Old Nashville Promotion Executives Never Die

.. they just seem to live on to try to write compelling email memos which are interesting enough to make you read the 'news' they send about artists you've never heard of with songs that have little or no chance of ever being on R&R-Billboard or Country Aircheck's weekly 'most added' rankers.

Like Larry Pareigis, who has been a major market country programmer in the 90's and then rode the Dixie Chicks roller coaster all the way up and then all the way back down again too. He's hawking a guy named Eric Durrance and is into very helpful branding guidance this week:

By most accounts (critics and audiences alike – and I agree), INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL is a fairly mediocre film that hoovered up more than $300M in a mere 5 days this past weekend worldwide.

At this point last year, 7 movies had zoomed past the $100M mark domestically – this year only 3 have:

Horton Hears A Who
Iron Man
Indiana Jones 4

People’s mental folders are so full with overstimulation these days coming at them from every conceivable angle that superbrands rule the day, even if they’re mediocre – name recognition is a major part of success but can also fail when what’s being sold doesn’t match the perceived caliber of the name (see Clinton, Hillary – Campaign 2008).

To be an active superbrand, one must not only be useful, fun, cool & meaningful, but also have to provide a place of community – a rallying point of fellow enthusiasts, and the 3 properties above do that for the young (Horton), the tweeners (Iron Man) and the not-so-young (me taking my nephew to see Indy 4).

Brandchannel.com asks fellow marketers yearly several questions about their favorite brands, really clever questions like:

What brand would you most like to sit next to at a dinner party? Why?

Dinner parties have several implicit and unspoken rules. Do not, for example, do or say anything that would embarrass yourself, your host, or a fellow guest. Dinner parties are about being civilized, interesting, and engaged. And which brand would brandjunkies prefer to sit next to?

The Top Five: Apple, Virgin, Google, Coca-Cola, Nike

Or:

What brand, if sent back 100 years, would have the biggest impact on the course of history? How?

Ah, the time-traveling brandjunkie dilemma. Where modern branding intermingles with history and creates a different, perhaps unrecognizable, present. Crank up your time machine and bring your branding expertise.

The Top Five: Apple, Microsoft, Google, Coca-Cola, Ford

Also:

If you were to describe yourself as being a brand, what brand would you be? Why?

We all know the saying, "You are what you eat." Well, you are also the brands that you are inspired by. Every time you connect with a brand—or go all out and purchase it—you're saying something about yourself. Here is what brandjunkies had to say about themselves as brands.

Top Five Answers: Apple, Nike, Coca-Cola, Virgin, BMW

We’re all trying to build brands that are meaningful or lasting, whether it’s the clients or companies we work for…or ourselves.

How best do we all arrive at that destination?

Then, there's Tony Benkin, who has been through four different record promotion posts over the last few years and is now being paid to hype some fellow named Joshua Stevens who sounds to me like he could be the guy Alan Jackson was singing about in "Gone Country."

Tony isn't as lengthy or thoughful as Larry in his weekly update. He just wants to make you smile, critique radio today and adds a famous quote:

Did you know?
- There is a city called Rome on every continent.
- Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible.
- The average person laughs 10 times a day!

Here’s a problem with Voice-tracking...on 2 different stations in the Nashville market, I heard a weather break where they both talked about how it was Sunny and 85...even tho it rained all day long. One even called it “the perfect day to get outside”. Whoops.

Quote of the week: "Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young." -- Fred Astaire

It's too late for me to start young, I fear, but heck their efforts did not end up in the Temple Of Doom (the deleted messages folder) and actually did pay off today in getting me to blog about Eric and Joshua.. and (if they are really lucky) perhaps even motivated you to click on their websites and listen to a few bars of their new music.

C'est la promotional vie, eh Indie!?