daze and are starting to think for themselves. That's a good thing.

Jobs as Jesus?

At Cyberposium 15 a mobile panelist made a comment that stuck with me. "I'd rather design for [devices that aren't the iPhone]: there's 30% less cost and one-tenth the aggravation of developing an iPhone app, because you don't need the holy water of Steve Jobs sprinkled on it."

Fortune has rounded up a number of images of Jobs portrayed as a Christ-like figure. It's not hard to understand why these exist. As The Economist notes, "Mr Jobs’s record suggests that when he blesses a market, it takes off." But as the music industry knows all too well, what Apple does today can have longterm implications for the many industries it touches -- implications we might not like or immediately understand.

Steve Jobs is not God, and likening him to such is dangerous. Mortals make mistakes (like the Lisa?) and we can learn a lot from those mistakes. Without critique or questions of Jobs' and Apple's limitations, though, we risk being blindly led in whatever direction Apple chooses.

10 Types of Twitter Users

As of late, a number of people (parents, friends, recruiters) have been asking me about Twitter and whether or not they should join. In this girl's opinion Twitter can either be an up-to-the-minute news source, a new method of marketing, a tool of self-aggrandizement or the RSS feed reborn, depending on who is using it.

Here are ten types of Twitter users I have encountered so far.

1. The Thought Leader

This is my favorite Twitter user: the one who has pearls of wisdom to share or inspiring ideas. I find these people to be entrepreneurs, editors and engaging individuals. They usually have a finger on the pulse of something good.

2. The Oversharer

HBS research shows that 90% of all tweets come from 10% of users. I theorize that 90% of that 90% fall into the category of "the Oversharer" -- a person who tells you all too often "What's Happening." Examples:

- "I just ate two whole bags of M&Ms, but not the green ones." [TMI]

- "My guy is the best kisser in the world." [Gross TMI]

- "Can't stop singing that @taylorswift13 song!!!" [Try]

- "Running five minutes late for mtg. Ugh." [... then why are you tweeting?]

- "Just saw Avatar." [... and?]

3. The Marketing Machine

Though Twitter has yet to turn a profit, it has helped other companies (and politicians) to win big. By June 2009, for example, Dell had earned over $3m from Twitter-related promotions. Other companies have used Twitter to answer customers' questions, announce sales and bring their brands to life. Some do it well, others #fail.

4. The Celebritweeter

This encompasses all those B-list actors, reality stars, pop-tart musicians and scenesters who use Twitter to "connect" with fans, bolster their personal brands and/or score sponsorship deals. Props to you if you're in this category, but I get a sick stomach thinking about a world where this is common practice.

5. The 'Trending Topic' Tipper

"Hey guys! I wanna beat the #TigerWoods trending topic. Tag your tweets with #OmgWhatevs -- I wanna prove we can do it! LOL! LMFAO! LUV U!"

6. The Aspiring Porn Star

No, HotBabe4U I do not want to follow you. Block.

7. The Mystery Tweeter

This is the person who is following 824 people but has 0 tweets to his or her or its name. Even stranger is when the Mystery Tweeter has 43 followers, despite no tweets?

8. The Search Engine Stalker

If you post a tweet about your recent cruise vacation and suddenly have four new followers with the word "cruise" in their usernames, you've been hit by Search Engine Stalkers. Web-crawling tools are making it even easier for these people to find and follow you. Creepy or cool?

9. The Curious but Uncommitted

Usually the first post from a person like this reads, "Just joined Twitter. Not sure what it's all about." It will usually be their only post for at least a month. In fact, RJMetrics research reveals that only 65% of Twitter users will ever post a second tweet.

10. The Tortoise

This user is slow to react, re-tweeting a timely story two days after it has already made its rounds across every other Twitter feed. But at least the Tortoise is otherwise using Twitter appropriately?

Which other types would you add?

Caren Explains Vampires, Kittens and Windows 7

My ears always perk up when I hear that something new is coming out of Crispin Porter & Bogusky, the agency responsible for Subservient Chicken, the creepy King, the Truth campaign, and Mini Cooper's mega fun buzz.

In March 2008 Microsoft awarded a $300 million account to CP+B, in what at first seemed an unlikely pairing. One might expect CP+B to be better aligned with Apple (which relies on TBWA/Chiat/Day for its "I'm a Mac" campaigns). But that's what makes the match so interesting. [From a 2008 feature in Fast Company: "Can Alex Bogusky Help Microsoft Beat Apple?"-- Alex Bogusky built the country's slickest ad shop using Apple products. His next challenge: Persuade people like him to buy Microsoft's stuff....]

AdAge reported today on the new Microsoft Windows 7 commercial, which features kittens, "Kylie," and The Final Countdown theme song. It will debut on CW network. You can preview it here.

Will this help Microsoft overcome the running joke ("I'm a PC") that Apple has perpetuated in its ads? And is this commercial appropriately targeted to the right audience and media channel? Clearly the commercial placement -- during the premiere episode of "Vampire Diaries" -- has generated some press (good job, PR folks), or else I wouldn't know about it or write about it. But it doesn't seem like an obvious match, putting a cutesy commercial in front of tweens and vampire lovers... do they want to share the same software as Kylie? Maybe kittens and cute kids are universally loved?

Good luck, CP+B. What's next, TBWA?

Caren Explains El Bulli, Of Montreal and the Art of Selling Out

World famous chef Ferran Adria visited my marketing class at the end of the semester. The class centered on a case written about his restaurant, El Bulli, which has been recognized as the best restaurant in the world and also the hardest to get a reservation at... only 6,500 people per year have the pleasure of dining there, despite 1-2 million reservation requests.

The crux of the case is that El Bulli does not make money. In fact, it hasn't been profitable since 2000. At 250 euros per meal (30 small dishes/drinks/desserts), Adria could certainly charge more money... but doesn't.

In this way, Adria said he is free to create without having to cater to customers wants. Instead, he has attempted to "buy his freedom" by selling El Bulli cookbooks. He also tried his hand at innovating fast food and potato chips for Lay's (but abandoned those ventures, as they didn't seem to fit).

Business loses to art in this case... dramatically and daringly. Within the case, Adria also refers to a quote by Jacques Maximin: "to create is not to copy."

I had the opportunity to ask Adria about this in class, more specifically, how we (as people trying to copy his recipes out of the El Bulli cookbooks) could learn to be creative. He said the secret is not to want to be #1. If you want to be creative but want to be the best, you will drive yourself mad. If I understood correctly, he said that this is the reason there are so many depressed artist types... the people who fret because they will never be Picasso... but of course they will never be Picasso -- there was only one Picasso, and he didn't certainly didn't aspire to be "PICASSO!"

This tug-of-war between business and art made me think specifically about Of Montreal's song "Wraith Pinned to Mist and Other Games"...

... for an Outback Steakhouse commercial:



OM frontman Kevin Barnes wrote an insightful rock'n'roller essay about the decision last year. Here's a little of what he had to say...

Why commercialize yourself? In the art industry, it's extremely difficult to be successful without turning yourself into a cartoon. Even Hunter S. Thompson knew this. God knows Duchamp and Warhol knew it. Some artists are turned into cartoons and others do it themselves. I prefer to do it myself.

Read the full interview on Stereogum's archive site.

Interesting to think of two very innovative, creative artists, each with a different view of their work and its marketing.