SFX HAS SPENT THREE YEARS AMASSING A LIVE-ENTERTAINMENT EMPIRE. NOW IT WANTS TO PUT CORPORATE PARTNERS CENTER STAGE.

Don’t know what N Sync, Ozzy Osbourne, monster trucks, and the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team have in common? Then it’s time you were introduced to the world of SFX, Inc.

If you haven’t yet heard of this company, you probably haven’t been involved in much live-entertainment marketing recently – or, for that matter, haven’t been keeping up with industry news. Here’s a brief (if that’s possible) primer on what New York City-based SFX is:

– the largest promoter of music concerts and festivals in North America. This year’s list of tours include Britney Spears, N Sync, The Backstreet Boys, Dave Matthews Band, Tina Turner, George Strait, Ozzfest, Santana, and The Who. Of the estimated 35 million concert tickets that will be sold in the U.S. in 2000, 70 percent will be for SFX shows.

– owner of the nation’s largest network of live-event venues, with 120 indoor and outdoor theaters in 31 U.S. cities and 11 more in Canada.

– the biggest operator of Broadway touring companies, with 13,722 shows in 55 markets this year. It also produces shows on the Great White Way, including current hit Jekyll and Hyde and the upcoming Seussical the Musical.

– a major player in “family entertainment” events, such as Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance and live tours for Nickelodeon’s Rugrats and Blue’s Clues, to name a few.

– the nation’s leading sports marketing agency. Numerous divisions represent more than 650 professional athletes (including a guy named Jordan), produce more than 100 hours of network TV programming, and operate such varied events as the Monster Jam truck tour, the Breeder’s Cup horse race, ATP Tennis events, and the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship, in addition to providing a variety of consulting and marketing services for corporate clients.

“They are the absolute steamrollers in the live industry,” says Michael Schau, managing editor of Entertainment Marketing Letter, New York City. “They really have taken over.”

SFX’s $1.7 billion empire was assembled through the acquisition of more than 45 companies (the latest being last month’s purchase of motorsports marketing shop Cotter Group) since December 1997, when radio magnate Robert Sillerman turned his attention to the live market. The move was undertaken to establish an unprecedented – and inimitable – giant in entertainment properties management, and to create what SFX executives call a “new paradigm” in lifestyle marketing that surpasses traditional sponsorship models in both reach and effectiveness. Founder Sillerman calls the concept a new “frontier for brand innovation” in the company’s latest annual report.

The visionary Sillerman is gone, having stepped aside this summer after selling his company to radio and outdoor conglomerate Clear Channel Communications in a $4.6 billion deal. But his goal of making SFX a major player in event marketing is just now starting to hit its stride.

SFX began developing a company-wide marketing strategy in July 1999, when it named Paula Balzer president of SFX Marketing, a 70-person (and counting) division charged with developing broad, long-term alliances with corporate marketers (as well as stewarding the company’s own brand). SFX’s various operating units already have numerous relationships with brand marketers; the trick now is to sell the overall company as infinitely stronger than the sum of its parts.

“We’re looking to form alliances with leading companies to become their lifestyle marketing consultants,” says Balzer, former president of promo shop Contemporary Marketing. SFX acquired Totowa, NJ-based Contemporary in 1998, and now uses the agency as its field-execution arm.

SFX Marketing is targeting more than 60 companies in 20 categories that it wants on the client list. Among the big names already in the fold are Anheuser-Busch, Visa, and American Express. “There are other ways to reach consumers,” says Balzer. “But we have the most diversified portfolio and the most diversified demographics.”

Presenting one face for marketers to deal with – what Balzer refers to as controlling both the venue “hardware” and the talent “software” – leads to cost-efficiencies as well. San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co. has supported emerging music for 15 years. But until 1999, its efforts encompassed events in just three markets negotiated with local venue operators. Last summer, the company joined with SFX to launch Levi’s 1st Stage, a program that this year is putting local bands on permanent secondary stages in 26 SFX-owned amphitheaters. “They let us bring [the program] to a much wider audience,” says Sheri Timmons, Levi’s director of sponsorships. The 1st Stages are now part of the concert-going experience at 800 different events. Levi’s also gets double-coverage whenever one of the major tours it sponsors – Christina Aguilera and D’Angelo this summer – hit an SFX venue.

