pinterest. | Good vs Better

What does it mean that major albums are co launched by a mobile company for an artist? Jay Z teased the release of his Magna Carta album today signifying a milestone in artist marketing. The video above showcases tracks, producers, and story, but its presented by Samsung Galaxy. More and more we are seeing corporate endorsements of the changemakers and creatives of our times, and I personally am intrigued on how this awareness and shift in paid media dollars will effect content creation. What does it mean when a new album from the heart is cosponsored by a secondary brand ? This is commonplace in sports, and social entrepreneurship, but music has usually only maintained this relationship after the fact. Ex. Tailor Swift and Pepsi. However, to co associate your personal brand with a tech brand seems like a new frontier in a pre launch environment. Do you think any other artists will follow this trend? Or for a brand like Samsung, maybe this is the best time in the “hype cycle” to endorse a product / person to get the maximum brand transference to impact their bottom line. What do you think?

-Patrick

ps. The other interesting note is that he teased the announcement using imagery via social media. More and more, Artists and personal programming channels are being used to interact with fans wtih RTM ( real time marketing ) rather then relying on older PR channels and wire services.

In the last several years there has been a trend where personal media outlets ( blogs, twitter feeds, youtube channels ) are starting to outperform traditional media outlets and websites. The web has become alive, and with equal access to cheap content generating tools, content and personal flare have helped certain indy channels thrive.

The next trend I am observing is that these same personal programming channels are expanding into e-commerce / e-retailing. I frequently visit http://www.thisiscolossal.com for their careful curation of art / creative news, and I was surprised to see they opened up a store. Although this seemed odd at first, its a logical progression for content curators. Why stop at curating and reviewing content if you can give people the option to buy those same items and take a cut. I have observed many influential bloggers sponsor bundles on fab, or quarterly, and even have their own branded channel on opensky. And thus we enter the Rise of Personal Storefronts where everyone becomes a prosumer.

All the traditional factors of customer loyalty, the right prices, and great product selection exist, but the only main differentiators become trust and human connection. Also certain things I would rather buy from certain organizations. I do trust a handful of bloggers with my daily news, but I am not sure I would want to buy vitamins from them. What is the future of stores on Facebook ? Or instant deals on Twitter? But I am very optimistic on how this new trend will push innovation and inspire new models of creating content accompanied by related items that I might like. However, I am also aware that this might create a awareness bias of outlets where the pressure to sell vs. write news articles could shift the culture and identity of the outlets I came to trust.

And then there might be certain companies like Pinterest who if slightly altered their business model, could be one of the largest curated stores on the planet. I would imagine the personal endorsement of products with a trusted layer of delivery and procurement could be the future of how we buy things online.

Only time will tell.

-Patrick