The drop in compact disc sales, combined with a cluttered advertising environment, has brought performers and corporations together in recent years, helping boost the business of music sponsorships to a record $1 billion in 2007.
One of the people cashing in on that boom has been Marcie Allen Cardwell, a Nashville native who acquired a taste for live music ever since booking the group Megaphonics for her senior prom at Harpeth Hall in the early 1990s.
Cardwell started her live-event marketing company, MAC Presents, in 2004 after moving back to Nashville from Atlanta, where she ran a firm that handled booking and produced music festivals, including Riverfront Park's former Thursday night concert series Dancin' in the District.
In her 10-person company's new offices above the honky-tonks on Lower Broadway, Caldwell sat down with Tennessean Assistant Business Editor Ryan Underwood to discuss sponsorships for artists such as Tim McGraw, LeAnn Rimes and John Mayer, as well as the effect the economy might have on summer concerts.
Can you start by explaining what MAC Presents does?
We are a sponsorship and fulfillment agency. What that means is that … we help identify artists that a particular brand would want to sponsor. For instance, with John Mayer and BlackBerry, he'd never done a corporate sponsorship deal, but was interested in finding one — this is when I was working as a consultant to Creative Artists Agency. So he, his management, CAA and I all sat down and figured out what companies he was open to working with, one of which was BlackBerry. From there, I reached out to the event-marketing firm George P. Johnson and a deal got done.
What is the starting point for most deals — does it typically start with an artist or a company?
The starting point is when we get a phone call. Sometimes we work for the artist and sometimes we work for the brand. We help artists identify particular brands that they'd be willing to associate themselves with. Or if we're on the brand side, we help them identify artists who could represent their brand, which is much more of a challenge and a risk, because, one day, somebody could be crystal clear and the next they're in rehab.
How do you go about pairing a brand with an artist?
Whenever we sit down with a brand, there's always a story. The way we secured a sponsorship deal for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's Soul2Soul Tour last year, for example, started when one of my colleagues was watching Oprah.
Tim and Faith were on the show telling a story about when they first decided to date each other exclusively. They were sitting in a red, 1976 CJ6 Jeep that belonged to one of the crew guys. They were telling her that they now own that Jeep and go out on the farm in it; and it means so much to them. Well, my colleague came in and said: "We've got to pitch Jeep."
This was four minutes on Oprah — I mean, are you kidding, this was unbelievable. And to see the way that Tim and Faith's faces lit up when they were talking about this Jeep.
We took a meeting with the ad agency, the event agency and with Jeep. I opened up the meeting with the Oprah clip and then said, "I don't know if there's much more that I need to say here." It was a perfect fit. Jeep was launching its new Jeep Wrangler, and Tim and Faith were heading out on tour. What better to go along with a summer concert tour than a Jeep? It was an unbelievable partnership — of course it doesn't always happen like that.
Does landing a deal have more to do with gut instincts or is there research behind it?
There's so much research — it's one of the reasons I am up to 10 employees now. You've got Q Scores and market trend watches and SoundScan album sales and ticket sales and on and on. When you're working with an artist or brand, they expect you to know everything about who's sitting across the table from them.
Having said that, it has to be a natural fit. It can't be forced.
We did a deal with Estancia Wine and LeAnn Rimes. She was doing a video shoot for "Good Friend and a Glass of Wine," and was looking for a wine partner. We picked up the phone and called the wine company. They had heard the song, thought, "Wow, that would be so perfect." LeAnn Rimes reaches exactly the demographic they were going after.
With Tim McGraw, we closed a deal for his summer tour with Kingsford Charcoal and KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce. The way this started is that I had heard that Tim, and especially his band the Dancehall Doctors, like to grill out sometimes backstage before the show.
So I asked, "What kind of grill are they using?" Well, not a gas grill. They're using charcoal, they're firin' it up. So, KC Masterpiece and Kingsford sponsored the tour.