Expansion involves more than just extra eyeballs: Since SFX owns the venues, it supplies Levi’s with free tickets the brand can use to run buy-one-get-one offers with local retailers including May Department Stores and Millers Outpost. It also allocates space on-site for the Make Them Your Own touring vehicle, a grassroots extension of Levi’s corporate branding program. (Contemporary handles the mobile tour.) In addition, SFX brought in retailer Mars Music, Fort Lauderdale, FL, to run contests to find local talent for nine of the venues. “It’s giving us a more profound impact,” says Timmons.

In a two-year deal signed last spring, Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble’s Pringles became the exclusive salty-snack sponsor of SFX venues, and is activating the alliance on-site with “experiential” tents at amphitheaters that let visitors play branded congas for a chance to win ticket upgrades. The concept leverages Pringles’ most recent ad campaign (from Grey Worldwide), which depicts cans being used as instruments. Signage, concession displays, sampling efforts, and premium giveaways support.

The program “is very different, and that’s why we like it so much,” says Pringles spokesperson Shanae Gibbs. Rather than sponsoring a concert tour and reaching one demographic, “this gives us an opportunity to engage with a lot of different consumers, some on a recurring basis,” Gibbs says.

Cups Runneth Over Can you objectively serve the needs of clients while simultaneously satisfying internal business demands, namely making money for talent-side clients and selling more tickets? “They’re selling specific properties and specific real estate,” notes Jay Coleman, president of entertainment marketing agency EMCI, Stamford, CT. “Sometimes it’s hard to wear two hats.”

“As a client, that’s something you’re concerned about,” says Marci Grebstein, vp-media and marketing communications at Staples, Inc., Westborough, MA, which has used SFX subsidiary Proserv as its “outsourced sports marketing department” for six years. “But they’ve proven that that’s not the case.”

While ideal marketing partnerships will help SFX achieve its own goals, too, client needs will win out if it comes down to a choice, executives say. “The ability to win at this game is aligning ourselves with the corporate marketplace,” says Bill Allard, president of SFX Sports Group. “We’ve got to look out for their best interests.”

One of the company’s primary goals is to work with partners to develop customized events and programs that utilize SFX’s resources rather than simply exploit existing properties, executives say.

If partnerships are handled properly, everyone’s needs can be met, Allard says, pointing to the company’s execution of last year’s U.S. Women’s Soccer Victory Tour as an example. Having signed a deal to represent the team that won last summer’s Women’s World Cup, SFX developed a fall barnstorming exhibition, then changed the itinerary after Paramus, NJ-based Toys “R” Us signed on as title sponsor. The company also worked with the toy retailer to create both on-site and in-store activities.

Grebstein says the additional resources Proserv can leverage from the SFX network have been a plus. For the grand opening of the chain’s 1,000th store last year in Atlanta, SFX supplied a few players from the soccer tour, which was in the area.

“Our leveraging thoughts are always front and center,” says David Paro, senior vp of SFX Corporate Consulting, which has 13 employees and 10 clients including Staples, Schering-Plough’s Claritin, and Hershey Foods. “It makes what we do that much stronger.”

Executives say they aren’t looking to muscle out traditional marketing agencies. “When we form these alliances, we make everything we have available to them,” says Balzer. “But if they want to bring in [another agency] to help, that’s fine with us.”

“We don’t necessarily go out there and say we’re an ad agency or a promotion agency,” says Paro (whose background includes a stint at Chicago promo shop Frankel). “We manage Claritin’s baseball sponsorship, but [the] brand uses a lot of other agencies as well.”

“They’ve definitely made it more challenging for the independent [concert] promoter,” says Coleman at EMCI, which got client E superscript *Trade title sponsorships for two SFX-promoted tours this year. As far as marketing agencies go, “I think we can all co-exist. They’re helping legitimize sponsorships. As long as they deliver good value and [marketing partners] are happy, it’s good for my business, too.”

Hit Them Baby, Many More Times Despite its size, SFX hasn’t cornered the market – at least not yet. The company works under a variety of contractual arrangements, and doesn’t manage any talent on the music side of the business. So it doesn’t always hold all sponsorship rights for the tours it promotes.

A prime example is the current Britney Spears spring-through-fall tour. SFX worked with Got Milk? ad agency Bozell Worldwide to secure title-sponsorship rights for the National Fluid Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP)/Dairy Management, Inc. But additional sponsors Polaroid Corp. and Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Clairol, Inc. made deals directly with Spears’ management.

