Music licensing needs to be frictionless, not permissionless w/ Jesse Kirshbaum

Jesse Kirshbaum 0:00

songs like Drake's "Forever" 780,000 streams were gained during that period. Or Lil Wayne's Let It All Work Out, 646,000 streams just in that period. Songs don't get old, but context is consistently changing. That's how I think about the living catalog.

Patrick Sweetman 0:27

Today I'm chatting with Jesse Kirshbaum, the founder and CEO of Nue Agency, an award-winning creative music and marketing agency positioned at the center of brands, technology, and entertainment. Welcome, Jesse.

Jesse Kirshbaum 0:39

Thanks for having me, Patrick.

Patrick Sweetman 0:41

Let's start by talking about "Grindin'" 20-plus years later. At 23, you signed The Clipse, and now "Grindin'" is a Lavazza coffee line. What happened to that song?

Jesse Kirshbaum 0:53

It's amazing. Songs don't get old, but context is consistently changing. That's how I think about the living catalog. When I first found The Clipse, this was a gully street record. They were on this tour, and the song was just so novel and just so fresh with this guy named Pharrell out of Virginia, and he was, you know, making these hot beats. But this was kind of his first artist on his label, Star Trak, and it just felt like a new movement. And the fact that now Pharrell and Pusha are launching this coffee, it makes perfect sense to me, but if you probably told us 25 years ago that that was the case, they might not, none of us might not have seen that.

But that's also because a whole changing dynamics between brands and artists and how this whole ecosystem has shifted.

Patrick Sweetman 1:49

you wrote that being agentic is not just about advising, but it's about building. What has changed at New, and what are you building?

Jesse Kirshbaum 1:59

My career has taken many different shapes. Uh, when I first started New 19 years ago, we were a talent agency, and that was what I knew, and that is how I kinda got my chops, was finding and breaking artists early. About 10 years ago, we changed our business model to representing brands, and in that world, I just saw that there was a shift where brands were trying to figure out how to work with music, and the music landscape was getting more complicated. So we just started to help build music strategy and advise brands on how best to connect with their consumers, leveraging the power of music.

Again, the market's changing, and it's becoming a IP-rich world, and the biggest stories in music over the past decade aren't necessarily albums and tours. They're Dre and Beats. They're Rihanna and Fenty. They're Selena Gomez and Rare Beauty. I mean, these are artist collaborations or artist creations that are way bigger or way more valuable than the artists', these monster artists' entire catalogs combined. So it's just a really interesting time. And so for us as an agency- The concept is more what can we create with brands and artists, and more about how do we do something that's beyond just a pay-for-play endorsement?

Let's create not just scale, but signal, and then take that signal and give it scale. So we're always looking for what deserves, what matters, what people will care about, and how to create something beyond just like, uh, Pharrell used to say, "I don't wanna be in a commercial where I just hold the cookie." And so really, like, we're trying to create partnerships where the artist is really vested and interested in the longevity of the product, the campaign, uh, the existence. So we're looking at IP. What can we create with our artist relationships and our brand relationships that are gonna have very meaningful value beyond just a, a, a television commercial?

So like we just did, um, last year we did a, uh, a chocolate milk with Nesquik and DJ Khaled, and that was an original flavor that Khaled was... You know, I was living in Miami at the time, and we had just done a, a television commercial for, with Nesquik and for just their, their chocolate milk. It was the first time they'd ever done anything in music, and Khaled was explaining to me, you know, we were talking about what else we could do. Is there a re-up with them? And he was explaining, "I want the cinnamon to be the star." And he's like, "I want it to be cinnamon-forward." And he...

I was like, "Holy cow, he's wants to produce a cinnamon-flavored, uh, chocolate milk. Like, this is, this is the guy to do it." And so we're talking to Nesquik, we're over, you know, with New York offices and Austria offices, and ultimately he was like, "I want it to be called Cinnabun." And they were texting me like, "We cannot clear Cinnabun, um, but we might be able to clear Cinnamon Bun." And, uh, you know, I said that to Khaled on the spot, and he was like, "Another bun." And, like, everybody's light went off, and it was like, we're gonna launch Another Bun, a cinnamon-flavored chocolate milk with Nesquik and DJ Khaled.

