Jesse Kirshbaum talks with Jason Barnard about music and brands.

Jesse Kirshbaum is the CEO of Nue Agency and an American entrepreneur. Jesse, who works at the intersection of music, technology, and brand partnerships, discusses various ways brands can use music to connect with consumers, such as partnering with artists, live events, and product placements.

Jason Barnard and Jesse Kirshbaum discuss strategies for successful brand-music collaborations, including managing deliverables, creating long-term plans, and leveraging emerging artists. They also discuss the challenges of measuring ROI for music marketing.

Jason and Jesse emphasize the universal appeal of music and the opportunities for brands to authentically connect with consumers through music-based partnerships. This is definitely a must-watch episode for entrepreneurs who want to learn how music can transform their brand presence through strategic artist collaborations.

What you’ll learn from Jesse Kirshbaum

00:00 Jesse Kirshbaum and Jason Barnard

02:11 What Features Did Jason Barnard Emphasize From Jesse Kirshbaum’s Google Knowledge Panel?

02:33 What Did Jason Barnard Highlight in Jesse Kirshbaum’s Google Learn About Result?

02:58 Why is Google Learn About Crucial for Business Leaders Who Want to Control How They Are Seen Online?

03:20 Who Are Jesse Kirshbaum’s Ideal Clients?

05:31 What Kind of Deliverables Are Brands Typically Looking For?

06:32 What Kind of Deliverables Can Artists Reasonably Deliver?

07:13 Why Do Musicians Mistake Viral Buzz for Sustainable Marketing Success?

07:23 What Beats the Success of Viral Moments in Music Marketing?

08:03 How Can Brands Capitalize on Viral Moments to Create Sustainable Marketing Impact?

08:21 Why Does it Not Necessarily Need a Big Artist to Create a Viral Moment?

08:26 What Does it Mean When a Fan Base is Described as ‘Rabid’?

09:40 Why Does Working With an Emerging Musician Feel Like Working With a Micro-Influencer?

10:16 How Can You Measure the Return on Investment From a Partnership With a Musical Artist?

12:21 What Is Jesse Kirshbaum’s Favorite Example of a Successful Brand-Musician Partnership?

14:19 Why Can Everyone Be Considered a Target Market in Music Partnerships?

14:33 Why is it Important to Choose Specific Music for Different Age Groups in Marketing?

15:47 What Strategies Should We Adopt to Keep Up With the Fast-Changing World of AI?

16:47 How is AI Transforming Music Creation?

17:28 Where Will Music Be on the Next Wave of Technological Innovation?

18:06 When Should Artists Leverage Emerging Platforms for Maximum Attention Arbitrage?

18:34 Why Do Music and Musicians Drive Platform Success in the Digital Age?

18:57 What Are the Four Parties That Benefit From a Meaningful Brand-Musician Partnership?

This episode was recorded live on video March 18th 2025

https://youtube.com/live/fjWg5Ga1rYg

Links to pieces of content relevant to this topic:https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/nue-agency-founder-jesse-kirshbaum-says-brands-should-pay-attention-to-music-culture/https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2025/01/jesse-kirshbaum-on-trends-driving-the-music-business-in-2025.htmlhttps://celebrityaccess.com/2024/12/12/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-nue-agencys-jesse-kirshbaum/Jesse Kirshbaum

Transcript from Jesse Kirshbaum with Jason Barnard on Fastlane Founders And Legacy. Music and Brands

[00:00:00] Narrator: Fastlane Founders and Legacy with Jason Barnard. Each week, Jason sits down with successful entrepreneurs, CEOs and executives, and get them to share how they mastered the delicate balance between rapid growth and enduring success in the business world. How can we quickly build a profitable business that stands a test of time and becomes our legacy.

A legacy we're proud of. Fastlane Founders and Legacy with Jason Barnard. 

[00:00:31] Jason Barnard: Hi everybody and welcome to another Fastlane Founders and Legacy. I'm Jason Barnard from Kalicube. I'm here with Jesse Kirshbaum. A quick hello and we're good to go. Welcome to the show, Jesse Kirshbaum. 

[00:00:46] Jesse Kirshbaum: I love that little jingle intro. Thank you Jason. 

[00:00:50] Jason Barnard: Brilliant. Yeah, we're talking about Music and Brands, so that little jingle intro is absolutely perfect. And quickly tell me what are we talking about? How to bring music and brands together, or how brands can leverage music? 

