Partnering with a brand to boost first-week sales is something several superstar acts have tried before. And that’s in addition to his summer stadium tour with Justin Timberlake as well as active deals with Budweiser, where he’s curated the second year of the Made in America festival, and Duracell’s PowerMat, in which he has a minority stake. Just how big was Samsung’s check? The New York Post’s initial report announcing the deal valued the partnership at $20 million, a figure that likely included media spend, but sources put the value of the entire deal closer to $30 million and say Jay-Z likely received as much as $7.5 million in music rights and endorsement fees.
That’s what it’s about more than anything else.” “The fact that Samsung can write a big enough check to be able to underwrite the cost of the album and foot the huge cost of marketing and promotion, you literally go into the release week profitable. What about week 52?” says a major music manager who’s inked branding deals to support album releases. If artists at Jay’s level no longer need a distributor to put their music in the hands of 1 million listeners, do labels ultimately matter? (Island Def Jam will distribute “Magna Carta Holy Grail” at retail after Samsung’s 72-hour exclusive lifts July 7.) Which other brands could do this? (Paging Pepsi, Coke, Citi, Amazon and American Express, for starters.) And do first-week sales ultimately matter? It marks the first time a major release has been exclusively premiered by a brand, and it raises even broader questions about the future of the music business.
While the answer to Jay’s question about sales is ultimately up to Billboard’s charts department, the impact of his groundbreaking deal with Samsung had every sector of the industry buzzing.
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