I Eat Music

The artwork for Mariah Carey’s new album, ‘Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel’, will carry adverts, it has been announced. Due for release on 15 Sep via Island Def Jam, the first million copies of the album in the US and first 500,000 in Europe will come with a specially created miniature Mariah-centric edition of Elle magazine as the CD booklet, containing adverts for Elizabeth Arden, Angel Champagne, Carmen Steffens, Le Métier de Beauté and the Bahamas Board of Tourism, as well short articles on the singer, lyrics and the usual credits and suchlike.

A condensed version of the mini-magazine, minus the CD-specific elements, will be inserted into 500,000 subscription copies of the October issue of Elle (published shortly after the album’s release) and in the US the CD will be sold alongside Carey’s new perfume, cunningly called Fragrance, at its manufacturer Elizabeth Arden’s counters in WalMart stores.

With ad revenues funding 100% of the booklet’s printing costs, Island Def Jam are hoping that if this experiment goes well, they will be able to sell off the artwork of albums by Kanye West, Rihanna and Bon Jovi in a similar fashion.

The label’s chairman, Antonio ‘LA’ Reid told Brand Week: “The idea was really simple thinking: ‘We sell millions of records, so you should advertise with us’. My artists have substantial circulation – when you sell two million, five million, eight million, that’s a lot of eyeballs. Most magazines aren’t as successful as those records”.

He added that Carey had been “very open” to the idea when he had shown her the original mock up of the booklet, adding: “I wouldn’t want to do Mariah Carey and Comet abrasive cleaner. I wanted things that really reflected her taste”.

He admitted that partnerships like this would become increasingly important as revenue from record sales continues to decrease. He continued: “We don’t have music retailers any more, so a smart consumer products company that understands the value in distributing music is going to restore the vitality of our business. If we distribute music properly and if it’s done tastefully, it could be a huge profit centre for all of us. That is the missing link – we need partnerships”.

Ah yes, partnerships. That old thing. While it’s true that CD sales still make up three quarters of revenues for record labels, sales do, of course, continue to slip. Then again, magazines, particularly fashion titles, aren’t doing so well either so I’m not sure how long this specific kind of partnership will work. I wonder how long it will be before ads creep onto the CDs (or downloads) themselves, Sigue Sigue Sputnik style. Hmm, now there’s an idea. Though if you work in marketing or advertising, forget I said that last bit.