Building The Label Brand

Our post on Building Label Brands as part of our ongoing Can The Music Industry Save Itself? series and the discussion that followed led to this astute comment from Jesse Kanner, Senior Director of Digital Strategy at Capitol/Virgin EMI Music:

As an employee of a major label, I’ve had label branding argument a few times.

My position is: Label branding doesn’t matter to the consumer – until it does. Meaning – if you conduct yourself right, market well, understand your audiences and messaging, attend to the sonic and visual quality of your product, consumers will start to pay attention to your mark. It matters. People do need filters.

Attention label folk: If you can’t market yourselves, how on earth are you able to effectively market your artists? A record label is a promise. It defines an aesthetic standard – a set of assumptions. If you keep your promises your brand builds equity. If you don’t, no one cares about what you have to say – everyone loses (label, artist and consumer).