Pakistani music - marketing and patronage.

Byline: SHEHARYAR RIZWAN

LAHORE -- A couple of panel discussions on the first day of the much-awaited and much-hyped Lahore Music Meet (LMM) on Saturday pertained to the promotion of a musicians product, which is music, and if the corporate world should help in that, if at all.

The discussion titled Marketing Yourself as a Musician was participated in by PR guru Selina Rashid Khan, marketing, advertising and copyrights professional Waqas Almas and musicians Jimmy Khan of the band Jimmy Khan and the Big Ears and Raavail Sattar of the Poor Rich Boy.

The discussion began with the marketers talking about what a musician needs to and should do to market him/herself. Almas shared that he followed the four Ps formula -- product, price, promotion and placement. Selina was of the idea that a musician needs to create an image and should know how to package him/herself as a brand.

The musicians said today an artist was expected to do all the promotion that actually a record label should do. Khan said a musicians job was to handle the production side, make music, rest was a labels job, but that isnt the trend in Pakistan.

Sattar agreed, saying, "The only viable product you have to sell as a music business is live performances, and later appearances, advertisements and sponsorships."

Selina chipped in that even if there were teams, support structures willing to musicians to help them brand, market, promote, there has been some "reticence from a singer to accept that because they feel theres a level to which theyre selling out, and they feel uncomfortable in doing so". Khan said a musician only feels offended because when corporations selling soft drinks, ice creams and coffee jump in, the artist then becomes attached to a tangible product.

A session, titled Corporate Patronage of Music in Pakistan was helmed masterfully by Ahmed Naqvi, including RJ and brand manager Bassam Qureshi, veteran corporate professional Umer Sheikh, and musician/producer Omran Shafique as panelists.

The discussion revolved around how big corporate firms are relaying music by sponsoring various TV shows and if this corporate-music marriage works, the content has been stifled, and to what extent this deal works since radio, TV, or any mass medium is not playing local music. Another issue under discussion was records label bowing out, corporations taking over and pirated content becoming a preference.

Qureshi was of the idea that...