Regardless of how the deals are set up, SFX takes care of on-site execution. “The SFX people are just unbelievable implementers,” says Kurt Graetzer, ceo of Washington, DC-based MilkPEP (which used Spears in a Milk Mustache ad a couple of years ago, then brought her back this year in the campaign’s 100th flight to kick off the sponsorship.) “We’ve never been involved in this kind of concert tour before, and these guys have done a very good job getting us involved.”

“We’re in 78 cities and they took care of all the arrangements seamlessly,” adds Craig Plymesser, vp-milk marketing for Dairy Management, Inc., Rosemont, IL.

The folks at SFX also brought the milk folks and Polaroid together for a joint program on-site. Concert-goers get their pictures taken with a standee of Britney’s Milk Mustache ad using a Polariod I-Zone instant pocket camera. Contemporary Marketing handles.

Polaroid also gets space at SFX-owned venues in 20 markets to run a second photo op at which fans have their pictures taken for a billboard delivered to Spears before the show.

“It’s the first time we’ve worked with [SFX], and they’ve been terrific,” says Mary Courville, Cambridge, MA-based Polaroid’s senior marketing communications manager. (So has Spears, for that matter. See story, below.)

Just Warming Up The acquisition spree is far from over, and plans include buying additional resources on the execution end. Meanwhile, the speed with which new marketing alliances are being struck is accelerating. In just the last two months, SFX signed deals with:

– Southwest Airlines, for a sponsorship program that gets the Dallas-based airline presence at 11 amphitheaters. The pact includes presenting-sponsor status for one show at each venue and tickets Southwest can use for frequent-flier and corporate-client promotions.

– American Express, New York City, for a Summer Concerts in Blue campaign that gives a free CD to AmEx cardholders who buy tickets to SFX events in 12 markets on ticketmaster.com. Ticket buyers pick up the ducats at special Blue-branded will-call windows, and get first dibs on lawn seating through a branded AmEx gate. (Momentum Marketing, St. Louis, handles AmEx promotions.)

– Discovery Health Channel, to serve as title sponsor for the Women’s Soccer Challenge tour, which kicks off next month after team members return from the Olympics. Discovery will work with cable providers on local promotions in 12 markets.

– the National Basketball Association, to produce additional entertainment in conjunction with a new minor league the NBA is launching in mid-size cities next year.

– an unnamed automotive manufacturer, to run test-drives for its trucks on the racing tracks of the Wrenchhead.com Monster Jam series (an SFX-owned tour) the day after events are held.

Is the company too big for it’s own good – and too large to serve the interests of scores of marketing partners? “There’s always that perception,” says Allard. “But there’s a real intense desire to be client-focused and help build brands.”

The merger with Clear Channel and its 830 radio stations offers an incredible opportunity to bring local media support to the current strategy, Allard says. And it fills the only “little void” SFX had, he suggests.

Last question: With all this custom development of entertainment events taking place, are there enough ticket-buyers to go around? “I don’t think there will ever be too much entertainment out there. The market will always dictate how much there is,” says Entertainment Marketing Letter’s Schau. “And somebody always wants something.”

Don’t be surprised if most of those somethings are produced by SFX.

POLAROID HAS A CRUSH ON BRITNEY. Corporate marketers know the potential risk: Plunk down millions to get the tour sponsorship, then wring your hands as the talent turns out to be completely uncooperative. But mega-star Britney Spears has proved to be a sensation in that respect as well.

“She has been absolutely wonderful to work with,” says Mary Courville, senior marketing communications manager at Polaroid Corp., Cambridge, MA, which turned its sponsorship of Spears’ 2000 tour into “a truly integrated” marketing campaign for its tweens- and teen-focused I-Zone instant pocket camera in large part due to the singer’s willingness to assist, Courville says.

Polaroid’s activation during the first leg of the tour last spring was relatively subdued, mainly featuring venue signage and radio tie-ins. (“We got in a little late,” notes Courville.) But the company has heavily leveraged its status during the tour’s second leg.

In addition to appearing on signage, ads, and P-O-P, Spears and her dancing entourage actually use I-Zones in two numbers during the performance – which begins each night with an MC taking I-Zone shots of front-row ticket-holders for inclusion in the tour’s scrapbook. By that point, most concert-goers have already seen what the I-Zone can do, since Polariod runs one and sometimes two “experiential” promotions outside venues (See main story).

