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

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

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.html
https://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. How do we turn that into a strategy?

[00:07:13] Jesse Kirshbaum: I believe that buzz and shock and awe can grab attention, but it doesn’t systematically win.

What wins is really understanding what a brand wants. What an artist wants and how to create and tailor fit something. So it’s not as simple as let’s capture a moment and think that it’s gonna continue to ripple. You have to stay constantly on top of the social graph. There are. Definitely going viral is a good thing, but it’s not a strategy, so to speak, and it doesn’t necessarily yield long-term effects unless you’re jumping on top of that and know what to do with it when lightning strikes.

So I feel like it’s all strategy, but also being able to be nimble and flexible and opportunistic in case, you catch lightning in a bottle, which does happen, especially when you’re playing in culture.

[00:08:17] Jason Barnard: Does it have to be a big artist to catch that lightning in a bottle?

[00:08:20] Jesse Kirshbaum: Absolutely not. There’s so much excitement around emerging artists.

Artists that are on the rise. Their fan base is rabid, and we’ve seen this on time and time again. Countless deals that we’ve done where the artist that’s actually. Buzzing right now. Their fan base is so in tune with them and they’re so rooting for them, and everyone wants to be like, I found that artist and telling their friends about that.

So there’s an engagement level around emerging artists that is really exciting and different brands have different definitions of what an emerging artist is right now Chappell Roan Grammy Award-winning best new artist is in many way people seeing this emerging artist. So her fan base is really in tune.

She can be a spokespeople spokesperson on behalf of the artist community ’cause people care what she is to say. She’s raw, she’s authentic, she’s not jaded, and people are really into what she says. Now that’s a different story. People, even artists that are just catching fire in different art markets, regions touch points, tent pole, kind of activations.

These moments happen and. Brands are more savvy than ever when it comes to how to work with creators. And because this creator economy is just building all this infrastructure. So working with a musician that’s emerging still could be like working with a micro influencer, but with so much more potential because they’re creating art, they’re creating music.

They can create content, they can transfer over into different platforms than like an influencer with nice eyelashes.

[00:10:00] Jason Barnard: Brilliant. And what are the different ways to measure the return on investment? You can create specific products as you or services, as you said earlier on. What are the ways to measure how I’m getting return on investment from a partnership with a musical artist

[00:10:16] Jesse Kirshbaum: when it comes to shifting culture?

It might not be as clear as a Facebook ad or a Google search query or sometimes Instagram influencers, you can buy a certain number of impressions and guarantee it, but it’s not the same as really being able to be in the trenches and watching something grow and build and impact people’s lives.

The ripple effect of doing proper music marketing is not as A to B as one might think it takes time, it takes investment, it takes belief in the fact that that music’s an important passion point for your consumer. And over time you start to see that your brand significance, your brand recognition, your brand affinity is growing.

Calls are coming in, people wanna work with you at better rates. You’re all of a sudden, becoming something that other people are wanting to talk about beyond just the transaction. Yeah, you can definitely see sales and you can see, it’s tied of course to revenue, but working with music and musicians can bring earned media and results that are exponential.

I think of it like, yeah, you need your social media strategy and your, SEO strategy, but working and allocating some facet of your brand strategy to music and culture can deliver exponential results. And that x factor, beyond pays like it weighs. And you gotta take those swings if you wanna impact.

[00:12:10] Jason Barnard: Okay. And which your favorite, brand musician relationships that you’ve seen? Not necessarily that you’ve done, ones that stand out in your mind over the last 20 or 30 years.

[00:12:22] Jesse Kirshbaum: If you think about the biggest stories in music over the past decade, it really is about these music and brand partnerships.

Beats and Dre. that is bigger than Dr. Dre’s catalog of music. He’s made more money on these headphones than he will in the entirety of his 40 year body of work as a superstar, producer and artist. And it’s just really exciting to see that products like that can then lead to Apple Music and then the halftime show with Kendrick Lamar and the Ripple just continues.

So really like I love when it’s not just as simple as like an artist made. A pair of sneakers or a headphones, it’s actually like a paradigm shifting opportunity that’s bringing more results and, revenue than all of the, some of its parts. Rihanna’s doing that with Fendi. It’s just, we could go on with just so many of these impactful partnerships that are

using the musician’s celebrity and taste and insights and audience and influence, but really like tapping into their creativity to just create something that lives on way beyond, the music. But it only happens because this artist is making or has made such great impactful music. So it really works well together.

But I love the business of artists launching their own brands or partnering with big companies to, to create products. That will be an extension of who they are and their marketplace.

[00:14:15] Jason Barnard: Brilliant. And are we looking more at the youth market, or can it be any market?

[00:14:20] Jesse Kirshbaum: I think the beautiful thing about music is that everybody can connect to it, right?