And obviously the beauty of working with a brand like Nestle is you've got scale for distribution. So immediately we're in 14,000, um, stores. You know, we did a deal with 7-Eleven, we did a deal with Walmart, we did a deal with Target. We were in all the different Kroger's and all the kind of big box grocery stores, and Khaled gets a royalty on every one of these sold. Khaled's getting paid to be in the commercial as an endorsement, and it's the first time ever that Nestle's ever done anything in this capacity, and it just opens the door for more of these type of how can we do a royalty, an equity, a brand partnership type deal versus, like, me putting you in the commercial for the Super Bowl, which, you know, I don't think anyone's saying no to, but less and less interesting from a long-term perspective, from a cli- a consumer perspective, a fan perspective.

They can kinda see through, uh, he was paid to be in that ad versus, oh, he actually cares about this, and he put some elbow grease into making this come to life, and he's here for a long haul, so let's give it a shot.

Patrick Sweetman 6:57

So you know what brands want now. You have this line, not what can we pay you to promote, but what can we build together? What does that look like for a catalog owner? You

Jesse Kirshbaum 7:06

Catalog is such an interesting space right now. People are amassing this IP. It's got value. You've got, like, very clear returns on streams, but I think there's just so much more inside of the songs and inside of the catalogs that make it even more powerful, scalable, robust, and valuable. So I, I think it's beyond just let's put this song in a commercial, because that's fine. That's a sponsorship. That's licensing. That's, um, status quo. It's more about how can we give this song new meaning through a brand partnership? And really the gold star, like the, the, the living catalog at its fullest reflection, is when you can find a part of a song, a verse, something inside of the song, and then that ends up giving the partnership new life and, and, and even new meaning.

Like Dolly Parton, rest her soul, just released a Cup of Ambition coffee company. And to me, the nine-to-five woman that's got the ultimate hustle and positivity took... The team behind it took a lyric of her song and turned it into also a coffee brand, and that to me is, like, just a step beyond what licensing is looking like, right? If you just put "9 to 5" behind, you know, a Dunkin' Donuts commercial, it's cool, and I'm sure people would feel good about it, but if you could do that with a song lyric and turn that song lyric into a brand- And give it all new context.

That's where these IP opportunities and, and are way more interesting. And I think brands are looking for new creative ways to connect, and these catalog holders, they have huge, huge investments and all of this inventory, and I think they're in an amazing opportunity to be innovative because they hold the heartstrings of so many of our memories in these songs. And these songs mean so much to us in different eras of our lives, and the familiarity makes it really convenient to be able to roll back out.

Patrick Sweetman 9:37

The, the pushback that we hear is that some catalog investors say that brand deals don't really move the needle. Is, is that a fair argument, or how do you balance and pick a song for a campaign?

Jesse Kirshbaum 9:49

I think that some of them cannot move the needle, and that's definitely true. I mean, in some regards, it's a payment, so that's good. But a really successful brand campaign is using both data and taste because data is gonna tell you where the heat exists, but taste is really gonna tell you where the heat is going or could be. The taste is the context. The taste is the cultural understanding. The taste is the connection points that might not be seen. Data's gonna tell you that streams and demographics and geography and social velocity and behavior is gonna-- what's gonna resonate.

So it's a good component to how you should be finding songs, but really, it's about the sound and the flavor and what the artist has in mind and the story that you can tell. So it's-- there are times where this falls flat, but there are a lot of times also when done right that you can really change the trajectory of a brand's course. Like, culture marketing is not easy, but it's the wild card or it's the, you know, component to a marketing campaign or a brand's identity that could hockey stick growth. You know? All of a sudden, this certain song and this certain product and this certain endorsement, you just see it shooting up because it's in the right place at the right time.

