Why Music Sponsorship
Why Music Sponsorship?
January 2012
Why Music Sponsorship? Hi, Sherese Chrétien here, the little “wizard” standing on the chair, working the knobs and gadgets behind the Eliyora Entertainment™ curtain, and now Ever Entertainment.®
We have chosen to focus on Music Sponsorship as our main source of revenue, placing all of our music exclusively on Ever Entertainment,® now viewing music & ticket sales as “icing,” because of what I see happening in the music industry and because of the inspirations I gleaned from over 30 years in business development.
I was especially inspired from my work with the US Olympics; Fort Collins Pulse Fitness; several public radio stations including KVNF in Paonia, CO; KAFM in Grand Junction, CO; KUVO in Denver, CO; and WWOZ in New Orleans, LA; the CBCA (Colorado Business Committee for the Arts) in Denver, CO as well as sports and performing arts organizations in New Orleans, Colorado, and Vancouver, BC.
I believe that the music industry is far from ill, only the business model is. With a few small paradigm adjustments, it will be good as new — I actually believe healthier than ever. And I believe Ever Entertainment® is the formula that finally harnesses the incredible power of the internet for music and puts it entirely in artists’ hands, where it belongs.
Sponsorship is serious business, and according to IEG, the largest global sponsorship consultancy, music sponsorships hit $1.17 billion in 2011, and is the fasted growing sponsorship segment. Artists only need to become as serious about sponsorship as pro athletes (major label artists already are) and realize that working directly with sponsors to create imaginative, win-win-win sponsorship contracts around their live events, online content, co-branding, and endorsement opportunities puts them in the driver seat to control their destinies and their creative work. I believe that would just mean more music, which is a win-win-win for everyone.
That’s why we’ve decided to sail aboard the Ever Entertainment® ship, making our music sponsored content that our audience can listen to free without interruption. If they still want to buy it, they can click a link to our store.
We’ve experienced putting our music on YouTube only to have it hacked, then see it appear on sites as downloads for sale — and, to put salt in the wound, YouTube is projected to make $1.17 billion in sponsor revenue in 2012, which we haven’t seen a penny of. I see reports other artists haven’t either.
Don’t get me wrong, YouTube can be a great marketing tool — but now we upload just clips of our songs in our channel, and hope people embed them all over the place. Same for Myspace, which recently negotiated a $900 million sponsor deal with Google — we just upload clips.
We receive offers all the time from sites wanting us to upload our music, telling us it is “free promotion.” I assume all artists are receiving as many “offers” as we are. Then, like YouTube and Myspace, they turn it basically into internet radio, and make millions, even billions, in sponsor revenue and subscription fees. Sure, SoundExchange is supposed to be collecting and distributing royalties on internet radio, but this can be circumvented as long as it is “on-demand.”
There are also all of the internet radio stations popping up like Pandora, LastFM and Spotify. They claim to have made revenue-sharing agreements with the major labels, and claim to be paying SoundExchange royalties, but I see that the labels and the artists are reporting that they aren’t seeing only pennies of the money.
CD Baby is the best retail deal I’ve seen, and there well may be some similar distribution models out there I haven’t heard of, but the deals with the rest of the online retailers that I’ve looked at, the iTunes and the Amazons, are not very appealing to me as a new artist coming into the business at this juncture. Their revenue models feel, well, obsolete, when I look out at the horizon before us.
The last thing I want to do is be negative — my cup is always half full. But I love making music, and I want my music to be the blessing to others that it is to me, and I want to be able to make music until I don’t hear any more songs in God’s song garden to harvest — so it’s business.
When we can earn 100% of the sponsor revenue generated in our free Talent Channels on Ever Entertainment,® the same exact sponsor revenue that YouTube, MySpace, Pandora, and all the rest are currently making on our music, with the flexibility to either let the automated system sell our music sponsorships while we sleep, or bring in our own, and also have a link to our store for those who still want to own our music — I have to ask, “why not?!” To top it all off, Ever Entertainment® and music sponsorships drops the bottom right out of music piracy — our audience can listen free.
I encourage all music artists in the world to join us on Ever Entertainment, “Whatever-Whenever-Wherever Entertainment…where Artists make the money and You enjoy free.” I can’t wait to hear your music! It tickles me to no end knowing that you’re finally making the money while I listen! Blessings! –Sherese Chrétien
Eliyora Entertainment LLC. Ever Entertainment®. © Paradunai™LLC. All international rights reserved. All trademarks property of Paradunai™LLC. All personas, concepts and original songs created, performed and produced by Sherese Chrétien.
