Capturing Eardrums

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Another trait that can help a musician is comfort -- even hamminess -- as a performer. That can help an entrepreneur, too, and Anthony definitely has it. His goal for 2005, in fact, is to concentrate on doing his song and dance for as many big clients as possible, and he should be freed up to do that with the addition of Carr Biggerstaff, one of his board members, who has come out of semiretirement to serve as president and basically be the operator while Anthony sells. Biggerstaff, 47, is an amiable and low-key guy with deep experience in technology and marketing, having worked with Andersen Consulting and Intel, among others.

Fieldhouse, the Vesta CEO whom Anthony considers a mentor, thinks this is a critical step for Rumblefish. Much of the day-to-day operations of the company amount to research and detective work: networking with musicians and others to help meet obscure requests (from figuring out the coolest PBR-friendly bands in Cleveland to finding hip-hop tracks for a Nike project in Asia), identifying samples and sorting out the thorny legal clearance issues, and so on. Last year the company brought on a full-time lawyer, Stacy Ison, who specializes in music rights. Now Biggerstaff can oversee those issues, and 2005 should be the year, Fieldhouse says, that Anthony manages to identify 20 top potential clients to "attack" before the real competition emerges. Fieldhouse's company, Vesta, which provides back-end commerce technology for telecom companies and others, followed the same strategy. Rumblefish, Fieldhouse believes, needs to get its story out there: "There's been basically no marketing."

In the two years since that PBR test case, Anthony has sold his music identity concept in mostly seat-of-the-pants fashion. The closest thing Rumblefish has to marketing is the "fish car," a tiny, 100% electric vehicle that's been tricked out to resemble a fish and equipped with a thumping stereo system. (Anthony funded this, somewhat remarkably, with an obscure Department of Energy grant.) Tooling around in the fish car one day, he stopped next to one of the modified trucks that energy drink company Red Bull uses for its street team marketing. "Hey, fellow theme-car guy!" Anthony called out. This led to a conversation with the Red Bull rep, which led to Anthony getting Rumblefish involved in the company's Red Bull Music Labs events (where wannabe musicians learn recording technology and cut their own songs in five-day marathons in various cities), which in turn led to involvement in creating giveaway CDs for the company.

Adidas hired Rumblefish to help it tap the under-the-radar vibe and create some "good noise, relevant noise."

And it was at a Red Bull event that he connected with a local agency doing work for Adidas. The shoe giant has been opening stores to sell its Originals products, aiming at consumers more concerned with style than athletics. Robert Felt, who heads U.S. retail for Adidas North America, wanted to do something different to get attention for the Adidas Originals Store opening in Portland, and Anthony came up with some ideas built around music. He had recently become familiar with a Denver company called Allied Vaughn that had created a Web-based media-on-demand technology. So what if, Anthony suggested, the invitation to the Originals Store opening directed people to a website where they could pick tracks and have a custom CD -- of Portland artists -- sent to them in the mail? Rumblefish had all the connections, including the wide selection of talent in its stable (including, of course, Liv). Felt loved the idea -- it tapped into the under-the-radar vibe he wanted and was the kind of idea that created "good noise, relevant noise."

They repeated the process in Chicago, with local musicians from that city. Next came another Rumblefish brainstorm involving, of all things, street musicians. The company identified musicians in Cambridge, Mass., Miami's South Beach, Portland, and New York City's SoHo, and got them permits to set up in the vicinity of Adidas stores in each place. If a passerby gave the musicians money, the musician handed it back -- along with an Adidas Originals coupon. "And they think they're getting it from the musicians," Felt says, "which is the best part." That might sound as if it borders on tricking consumers, but to marketers these days the key issue is coming up with anything that breaks through the clutter of traditional ad messages that so many of us ignore.

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