It's placed in the right movie. It's aligned with the right product or the right, uh, commercial, and everybody feels the charge of that halo effect. And, uh, I think that can happen with events. I think that can happen with partnerships. I think that can happen with celebrity part- endorsements. Um, culture marketing is not an easy guaranteed ROI the same way that, like, buying a Facebook ad would be or, you know, marketing on YouTube. You know you're getting your conversion rates there. But if you really want to be seen and, and, and experienced in a way that has a, a resonance, you gotta think about this in a way-- You gotta think about culture.

And the way I look at music, music is the lowest barrier to entry into shifting culture. Music's the universal language. Music's the great connector. Some people might not be foodies. Some people might not like sports. But everybody connects to music in some capacity. And so music is that kind of great way to draw out emotion and, and to kinda change the trajectory of a brand. And I don't think every brand needs a full-on music strategy necessarily, but I think they need to have a POV on how music fits with their brand and where they're going. And that's how they should be approaching their syncs.

That's how they should be approaching their content, their celebrity endorsements. Uh, all of that should be informed by where their brand sits on the, you know, axis of, of, of the music world and music catalogs and music and art in general and music and, and, and artistry.

Patrick Sweetman 13:10

Can a brand deal make an old song worth more? what was one campaign, either one that you've run or one that you admired, where a brand was able to bring an older song back? What kind of happened to its numbers, and did the lift last?

Jesse Kirshbaum 13:25

I think about-- I, I write an, a, a column, uh, called, with Chartmetric and my friend Clayton Durant, uh, called Stat of the Week, and that's like a, a LinkedIn kinda side, uh, newsletter that we've done. And I look at the NFL Draft, and the NFL Draft in twenty twenty-five did something really interesting. They had the players choose their walkout songs, and they were able to have their own kind of like first into the world theme songs. And all of a sudden, the music wasn't just the background. It became part of the artist's and the athlete's identity, and it was their big reveal.

And a lot of people just learned about these athletes or were loving them, and this was the biggest moment of their career to date. And all of a sudden, they're walking out. And you saw songs like Drake's "Forever" just- Gained so many streams during that period. I think it was the number 780,000 streams were gained during that period. Or Lil Wayne's Let It All Work Out, 646,000 streams just in that period. So it's fascinating that you could see something like the NFL be savvy enough to allow these stars and these, their, their next generation of, of stars and athletes to be able to have this cultural moment and attach it to music.

And each one of these songs that these, you know, 26 teams, I think, times two, uh, were able to, you know, have with these athletes using, they each were able to give new context to the music. The song no longer meant the song. The song now means something fully different, and it's got a whole new identity and a new relevance. And it's just exciting to see that you could take an old song, you could attach it to a new moment, and the new song has a completely different flavor and feel. And then that song is then reflected in streams, sales, downloads, talkability, relevance.

Um, it just builds a whole new life into that song. And that moment will go on, right? Like, if you did this again and again, you go back and you watch the day LeBron was drafted, the day LeBron was announced, the day that all of these players are first coming to the stage to, you know, step into the big leagues, and that song is now attached to them forever. I, I, I keep thinking about, um, there was an old, like, mixtape, uh, video mixtape that was, like, legendary and, like, Larry Bird was on it, and he would do... Small Town was the song. And, like, it's a whole new song to me.

When I hear that song at a bar, I think of one thing, but when I think of basketball and I think of Larry Legend hitting those threes and talking trash and doing what he does, you can give a song a whole new meaning with the right sync, the right partnership, and it, it, it works. I mean, it works in every capacity. So, um, we see that, that it's a, it's, it's a winning strategy.

Patrick Sweetman 16:45

Let's talk about clearing music at scale. You were flagging that clearing music at scale was a major issue. When a brand can make hundreds of AI cuts of one single ad, who gets to clear that music? Where does it break?

