He's not convinced that Samsung is really going to get all the cool points it wants.ĪLTMAN: They're inserting themselves as a middle man between a ton of people who want a new Jay-Z album and the actual product. SYDELL: Eli Altman is with the branding firm A Hundred Monkeys. And Samsung?ĮLI ALTMAN: What they're trying to get is cool points. And Jay-Z is getting a lot of promotion out of his deal with Samsung, along with those millions of dollars. SYDELL: And like Jay-Z once sung, he's not just a businessman, he's a business man. JAY-Z: (Rapping) I'm guessing I could sell CDs. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DIAMONDS FROM SIERRA LEONE") JIM DONIO: Taylor Swift's face was on the pizza box so that marketing to you was still happening if you didn't know that the album was out. Jim Donio of NARM, the music business association, says even if you didn't get the CD. Last year, Taylor Swift made a deal with Papa John's Pizza - you could get her new CD delivered along with your pie. Hooking your name to a big corporate brand can help. SYDELL: Over the last decade, it's gotten a lot harder to sell albums - the record industry has shrunk by half. My next record, I'm going to drop it through them and do it at a football game or something, you know, what I'm saying?
MASTER P: To be honest with you, I think it's genius because to partner up with a technology company, you know, I'm working on mine's right now. On a recent edition of MTV's "RapFix Live," he had this to say. Take someone like Master P, he pioneered turning himself and his label into a brand. And there are a lot of other hip-hop artists who think Jay-Z made a smart move. Over 11 million people were watching the game and some 23 million watched the Jay-Z ad on YouTube. He thinks it's the highlight of a turnaround.īEN WIENER: I think if you said, five years ago, that Samsung would be rivaling Apple and stealing market share and emerging as, you know, the most culturally connected and relevant brand of recent years, people would have laughed at you. Ben Wiener, CEO of the ad agency WDCW, estimates Samsung spent another $15 million or so on the campaign. Samsung spent $5 million purchasing those one million copies of Jay-Z's album. Website visitors leaned that Jay-Z's new album "Magna Carta Holy Grail" will become available to the first million Samsung Galaxy users to download an app by July 4th, three days before its release. SYDELL: At the end of the ad, a website, and the name of the phone, Samsung Galaxy, come up, white type on black background. RICK RUBIN: The idea is to really finish the album and drop it. It also featured the famous producer Rick Rubin who recently said he isn't actually producing the album. It aired during Game 5 of the NBA finals. In case you missed it, this three-minute ad is a pseudo verite look at Jay-Z in the studio. JAY-Z: What is that? What the hell is that? Oh, man. LAURA SYDELL, BYLINE: The Jay-Z/Samsung campaign had a high profile launch. It's part of one of the highest profile albums and phone promotions ever.Īnd as NPR's Laura Sydell reports, we're likely to see many more marketing deals like this one in the future. One million owners of Samsung's Galaxy phones tomorrow will get to download rap star Jay-Z's latest album, three days before its official release.