Other components of the campaign include print ads in teen magazines, radio tie-ins, a special Web site offering scenes from the tour, and a contest dangling a trip for four to a show in West Palm Beach and face-to-face time with Spears. A retail sweepstakes for a trip to an Orlando concert is running in such chains as Kmart, Target, Wal-Mart, and Wolf Camera. Goodby Silverstein, San Francisco, handles advertising, New York City-based Porter Novelli p.r., and Communicator of Chicago retail promotions. “She’s helped us get to our target market in a very effective manner,” says Courville.

Hey, Britney even agreed to pose for the cover of a promotion marketing magazine. Celebrities don’t get more cooperative than that.

SFX HAS SPENT THREE YEARS AMASSING A LIVE-ENTERTAINMENT EMPIRE. NOW IT WANTS TO PUT CORPORATE PARTNERS CENTER STAGE.

Don’t know what N Sync, Ozzy Osbourne, monster trucks, and the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team have in common? Then it’s time you were introduced to the world of SFX, Inc.

If you haven’t yet heard of this company, you probably haven’t been involved in much live-entertainment marketing recently – or, for that matter, haven’t been keeping up with industry news. Here’s a brief (if that’s possible) primer on what New York City-based SFX is:

– the largest promoter of music concerts and festivals in North America. This year’s list of tours include Britney Spears, N Sync, The Backstreet Boys, Dave Matthews Band, Tina Turner, George Strait, Ozzfest, Santana, and The Who. Of the estimated 35 million concert tickets that will be sold in the U.S. in 2000, 70 percent will be for SFX shows.

– owner of the nation’s largest network of live-event venues, with 120 indoor and outdoor theaters in 31 U.S. cities and 11 more in Canada.

– the biggest operator of Broadway touring companies, with 13,722 shows in 55 markets this year. It also produces shows on the Great White Way, including current hit Jekyll and Hyde and the upcoming Seussical the Musical.

– a major player in “family entertainment” events, such as Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance and live tours for Nickelodeon’s Rugrats and Blue’s Clues, to name a few.

– the nation’s leading sports marketing agency. Numerous divisions represent more than 650 professional athletes (including a guy named Jordan), produce more than 100 hours of network TV programming, and operate such varied events as the Monster Jam truck tour, the Breeder’s Cup horse race, ATP Tennis events, and the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship, in addition to providing a variety of consulting and marketing services for corporate clients.

“They are the absolute steamrollers in the live industry,” says Michael Schau, managing editor of Entertainment Marketing Letter, New York City. “They really have taken over.”

SFX’s $1.7 billion empire was assembled through the acquisition of more than 45 companies (the latest being last month’s purchase of motorsports marketing shop Cotter Group) since December 1997, when radio magnate Robert Sillerman turned his attention to the live market. The move was undertaken to establish an unprecedented – and inimitable – giant in entertainment properties management, and to create what SFX executives call a “new paradigm” in lifestyle marketing that surpasses traditional sponsorship models in both reach and effectiveness. Founder Sillerman calls the concept a new “frontier for brand innovation” in the company’s latest annual report.

The visionary Sillerman is gone, having stepped aside this summer after selling his company to radio and outdoor conglomerate Clear Channel Communications in a $4.6 billion deal. But his goal of making SFX a major player in event marketing is just now starting to hit its stride.

SFX began developing a company-wide marketing strategy in July 1999, when it named Paula Balzer president of SFX Marketing, a 70-person (and counting) division charged with developing broad, long-term alliances with corporate marketers (as well as stewarding the company’s own brand). SFX’s various operating units already have numerous relationships with brand marketers; the trick now is to sell the overall company as infinitely stronger than the sum of its parts.

“We’re looking to form alliances with leading companies to become their lifestyle marketing consultants,” says Balzer, former president of promo shop Contemporary Marketing. SFX acquired Totowa, NJ-based Contemporary in 1998, and now uses the agency as its field-execution arm.

SFX Marketing is targeting more than 60 companies in 20 categories that it wants on the client list. Among the big names already in the fold are Anheuser-Busch, Visa, and American Express. “There are other ways to reach consumers,” says Balzer. “But we have the most diversified portfolio and the most diversified demographics.”

