Starbucks retreats & Paste/RS up the ad ante
Once seen as a contender to take on the majors, Starbucks is now retreating from the music biz. So much for synergy and branding but don’t believe that this is the end of big name brands outside the industry pushing music. The industry is in such disarray that any established major brand can consider inking deals with artists to put out their music, get some hip cache from the connection and push their product alongside their own.
Speaking of industry woes, music publications are suffering also, with ad revenue way down now for some of the biggest players, excluding Spin magazine. Maybe that’s why Paste is putting ads down in the page number footers and Rolling Stone is trying to get its readers to look for ads outside the magazine. Expect to see more unorthodox ad experiments, especially if these pan out. Come to think of it, expect to see more of them even if they don’t pan out. Things are THAT bad…
