In the interest of sparking conversation, what about Iron Maiden? They have a very successful brand that is built around NOT doing (many) interviews, not selling their music to advertisers/brands and relying on the strength of their music, elaborate stage shows and awesome brand (Eddie anyone?)to garner viral buzz.

Seemingly long term, this is a better strategy than having “Number of the Beast” or “Wasted Years” in a car commercial, which would water down their brand, despite exposing them to a much larger audience.

Where does an artist (or anyone) know where the line is between building a brand and being appropriately opportunistic. After all, if you take these opportunities, does that opportunism become part of your brand?

I guess the line for me is “authenticity”. When an artist begins to act contrived (Britney?) that’s when the audience loses interest. If your personal “brand” as an artist is broad enough to accommodate partnership with compatible consumer brands, then I think the public is accepting.

Much of it though also has to do with the music itself. I read an article recently that said that the folks that have the rights to Nirvana’s music have not managed to parlay those rights into a big time pay date. Mostly, this has to do with the music itself, which screams (literally and figuratively) to be left alone.

Perhaps the same can be said about Iron Maiden, though I am fairly certain that one of their songs was in a sneaker commercial when I was a kid — and they recently licensed “Can I Play With Madness” to Sony for an HDTV ad.

The days of being a sellout are long over. The music industry gets so wrapped up in talking about the “changes in technology” that they don’t just shut up and play, and let the music go where it goes.

If a marketing firm deems a song appropriate and fitting to represent their product which will reach millions of people around the world-that’s a beautiful thing. Let the music free!