Presenting one face for marketers to deal with – what Balzer refers to as controlling both the venue “hardware” and the talent “software” – leads to cost-efficiencies as well. San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co. has supported emerging music for 15 years. But until 1999, its efforts encompassed events in just three markets negotiated with local venue operators. Last summer, the company joined with SFX to launch Levi’s 1st Stage, a program that this year is putting local bands on permanent secondary stages in 26 SFX-owned amphitheaters. “They let us bring [the program] to a much wider audience,” says Sheri Timmons, Levi’s director of sponsorships. The 1st Stages are now part of the concert-going experience at 800 different events. Levi’s also gets double-coverage whenever one of the major tours it sponsors – Christina Aguilera and D’Angelo this summer – hit an SFX venue.

Expansion involves more than just extra eyeballs: Since SFX owns the venues, it supplies Levi’s with free tickets the brand can use to run buy-one-get-one offers with local retailers including May Department Stores and Millers Outpost. It also allocates space on-site for the Make Them Your Own touring vehicle, a grassroots extension of Levi’s corporate branding program. (Contemporary handles the mobile tour.) In addition, SFX brought in retailer Mars Music, Fort Lauderdale, FL, to run contests to find local talent for nine of the venues. “It’s giving us a more profound impact,” says Timmons.

In a two-year deal signed last spring, Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble’s Pringles became the exclusive salty-snack sponsor of SFX venues, and is activating the alliance on-site with “experiential” tents at amphitheaters that let visitors play branded congas for a chance to win ticket upgrades. The concept leverages Pringles’ most recent ad campaign (from Grey Worldwide), which depicts cans being used as instruments. Signage, concession displays, sampling efforts, and premium giveaways support.

The program “is very different, and that’s why we like it so much,” says Pringles spokesperson Shanae Gibbs. Rather than sponsoring a concert tour and reaching one demographic, “this gives us an opportunity to engage with a lot of different consumers, some on a recurring basis,” Gibbs says.

Cups Runneth Over Can you objectively serve the needs of clients while simultaneously satisfying internal business demands, namely making money for talent-side clients and selling more tickets? “They’re selling specific properties and specific real estate,” notes Jay Coleman, president of entertainment marketing agency EMCI, Stamford, CT. “Sometimes it’s hard to wear two hats.”

“As a client, that’s something you’re concerned about,” says Marci Grebstein, vp-media and marketing communications at Staples, Inc., Westborough, MA, which has used SFX subsidiary Proserv as its “outsourced sports marketing department” for six years. “But they’ve proven that that’s not the case.”

While ideal marketing partnerships will help SFX achieve its own goals, too, client needs will win out if it comes down to a choice, executives say. “The ability to win at this game is aligning ourselves with the corporate marketplace,” says Bill Allard, president of SFX Sports Group. “We’ve got to look out for their best interests.”

One of the company’s primary goals is to work with partners to develop customized events and programs that utilize SFX’s resources rather than simply exploit existing properties, executives say.

If partnerships are handled properly, everyone’s needs can be met, Allard says, pointing to the company’s execution of last year’s U.S. Women’s Soccer Victory Tour as an example. Having signed a deal to represent the team that won last summer’s Women’s World Cup, SFX developed a fall barnstorming exhibition, then changed the itinerary after Paramus, NJ-based Toys “R” Us signed on as title sponsor. The company also worked with the toy retailer to create both on-site and in-store activities.

Grebstein says the additional resources Proserv can leverage from the SFX network have been a plus. For the grand opening of the chain’s 1,000th store last year in Atlanta, SFX supplied a few players from the soccer tour, which was in the area.

“Our leveraging thoughts are always front and center,” says David Paro, senior vp of SFX Corporate Consulting, which has 13 employees and 10 clients including Staples, Schering-Plough’s Claritin, and Hershey Foods. “It makes what we do that much stronger.”

Executives say they aren’t looking to muscle out traditional marketing agencies. “When we form these alliances, we make everything we have available to them,” says Balzer. “But if they want to bring in [another agency] to help, that’s fine with us.”

“We don’t necessarily go out there and say we’re an ad agency or a promotion agency,” says Paro (whose background includes a stint at Chicago promo shop Frankel). “We manage Claritin’s baseball sponsorship, but [the] brand uses a lot of other agencies as well.”

