PANEL - Madison Avenue: Where Music Intersects With Brands - Presented by Beats+Bytes

The relationship between bands and brands has evolved over many decades. One of the first brand partnerships was The Rolling Stones x Rice Krispies in 1964. It was not well received or considered credible at all. But now, when artists like Post Malone partner with Crocs, Postmates, Bud Light, or Doritos it’s seen as a huge boost for both artist and brand. These collaborations often result in the increase of not only market share but stock prices as well. A core reason for this evolution was the entrepreneurial spirit of hip-hop and we can trace this back to the infatuation with Adidas. Once it became clear that hip-hop could sell sneakers and brands could become revenue streams for rappers, it was on. Hip-hop’s bravado made brand partnerships cool, and brand money made hip-hop rich. That breakthrough, coupled with the digital revolution decimating the record business and cutting into artists’ income, made Madison Avenue and the larger brand ecosystem indispensable for pop stars and artists at large. Come join Madison Avenue: The Intersection of Music & Brands for an in depth conversation about the creative process and how a passion for music drives the most successful campaigns.

Featured Speakers:

Mike Ladman, Head of Music at Droga5

Since joining Droga5 in 2016, Mike Ladman founded and developed the Music Department managing music and audio capabilities across the agency and client roster. During this time, Mike has helped lead the agency to win over 50 music and advertising industry awards, notably four Cannes Lions, two D&AD Pencils, four Clios including the Grand Music Clio, seven AMP awards, an Emmy nomination among others, across Droga5 clients such as Google, The New York Times, Facebook, Hennessy, Levi’s and others. He has created and supervised music across global campaigns including work for the Super Bowl, Olympics, Grammy’s Oscar’s, Emmy’s, and Presidential Election.  In 2018, Mike was named one of Billboard's Top Branding Power Players. He has been an international music delegate around the world at music festivals and conferences in Denmark, Amsterdam, Israel, Brazil, Mallorca and more. Prior to joining Droga5, he was a Music Producer at McCann for nearly seven years, where he provided music for clients, such as Microsoft, the United States Army, Verizon, MasterCard and more, across the agency’s roster. Mike received his first film credit managing the music supervision for an indie film, Tracktown, which premiered at the LA Film Festival in 2016. In his free time he DJ's under the alias DJ PuppyHiccups.

Moderator: Jesse Kirshbaum, CEO of Nue Agency & Beats+Bytes

Jesse Kirshbaum is an American entrepreneur, talent agent, author, executive producer and dealmaker. The multi-hypenate creative businessman has made his career focused on the epicenter of entertainment, technology and brand marketing. He started his career finding and developing talent and from there has extensive experience securing talent for concerts, tours and endorsement deals for his various clients and brand partners internationally. As an agent, he represented: Pusha T & The Clipse, Wale, Mike Posner, Logic, Asher Roth, White Panda which spawned Gryffn, J. Cole, Big Sean, Action Bronson, Meek Mill and many more.  

In the same way he is known for helping to break artists, he now focuses on building robust strategies and campaigns for big & emerging brands that wish to break into the mainstream zeitgeist. He is known as one of the top deal makers and thought leaders in the music, tech and brand intersection. He writes and curates Beats & Bytes, one of the premiere weekly newsletters in entertainment and the biggest music newsletter on LinkedIn. His writing is published all across the web and Jesse has regular featured appearances on platforms such as Cheddar, Yahoo Finance, NASDAQ and a regular guest on the podcast circuit.

In 2021, Kirshbaum was hired as the CMO of Dreamstage, a revolutionary music livestreaming company which sold this year to the French company Deezer. He currently resides in Miami and is back as the CEO of Nue Agency as well as teaching a class at American University’s Business School on The Streaming Revolution.