Jesse Kirshbaum 16:59

But we're looking at this creator economy. We're looking at this AI scalability in terms of content, and all of a sudden you've got 10,000 versions of a license or 10,000 assets created by a brand to be able to market a product or in a commercial. And music licensing doesn't work that way. If you're licensing it for TV, it needs to be clear, or for social, which platforms? For how long? And now that you wanna be able to put this song that you licensed for a television commercial in 10,000 iterations through AI, it's not as easy to be able to just kind of like...

The same way you could push a generator to make all the content, the license rights are not as frictionless, because that's not the way the rules have been written.

And so do we need new rules?

I think we need a new paradigm, right? Like, that's always how it works. You know, before you even knew what existed, how could you be able to write the rules for it? And I think music needs to not be permissionless, but it needs to be frictionless, and that's important for brands and catalog holders to kinda figure out 'cause otherwise you're just gonna get an AI version of the song, and it's just gonna be a free AI slop or an AI-created kind of customized piece, which actually in so many cases are pretty good, but there's no cultural value to that, and you can just kind of run it across the 10,000 different iterations of content.

But It's not gonna be the same as having the impact of actually licensing the song and then being able to use it for all the different iterations that you need. So we just have to be adapting and adaptive and, and, and changing with the times. And music's always at the forefront of the, you know, revolutions and these digital revolutions. We were first with Napster and, you know, the decimation of the music business, and then we were very early on when it came to, you know, Spotify and the streaming revolution and how that kind of really built new economics of scale.

And then you look at things like social media. All of those were built with music stars and traveled in many ways through the power of music and music celebrity and, and, and, and music as an art form. And I-- we're in a similar situation where AI, um, music and, and is, is kinda gonna lead the, the way when it comes to rights, when it comes to licensing, when it comes to, um, being able to connect brands and commercial opportunities with, um, the creation. And so I think that again, we're at an interesting inflection point where new rules have to be written because right now the way that music is licensed doesn't fit necessarily for the creation process that's happening, and then it's gonna come even further.

Uh, and that's why I think companies like Endemic Sounds and even Suno, uh, but definitely Endemic Sounds understands that, like, there are so many creators, and they're making all this content for brands, and they wanna be able to license music and put music in their videos and not have their videos taken down because it's not authorized. So I think it's a missed opportunity for the rights holders to not figure out a way to be able to get their music into these short-form commercials. But it has to be done in a way where there's compensation and there's tracking and measurability.

Otherwise, it's just gonna be background music that kinda connects one thing to the other or AI music which lacks the certain soul and cultural resonance that, um, that some of these catalogs can offer.

Patrick Sweetman 20:57

Where should a catalog owner start You wrote an article in Beats + Bytes, your archive is IP. A label with like, 5,000 songs wants brand money. Which songs should they be looking at first,

Jesse Kirshbaum 21:10

I think with a label, in your example of five thousand songs, I think it starts with maybe twenty-five to fifty, and really it's about the idea. What is the verse? What is the song? And why does it matter to the brand? What brand? like, where, where does it work? Uh, I think you have to be specific. People are looking for, and specifically brands are looking for ideas. So it's not just about I have these five thousand songs and I'm sending you a playlist, or fifty songs and I'm sending you a playlist. Don't send a playlist. Send a concept, and why it makes sense and who it resonates with and why it's res-- it's valuable to that brand.

Come up with something that is more thoughtful to the brand's identity and the catalog, and I think you have a better shot at landing the sync. Intention is-- and, and preparation and, and thinking that through is so important. And you get a yes or no, but at least there's clarity on the ask. And I, I-- sometimes you can, you know, be in the right circles where somebody is just listening to your playlist. But for the most part, I think we're throwing darts right now in this environment, and brands have a lot of things coming at them. Um, so if it's a great idea and it's unique to your catalog, and you're uniquely positioned to be able to make this idea come to life, you have the best shot at landing the project.

