Marketing Music: Who Needs a Major Label?

Eagles Manager Azoff Partners With Wal-Mart to Promote Band's New Album, While Radiohead Creates Buzz for Their Latest by Offering Pay-What-You-Want Deal Online

An ocean and a generation may separate the Eagles and Radiohead, but today's music industry -- with its broken sales model -- led both groups' managers to bypass the major labels when releasing new albums last year.

Entertainment Marketers 2008: Nancy Utley

Not only did, one-up herself by helping 'Juno' snare four Academy Award nominations, she led a remarkable marketing effort that pushed "Juno" to a gross of more than $100 million at the box office (a record for Searchlight).

Entertainment Marketers 2008: Michael Benson and Marla Provencio

Dismissed early on as an "American Idol" knockoff, "Dancing With the Stars" has become a phenomenon on ABC.

Entertainment Marketers 2008: Kevin Wall

Getting ink upfront, before a concert, is always a producer's toughest challenge. But in the case of Live Earth, it was essential.

Entertainment Marketers 2008: Linda Schupack

A show about the world of advertising in the 1960s deserves, well, standout advertising.

Entertainment Marketers 2008: Alex Rigopulos

Last year may well be remembered as the year video gamers got off the couch. But no game made them move so much, offered so many musical options or pushed them to invite so many friends over as did Harmonix's "Rock Band."

Entertainment Marketers 2008: Susan Kantor

By recognizing that TMZ already had a stable fan base bred on the internet, Susan Kantor was able to devise a marketing plan that aimed to build on that foundation and lure new fans as TMZ expanded into syndicated TV.

Entertainment Marketers 2008: Sue Kroll

The battle of Thermopylae occurred in 480 B.C., and, as the joke goes in Hollywood, Warner Bros. Pictures' marketing plan for "300" took shape a month or two after that.

Entertainment Marketers 2008: Mario D'Amico

Launching Cirque du Soleil's Beatles-themed "Love" show at the Mirage hotel-casino in Las Vegas was a riskier stunt than met the eye.

Entertainment Marketers 2008: John Collins

After his departure from the NFL in 2006, senior exec VP-business and media John Collins concluded that the NHL's brand needed similarly large-scale events.

Entertainment Marketers 2008: Rich Ross

Rarely has an entertainment concept multiplied as rapidly across so many platforms as Hannah Montana did last year, when the Disney Channel hit cable series simultaneously topped charts of TV ratings as well as sales of DVDs, video games, and concert and movie tickets.

Entertainment Marketers 2008: Howard Ganz

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Howard Ganz should be blushing all the way till next Christmas.

Entertainment Marketers 2008: Tony Sella and Pam Levine

With 400 episodes on the tube, "The Simpsons'" strength as a show was also its fundamental weakness as a feature film.