[00:01:02] Jesse Kirshbaum: So basically I live at the intersection of music and technology and brand partnerships. My clients are brands, event companies, tech companies that wanna get deeper connections to their consumers by leveraging the power of music. But it's various ways you can do this. It could be partnering with an artist, it could be a live event, it could be seating at a sponsorship at an event. It could be, product placement in a music video.

There's just so many interesting ways to put music and brands together, and that's what we do for our clients all day long and like you, I'm a music fan and just a consummate consumer. And I've been in the music space for a long, time and just really live, eat, drink, breathe, and sleep what's happening, in the intersection of music and brands and technology, so very well-versed in it, 

[00:01:59] Jason Barnard: Which is a great point. I think all human beings have a musical soul. And so it's a great way for brands to communicate and to get closer to their audience. Before we start with that conversation, I wanted to show you your representation in Google, and it says here, Jesse Kirshbaum is an author, because you wrote a book, we often see this.

I would imagine you should be an entrepreneur rather than author, but because you wrote a book, Google thinks that you are an author. However, that looks like a, really good Google search result for your name. Then if we look in Google Learn about, which is the ChatGPT killer. Google Learn About is taking ChatGPT to a new level where it mixes its understanding of the world with the search results with an ability to converse with the user.

And when I ask it to tell me about Jesse Kirshbaum. It tells me very accurately who you are. And in at Kalicube, we believe and we understand that's hugely important to you because your users, your prospects, your clients are gonna be searching your name, whether it's on Google or ChatGPT or Google Learn About. Now, who are your clients?

Any kind of company, big companies, small companies. 

[00:03:20] Jesse Kirshbaum: Yeah, it can range. Sometimes it could be a big Fortune 100 company. We just launched a chocolate milk with DJ Khaled and Nest Quick, which was, Nestle's chocolate milk business. It was their first foray into the artist and music side of things.

and we put together first a television commercial and then, with Khaled, an original flavor that now is in. 14, 1500 stores. Everything from Walmart to 7/11 to Publix to Kruger's. So we come from a standpoint of finding the artist and then bringing the deal together with the artist and then making sure all the deliverables from the artist are met and then creating all sorts of marketing moment stunts that are aligned to the artist.

And then it spawned an original idea. So we launched, an original flavor called Another Bun with DJ Khaled. So in that instance, our client is Nestle. Also, we have a close relationship with DJ Khaled. So that puts us in the unique position to do that. Where we sit in this ecosystem is we're completely agnostic. We don't work on behalf of the labels, the talent agencies, the management companies, the DSPs.

We work with holistically the entire industry. So when the brands hire us, you're not just getting force fed, a priority artist. We're looking at it and saying, here's who you should be working with. So clients could be big Fortune 100 companies. They could be emerging brands that understand, like you said before, that music is this great connector, this universal language, and that it's a huge passion point for consumers. So leveraging music and using music in certain facets, even if you're an emerging brand, can be extremely impactful. So we have a different spin on like the creator economy because we're really focused on this lane of music and entertainment. 

[00:05:22] Jason Barnard: And when you talk about deliverables, what kind of deliverables are brands looking for and what kind of deliverables can artists reasonably deliver?

There's huge following in fan base. So from just a traditional like posting standpoint, timing, making sure it's the right amount of posts, making sure that the right messaging and meta tags are on those posts, making sure that artists are showing up to different shoots or different promises that are included that they need to do usually, we love it when an artist will go above and beyond because it's an authentic connection. So it really feels like something that they wanna promote and go hard for, so to speak. So Really guiding that conversation, understanding what an artist or a particular artist is looking to do and why it really matches with what this brand or this tech company or this platform is also looking to do. And then finding that authentic connection and then watering it and helping it to grow and making sure that sometimes we're reminding artists a, this new

deliverable or this new Ted Pole moment is coming up, let's make sure to post at the right time, make sure that all the right components of that are in place. it's not just as simple as just like putting people together and thinking it's gonna happen. There's strategy and tactics and managing against timelines that are a lot of the unfun, but crucial components to what makes these partnerships really successful. 

And you mentioned strategy, the social media aspect. Yeah. It's all this quick buzz. We're getting a lot of visibility very quickly.