“They’ve definitely made it more challenging for the independent [concert] promoter,” says Coleman at EMCI, which got client E superscript *Trade title sponsorships for two SFX-promoted tours this year. As far as marketing agencies go, “I think we can all co-exist. They’re helping legitimize sponsorships. As long as they deliver good value and [marketing partners] are happy, it’s good for my business, too.”

Hit Them Baby, Many More Times Despite its size, SFX hasn’t cornered the market – at least not yet. The company works under a variety of contractual arrangements, and doesn’t manage any talent on the music side of the business. So it doesn’t always hold all sponsorship rights for the tours it promotes.

A prime example is the current Britney Spears spring-through-fall tour. SFX worked with Got Milk? ad agency Bozell Worldwide to secure title-sponsorship rights for the National Fluid Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP)/Dairy Management, Inc. But additional sponsors Polaroid Corp. and Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Clairol, Inc. made deals directly with Spears’ management.

Regardless of how the deals are set up, SFX takes care of on-site execution. “The SFX people are just unbelievable implementers,” says Kurt Graetzer, ceo of Washington, DC-based MilkPEP (which used Spears in a Milk Mustache ad a couple of years ago, then brought her back this year in the campaign’s 100th flight to kick off the sponsorship.) “We’ve never been involved in this kind of concert tour before, and these guys have done a very good job getting us involved.”

“We’re in 78 cities and they took care of all the arrangements seamlessly,” adds Craig Plymesser, vp-milk marketing for Dairy Management, Inc., Rosemont, IL.

The folks at SFX also brought the milk folks and Polaroid together for a joint program on-site. Concert-goers get their pictures taken with a standee of Britney’s Milk Mustache ad using a Polariod I-Zone instant pocket camera. Contemporary Marketing handles.

Polaroid also gets space at SFX-owned venues in 20 markets to run a second photo op at which fans have their pictures taken for a billboard delivered to Spears before the show.

“It’s the first time we’ve worked with [SFX], and they’ve been terrific,” says Mary Courville, Cambridge, MA-based Polaroid’s senior marketing communications manager. (So has Spears, for that matter. See story, below.)

Just Warming Up The acquisition spree is far from over, and plans include buying additional resources on the execution end. Meanwhile, the speed with which new marketing alliances are being struck is accelerating. In just the last two months, SFX signed deals with:

– Southwest Airlines, for a sponsorship program that gets the Dallas-based airline presence at 11 amphitheaters. The pact includes presenting-sponsor status for one show at each venue and tickets Southwest can use for frequent-flier and corporate-client promotions.

– American Express, New York City, for a Summer Concerts in Blue campaign that gives a free CD to AmEx cardholders who buy tickets to SFX events in 12 markets on ticketmaster.com. Ticket buyers pick up the ducats at special Blue-branded will-call windows, and get first dibs on lawn seating through a branded AmEx gate. (Momentum Marketing, St. Louis, handles AmEx promotions.)

– Discovery Health Channel, to serve as title sponsor for the Women’s Soccer Challenge tour, which kicks off next month after team members return from the Olympics. Discovery will work with cable providers on local promotions in 12 markets.

– the National Basketball Association, to produce additional entertainment in conjunction with a new minor league the NBA is launching in mid-size cities next year.

– an unnamed automotive manufacturer, to run test-drives for its trucks on the racing tracks of the Wrenchhead.com Monster Jam series (an SFX-owned tour) the day after events are held.

Is the company too big for it’s own good – and too large to serve the interests of scores of marketing partners? “There’s always that perception,” says Allard. “But there’s a real intense desire to be client-focused and help build brands.”

The merger with Clear Channel and its 830 radio stations offers an incredible opportunity to bring local media support to the current strategy, Allard says. And it fills the only “little void” SFX had, he suggests.

Last question: With all this custom development of entertainment events taking place, are there enough ticket-buyers to go around? “I don’t think there will ever be too much entertainment out there. The market will always dictate how much there is,” says Entertainment Marketing Letter’s Schau. “And somebody always wants something.”

Don’t be surprised if most of those somethings are produced by SFX.

POLAROID HAS A CRUSH ON BRITNEY. Corporate marketers know the potential risk: Plunk down millions to get the tour sponsorship, then wring your hands as the talent turns out to be completely uncooperative. But mega-star Britney Spears has proved to be a sensation in that respect as well.

