Mike Mathieson on Brands and the Music Business

Former founder and CEO of Cake PR, a company fusing brand advertising and music partnerships, Mike Mathieson has a host of experience in the space between the fields. Building unique partnerships between top talent and successful brands is something he’s passionate about and currently leading new venture Harmonic, a specialist entertainment marketing business that directly represents talent using agency-based strategic thinking and creativity, the future's bright for the company.

Below, Mathieson shares his thoughts on the current state of the scene and how things like technology and smart decision making can benefit the future for both sides of the equation.

Do you believe it’s possible for a brand to have an impact on the career of an artist?

Absolutely, to a certain extent. Obviously there’s a lot of creativity in advertising and there’s a lot of creativity within music. It’s just finding how to fuse those things together to do things that are different, outstanding or make a difference. And in a sense it’s the challenge of how you get those two relationships to work well where it goes beyond just the transaction.

Can you offer an example of that?

For example, one of the campaigns I was involved with a few years ago was with Mike Skinner from The Streets working with Reebok. The great thing about Mike Skinner was that he sang about Reebok a lot, so when they did a deal with him he stepped on stage at V Festival and said “I’ve just done a deal with Reebok, this is brilliant”, and what followed was a beautiful three-year relationship. When Reebok was launching new trainers Mike would get involved with that, help with the launches, do DJ nights and talk about it.

When his album came out Reebok then backed that with a six-sheet campaign and did a deal with JD Sports to allow fans to buy the album alongside a pair of Streets shoes. So it’s those kinds of relationships where you can really try and build something.

There are plenty of artists out there who would just agree to turn up to a corporate gig just to make some money on the side, but I think that’s all very transactional so how do you go beyond that where it really works for both? Like Rihanna and River Island designing clothes together. It’s good for her fan base; it’s good for River Island because they’re reaching young women in a different way.

Or Rita Ora and adidas, adidas would probably normally sponsor an athlete but Rita Ora has a huge female fan base so it’s those kind of synergies that really work. And as money’s spilling out of the record industry brands are kind of propping it up even more. It’s just a matter of making that more interesting.

And you can do that with new technology and tools available to artists. Is that important?

Of course, massively, in terms of distribution alone. You know how to harness it better and the social influences that go with that. Such as the social influence of Coca-Cola and the social influences of Mark Ronson and what happens when you put those things together?

Suddenly, Coca-Cola which is distributed in more countries than the UN recognises, Mark Ronson’s probably big in about 10 but he’s incredibly creative so the idea of putting those things together becomes quite fascinating.

What we [Harmonic] are there to do is to try to bridge that gap if you like; the murky world of the music industry which is what it’s often viewed as and to help brands navigate it better. Because I think a lot of brands end up with burnt fingers when they enter a record company and music relationships. There’s a lot of leverage there.

Have you ever come across a situation where an artist hasn’t been open to any sort of brand culture and is that wrong?

Oh there are definitely a tonne of artists who are absolutely creatively driven and focussed not to compromise in any way. The best examples of those are bands like Radiohead, Arcade Fire; talent that doesn’t really want to be compromised in any way, shape or form. And you have to respect that as well.

I think there are probably technical partnerships that could come around, like when Muse go on tour and they need some sort of technical partnership, there may be some opportunities in that space but honestly there are a lot of artists who just want to keep it clean.

And what about artists becoming brands in their own right?

Well look at Jay-Z. And Pharrell, that’s a really good example. He has about 20-25 brand partnerships. But a lot of those things are very controlled, whether it’s for his perfume with Comme des Garcons or for charity, and big charitable causes as well as Timberland sponsorships and all those kind of things.

It’s like a portfolio approach but certainly when you’ve got to Pharrell and Jay-Z’s level you are a brand in your own right and there are plenty of opportunities.

We’re also seeing IP delivered between brands and bands. Kanye West and Hennessy Cognac, P-Diddy and Ciroc – a joint venture with Diageo, so more and more we’re seeing these other areas where there are joint ventures happening too.