I got a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast yesterday (don’t judge me, it was multi-grain), and as I was walking back to my apartment, I was fondly recalling the days at my last job when there would be bagels in the conference room for some kind of occasion. Sure, I could have bought the same bagel with cream cheese for a dollar sixty three (not that I know exactly how much bagels cost because I get them so often or anything), but it just tastes better when it’s free and a surprise.
I feel similarly about free-and-a-surprise press hits. Of course a certain satisfaction comes from brainstorming stories with your clients and their managers, formulating your pitch, researching contacts, sending the feature idea to the perfect writer, waiting for the writer to pitch his or her editor, getting the editor’s approval, arranging the interview, and eventually seeing the story in print or online (listing my job like that makes me crave more carbs), but there’s just nothing quite like that sweet, sweet hit that required no effort whatsoever on your part.
Last week, Hilary and I were on the phone talking about her upcoming recording of the Jennifer Higdon and Tchaikovsky concertos, and we got on the topic of music on airlines. Where do they get those recordings? How can I pitch better placement? Who is the airlines’ contact at the record labels (I worked at Hilary’s record label and have no idea)? Not 24 hours later, Hilary sent me this from her iPhone, presumably after she landed so as not to break in-flight rules:
In case you can’t read the description of her Bach Partitas album, it says,
Hilary Hahn: Bach Partitas, Violin
Classic Mozart Violin pieces performed by a contemporary virtuoso.
Good…try, Delta? I suppose I should just be thankful that they didn’t call her a “young violinist.”
I still haven’t figured out how to place albums on in-flight entertainment programs, but if you know, feel free to comment, and if I find out, I’ll let you all know.
The second surprise hit last week came in via fellow classical music publicist Steven Swartz over at Dot Dot Dot Music, who sent this gem of a visual from the Wall Street Journal:
So, on a scale of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra to Yo-Yo Ma, Hilary comes in second to the top? Alright. Take a gander at the article that this chart accompanies, though, on Andre Rieu. Apparently, his tour was the sixth highest grossing tour of 2009?
So the lesson here, I think, is work very hard to get your clients into the public’s collective consciousness so they pop up in press without any effort on your part. The other lesson we can take from this is that nobody looks good when the Wall Street Journal detaches your head from your body.
Took a trip to Germany in April and I gotta tell ya that the classical music selections were inaudible no matter what volume setting I tried. You could get a general idea of the piece, but any detail was lost in the ambient noise of the flying environment. So in the end it didn’t really matter what they were offering.
Gonna have to get one of those Bose noise cancellation headsets and bring my own tunes.
Wait she comes in BEHIND Yo-Yo Ma? Oh HECK no. Look at your watch: it has been SIX YEARS since M. Ma put out an album of new classical recording. SIX YEARS.
(What this teaches us, of course, is that Yo-Yo Ma is even better at burnishing his public image than he is at playing the cello.)
To the pitching the airlines question, there are programs that the label can purchase but for rotation on the channels, that’s something we can pitch like airplay. Most airlines work with a few different partners like DMX who will program channels for many different airlines. Sadly, it is somewhat out of our control making sure that the stations actually describe the music correctly…Drop me a note and I can tell you more.