Imma Sponsor Your Face
Back in ye olde times, the idea of the sponsored artist seems like it was more prevalent. Dudes named after Ninja Turtles would get a long gig painting church ceilings and stuff like that, and it seems like it worked, since there are a bunch of painted church ceilings now.
Plus, rich people, like kings with big egos, would appoint artists to hang around and create art – there would be the King’s Juggler and the King’s Toilet Painter and the King’s Underground Dance Troupe.
Nowadays kings are mostly gone and ye times are a’changin’ instead of olde. But could the idea of sponsored artists still work? To an extent, it’s kinda still around, morphed into advertising sponsorships, like athletes that make more from Nike than playing basketball. But while that’s common with ball-slingers, it’s not really common with artists, especially in traditional mediums.
I mean, if corporations are the modern equivalents of independent states (if anything, governments are more like the old Catholic church, trying to rule from afar but always being a few steps behind) then where is the Starbucks Juggler? Where is the Best Buy Dance Troupe? Where is the Pepsi Writer?
I dunno.
Rather than harp on the “corporations are evil and should give back by sponsoring art” noise, instead, I wanna focus on the bottom line, because that’s what the Kings care about. So here’s this:
Would you buy more Pepsi if Neil Gaiman was the Pepsi Writer?
Would you buy more Tide if Kevin Smith was the Tide Filmmaker?
Would you buy more Cisco routers if Cory Doctorow was the Cisco Internet Ethicist?
Be honest.
Coz I wanna know.
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Interesting idea! However, I don’t think there’s much corporate interest in sponsoring “controversial” artists. First, it’s hard to keep artists “on brand” (they tend to speak their mind, and even change their mind!). Second, artists often connect with a small subset of the population or if they’re an act like Bob Dylan, they might connect with one set of the population, alienate that segment, move onto another, etc., whereas corporations like consistency. Next, we have the public perception of artists “selling out”. The “sell out” moniker is most harshly applied to the most independent artists; there’s still a kind of cultural wish that these folks speak truth to power. With big name folks like Lady GaGa, selling out is part of the act. But there’s only so much of it the public’s gonna take before they tune out these acts.
In terms of shipping more product, I think the sponsored artist idea can’t get the same traction as the sponsored athlete. Cory Doctorow has a fierce tribe of followers, who wouldn’t take kindly to corporate sponsorship. A broad cross-section of America would rather put Kevin Smith in a laundry machine, than watch his films, so Tide would risk alienating their consumers … they, like many companies, want safe and tidy art.
Well, that’s my take on it!
I don’t know, but if you get that figured out, let me know, because I’d go for it. As long as my sponsor can take what I write, because I ain’t bowing down to no royalty but the muse.
i think starbucks sort of does sponsor certain musicians like josh ritter or at least they play their music, invite them to sing at their choice NYC locations, sell their CDs at the store and tweet about them.
John and Levi, you’re right, keeping them “on brand” would be a problem, since the artists would probably want to speak against the brand just for kicks. I know I would, if sponsored, unless I really believed in it, but that’s unlikely. Everything is disillusioning eventually. Hell, “corporation” control was a problem even back in the day – even old Mike had to paint over Adam’s willy so he didn’t offend the Catholic Church in ye old Sistine churchthing.
Jeeves – sure, they put them in their stores, but the real question is if they put anything into those artists’ pockets. They don’t tell you that.
Really, the more that I think about how to turn this into a business model, the more I get back to how these companies would find artists to sponsor, and then I get to the intermediary, and I’m right back at the agent model, which was what I wanted to circumvent in the first place. Le sigh.
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