John Scott G

COLUMN: Scott G has been paying attention to the taglines in ads. Somebody needs to, because marketers are making a ton of mistakes in this important area of communication. Taglines often seem to be a cute little part of advertising but can actually be a deft tool of marketing. More appropriately called theme lines, they are supposed to help cement the most important brand attributes into the minds of consumers. When they work, it seems like magic.

COLUMN: Why write a six-word sentence when it's more fun to use 82 words and a bunch of gobbledygook? Scott G pokes fun at the way some businesses pontificate about themselves online and off.

INTERVIEW: Matt Forger speaks out to Scott G about everything from working with Michael Jackson to producing new artists like Mutant Radio. According to Matt, a pop song is a three minute fix of an emotional drug. We are connected through our humanity, and most successful songs speak to this.

COLUMN: Following the announcement of a patent for the video enhanced gravemarker, Scott G ponders the next phase of cemetery chic. Might there be an iTomb in your future? Hats off and a twenty-one gun salute to television commercial producer Robert Barrows, recent recipient of U.S. Patent 7089495 for an invention called the Video Enhanced Gravemarker (VEG).

COLUMN: Three personal managers of independent artists outline pathways for success in an increasingly competitive marketplace. "An artist's music must be something I love," stated Jennifer Yeko of True Talent Management. "It has to be music I want to hear in my personal life as well as when I'm working."

The numbers are supposed to be big in online marketing, but are they significant in the online marketing of music? Clearly, we need someone with 'Net experience to set a few things straight. Scott Meldrum is a businessperson and musician with a dry wit and a background in bulk mail. Oops, excuse me, direct response advertising. He's also the man called on by major labels when they want to brand an artist and reach millions of fans via the Internet.

If you're young enough, all you know is digital music. Forget about records. Or vinyl. Or eight-tracks. Or even cassettes. To these people, the brouhaha over digital rights management and pay-per-download models seems pretty silly. And the changeover from physical products to sound files isn't even an issue for them.

Where music meets licensing, there's money to be made. How much money? "I have synched quite a few thousand songs into productions over the years," states Peter Jansson of CRC Jianian Co., "and have charged anywhere between US$1.00 and US$250,000 for each one."

Some ad campaigns don't work. Like the recent mistake of putting an American Idol winner in a retail automotive ad. Scott G comments on Ford's chopping of Taylor Hicks.

Copywriters and art directors get much of the attention in the ad world, but Scott G is one creative director who claims it's the account management function that controls how a campaign soars or collapses.