Patrick Sweetman 22:53

Let's start to wrap up with some quick-fire questions. Um, the first question I have is: what is the most underrated song a brand could use today?

Jesse Kirshbaum 23:01

There's so many classics and gems out there. The one that kind of weirdly has been, like, floating around in my mind lately is, um That Juvenile, Mannie Fresh, Lil Wayne song, "Back That Thing Up," it's, like, so universal. It's that beat drops, and it feels so good, and it was such an era that it kinda speaks to the nostalgia of this, like, kinda changing of the guard in the, you know, early 2000s. But when I hear it, it's like, "Back that thing up," and I just go to my mind like, "You mean to the cloud?" And I'm like, this is, this is one of those songs that, like, could be in a movie.

It's like everybody knows it. But then also it could just be so funny with, like, what are we backing up? Like, where are we backing things up? And it could just be a very funny, like, internet commercial, too.

Patrick Sweetman 23:57

What's the catalog that deserves the Kid A Mnesia Treatment?

Jesse Kirshbaum 24:01

There's so many great ones that could be done in that way if you've saved the archive, if you've saved the notes, the liner notes, the, the, the journals, the scribbles, the the thoughts in your head that came together to make the project. I mean, they had it all. It was an era, and all of that content, it just... or that art and that kind of, like, work to make the projects were never really been seen. So they just pulled out from the vault all the sticky notes and all the doodles and created this kind of world, uh, around, um, what they meant with these two albums.

But I just saw the Gorillaz did one, uh, leading up to this big concert they're doing at Madison Square Garden, and it was just fantastic. The storytelling, the original notes, the concept of how it came together, all of the trajectories of what's worked and who they've worked with, um, it just gave so much context and history to where the group is as they come into this new project and this new tour. It sets the stage brilliantly. I also think that, like, imagine if you could do that with, like, The Beatles' White Album. Like, a museum of what it was like with the journals and videos and B-roll and different rooms and different contexts of the producers.

And there's already enough of that catalog out there that, and probably a couple more in the vault, that you could pull together a really interesting interactive storytelling about how that album came to life just using old material. And I think people would pay a lot for it, and I think it would... a lot of people would connect to the music in a, in a new way, and, uh, it would be a great exhibit.

Patrick Sweetman 25:56

What's one thing catalog owners should stop doing with brands? Is it that example you said of just chucking the 5,000 song catalog over the wall and saying, "Give me a deal"? Or what's one thing catalog owners should stop doing when they're approaching brands?

Jesse Kirshbaum 26:10

Yeah, if you don't have the idea and you don't have the cultural resonance, I think just coming up and saying, "I own this music," and thinking that a brand is gonna have the time, or the brand manager is gonna have the time to be able to sort through it to find the right relevance and resonance, is the wrong approach. I think you need to know your property, and you need to know why your property makes sense with others, and from there, I think you'll have your strongest chance of success.

Patrick Sweetman 26:41

Last question I have: Where can people find you?

Jesse Kirshbaum 26:45

So I own this agency, Nue Agency. Again, live in the intersection of music and technology and brands. I'm always looking for new ideas that we can bring the right people around and help make come to life on a big scale and in a big way. Uh, I do a newsletter every single week called Beats + Bytes, where I'm tracking what's going on in the music and brand space, and it's kinda my love letter to the music business. Um, it's keeps me really sharp, and everything that I see and things that I'm thinking about and, uh, projects I'm working on, I put into that.

Uh, and it's a, it's a weekly that comes out on my, um, website. You can find it at newagency.com or on any of my socials. Uh, you can kind of link to sign up for it there.

Patrick Sweetman 27:37

Beats + Bytes is excellent. If you're listening to this and you feel out of touch with the music industry, he is disciplined and religious about putting this out every single week, and it's a great trove of information to, to stay in the know. Jesse Kirshbaum, thank you for joining us today.

Jesse Kirshbaum 27:52

Thanks for having me, Patrick.