We're the matchmaker. We want the best deal for both sides because here's the thing … if one side isn't happy, the relationship won't mean anything.
Has that selectivity limited your ability to get deals done?
For me, it's not about quantity. It's about quality. I may not close 150 deals a year, but the 10 to 15 deals I do close are meaningful and not forced, and the relationships continue.
What is the size of the deals you're doing and how does your company get paid?
These sponsorships are usually seven figures plus. We always work off a percentage of that. We get paid once a deal is signed, and as they say, once the check clears.
It's very hard. You'll work on a deal sometimes for six or eight months and obviously if you don't close a deal, you don't get paid. We don't work on retainer. We make money when the deal closes. And we deal with everything from start to finish — from identifying either the brand or the artist to negotiating the contract to actually putting up all the signs and banners at concerts. Right now, we've got three people on the road with John Mayer and two on the road with Tim McGraw.
It seems like you came into the touring space at the right time.
I would love to sit here and say it was planned. There was $1 billion in music sponsorships in 2007, which has doubled in the last four years. It's booming. Sponsorships have been around for years, but not necessarily as actively as they have been in music.
How will the economic slowdown — or gas prices — affect your business?
Obviously, the economy is cyclical. It's up, down, up, down. I was in Atlanta when 9/11 happened. Our office was evacuated because we were a block away from the CNN Center. And I was scared that everybody would be afraid to come to the festivals I owned then. We were doing 50,000 people a night every Friday in Centennial Olympic Park.
But even by the summer of 2002, attendance at all of our festivals was up from the previous year. No matter what happens with the economy, music will still be there. What was the first thing that was done after 9/11? They held a big televised music fundraiser. It was all about the music.
Do you see any danger with there being too much clutter in the sponsorship space? Is there a danger an artist could lose credibility with too many corporate connections?
I don't think they lose credibility at all — not when it's done right. It's not like these products are being integrated into the show. John Mayer doesn't answer his BlackBerry in the middle of a set. And as a music fan at heart, in the deals I do, I would never let that happen.
In terms of clutter, let's be honest, nobody's watching TV anymore without skipping through commercials with TiVo. That's why, when I'm sitting with a brand and they're discussing their multimillion-dollar ad buy, I'll say wouldn't you want to reach out and touch your consumer? Don't you want to have one-on-one, interactive marketing? That's just a fancy way to describe what sponsorships are.
MAC Presents started in 2004. But you had owned another business previously, MAD Events and Booking. What's different this time?
My husband came up with the name MAC Presents. It's the initials for my name, but it also stands for "Music and Companies." He said before, you were bringing music to consumers with your festivals. Now, you're connecting music with companies. And it's true, I've taken little pieces of all the different jobs and experiences I've had and been (able) to create a whole business around it.
Are there any key lessons you took from your first business?
First of all, I'm trying not to rush. Also, I don't want to spread myself too thin, which I think I probably still need to work on. I have brought in a chief operating officer, Cande Cook, who ran student activities at Vanderbilt University for years and years, so I could focus on selling, which is what I do best.
Do you go to a lot of concerts?
I do. With 14 years in the business, and having owned my own festivals, it's different. The only place I really go see shows is the Ryman — I love it there. It moves me. It inspires me. I'd say I'm at 75 percent of the shows put on at the Ryman. But it's not the same for me anymore going to arena shows.
What about festivals — have you been to Bonnaroo?
I've never been to Bonnaroo. My husband and my dad go every year — together actually, which is kind of funny. But it's hard for me to go to festivals and enjoy myself and not be stressed out about picking things apart when they really don't have anything to do with me. But I never ran a venue like the Ryman, so I don't go in and say that's wrong and that's wrong.
I go to a festival and, my God, they don't have enough Porta-Johns. Look how long the line is at will-call. They're out of water. Their beer isn't cold. You know, I don't think my friends and family really like going to festivals with me.
Music Row faces new realities