People might not like sports, people might not like fashion, people might not be foodies, but everybody loves music in some capacity. So music can be useful if you’re marketing to a boomer. Who’s not buying, a Beatles Eminem or it could be very impactful when marketing to Gen Alpha and the next Kids Bop or Bluey, soundtrack or, even all of these different musicians.

So the beautiful thing is it needs to be specific. I don’t think you would use Kendrick Lamar to sell, Huggies. But maybe there’s a way to do that. I do think that, it’s all about really understanding the ecosystem and having the right touch and strategy to know what music and what facets of the music business you should use to sell to different generations.

But yeah, music is very impactful. all across the board. I think we all connect to music in some capacity.

[00:15:35] Jason Barnard: Yeah, music is universal, definitely. But now with AI emerging technologies, the world is changing very fast. What we were doing yesterday isn’t gonna work tomorrow. What were gonna do for tomorrow?

[00:15:47] Jesse Kirshbaum: It’s so exciting because technology is, again, changing the whole world, but music was at the forefront of the digital revolution.

If you remember Napster, like the business was selling CDs by the boatload and then just completely decimated by this. 2000 era internet and then music figured it out. And music again was at in the trenches with Spotify and figuring out streaming before everybody else. So music is really a digital trendsetter and the biggest artists or the biggest people on social media, most of them are musicians and artists. So I imagine that what’s gonna happen with these new technology opportunities are that again, music is gonna be at the forefront. And we saw that in some early days with music. ChatGPT and versions of like Fake Drake raps and, just different kind of auto-tuned components and where music is really being affected by technology and AI.

But I think what we’re seeing now is like, the rise of the amateur musician is happening because of AI and it’s just lifting the bottom up, but it’s also putting a premium on the great authentic songwriters and the people that actually make the music. So I think ultimately, in a lot of ways, this is gonna be a huge boom and opportunity for musicians, for fans, for creators, for audience. But it’s just still so early innings in technology that I think we’re all looking at it and figuring it out. But one thing you can bet on is that music is gonna be at the forefront. Of what’s happening here and really being a defining factor and people connecting to it and the creators feeding it.

And probably in the early ways of use cases. And we’ve already seen that with AI. But again, it’s moving so fast. There is this first-mover advantage in technology. Yeah. And we saw that in social and we’ve seen that time and time game on new platforms. So it’s important. And I always advise musicians, artists, clients to be looking at emerging platforms and looking at them as opportunities, like almost for attention arbitrage. Here’s where you should be early, because the attention to that is going to bring you bigger results because the community’s just growing and so it’s almost like an emerging artist, but this is an emerging platform and there’s huge opportunity to build your brand on that platform early and get exponential results that will benefit. So I think it’s, music is a driver of these platforms. Music’s gonna bring audience to these platforms and I think that, musicians and these platforms should be very embracing of musicians and music and their fan base because it can be the difference maker. And if a platform is successful or relevant in culture or not.

[00:18:54] Jason Barnard: Right, which is a really great way to end it. It’s that music is universal. Music is what’s driving all these platforms. Musicians and authentic musicians are what attract people. And if a brand can get on that bandwagon. In a meaningful manner to relate to their audience, to get their users much more on board with the brand, get them to feel more emotionally attached to the brand, then it’s a win for both parties.

In fact, it’s a win for all three parties because you have the brand, the platform, and the artist.

[00:19:27] Jesse Kirshbaum: And the fans.

[00:19:28] Jason Barnard: Yeah, four.

[00:19:29] Jesse Kirshbaum: It becomes a new access point, right? So it becomes a win for everybody. It’s a great ecosystem. And if you can’t figure out where to start or navigate, this is what I do all day long. I listen to music, talk about music, come up with creative ways, innovative ways to leverage technology and music and brand partnerships. So I would definitely be happy to help. And I do a newsletter every single week talking about what’s going on in music and brands and breaking down what’s happening in the space. So it’s a really good resource. It’s my love letter to the music and marketing world, and it just gives everybody an opportunity to see what is happening so that they can figure out.

Hey, this is an interesting touch point that maybe we can get involved in. So you can always reach out to me. I’m easy to find and I’m glad, to be able to have this platform to talk about what I do.

[00:20:22] Jason Barnard: Super. Thank you so much, Jesse. That was delightful and interesting. You get the outro song. A quick goodbye to end the show.

Thank you Jesse, and thank you everyone for watching.

[00:20:37] Jesse Kirshbaum: Sign this man. Let’s put his music out. It’s beautiful and it just put a nice heartwarming finish to this interview. Thank you again.

[00:20:45] Jason Barnard: Brilliant. Thank you so much, Jesse.

[00:20:46] Narrator: Your corporate and personal brands are what Google and AI say they are. We can give you back control.

Kalicube.