“She has been absolutely wonderful to work with,” says Mary Courville, senior marketing communications manager at Polaroid Corp., Cambridge, MA, which turned its sponsorship of Spears’ 2000 tour into “a truly integrated” marketing campaign for its tweens- and teen-focused I-Zone instant pocket camera in large part due to the singer’s willingness to assist, Courville says.

Polaroid’s activation during the first leg of the tour last spring was relatively subdued, mainly featuring venue signage and radio tie-ins. (“We got in a little late,” notes Courville.) But the company has heavily leveraged its status during the tour’s second leg.

In addition to appearing on signage, ads, and P-O-P, Spears and her dancing entourage actually use I-Zones in two numbers during the performance – which begins each night with an MC taking I-Zone shots of front-row ticket-holders for inclusion in the tour’s scrapbook. By that point, most concert-goers have already seen what the I-Zone can do, since Polariod runs one and sometimes two “experiential” promotions outside venues (See main story).

Other components of the campaign include print ads in teen magazines, radio tie-ins, a special Web site offering scenes from the tour, and a contest dangling a trip for four to a show in West Palm Beach and face-to-face time with Spears. A retail sweepstakes for a trip to an Orlando concert is running in such chains as Kmart, Target, Wal-Mart, and Wolf Camera. Goodby Silverstein, San Francisco, handles advertising, New York City-based Porter Novelli p.r., and Communicator of Chicago retail promotions. “She’s helped us get to our target market in a very effective manner,” says Courville.

Hey, Britney even agreed to pose for the cover of a promotion marketing magazine. Celebrities don’t get more cooperative than that.

SFX HAS SPENT THREE YEARS AMASSING A LIVE-ENTERTAINMENT EMPIRE. NOW IT WANTS TO PUT CORPORATE PARTNERS CENTER STAGE.

Don’t know what N Sync, Ozzy Osbourne, monster trucks, and the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team have in common? Then it’s time you were introduced to the world of SFX, Inc.

If you haven’t yet heard of this company, you probably haven’t been involved in much live-entertainment marketing recently – or, for that matter, haven’t been keeping up with industry news. Here’s a brief (if that’s possible) primer on what New York City-based SFX is:

– the largest promoter of music concerts and festivals in North America. This year’s list of tours include Britney Spears, N Sync, The Backstreet Boys, Dave Matthews Band, Tina Turner, George Strait, Ozzfest, Santana, and The Who. Of the estimated 35 million concert tickets that will be sold in the U.S. in 2000, 70 percent will be for SFX shows.

– owner of the nation’s largest network of live-event venues, with 120 indoor and outdoor theaters in 31 U.S. cities and 11 more in Canada.

– the biggest operator of Broadway touring companies, with 13,722 shows in 55 markets this year. It also produces shows on the Great White Way, including current hit Jekyll and Hyde and the upcoming Seussical the Musical.

– a major player in “family entertainment” events, such as Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance and live tours for Nickelodeon’s Rugrats and Blue’s Clues, to name a few.

– the nation’s leading sports marketing agency. Numerous divisions represent more than 650 professional athletes (including a guy named Jordan), produce more than 100 hours of network TV programming, and operate such varied events as the Monster Jam truck tour, the Breeder’s Cup horse race, ATP Tennis events, and the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship, in addition to providing a variety of consulting and marketing services for corporate clients.

“They are the absolute steamrollers in the live industry,” says Michael Schau, managing editor of Entertainment Marketing Letter, New York City. “They really have taken over.”

SFX’s $1.7 billion empire was assembled through the acquisition of more than 45 companies (the latest being last month’s purchase of motorsports marketing shop Cotter Group) since December 1997, when radio magnate Robert Sillerman turned his attention to the live market. The move was undertaken to establish an unprecedented – and inimitable – giant in entertainment properties management, and to create what SFX executives call a “new paradigm” in lifestyle marketing that surpasses traditional sponsorship models in both reach and effectiveness. Founder Sillerman calls the concept a new “frontier for brand innovation” in the company’s latest annual report.

The visionary Sillerman is gone, having stepped aside this summer after selling his company to radio and outdoor conglomerate Clear Channel Communications in a $4.6 billion deal. But his goal of making SFX a major player in event marketing is just now starting to hit its stride.

SFX began developing a company-wide marketing strategy in July 1999, when it named Paula Balzer president of SFX Marketing, a 70-person (and counting) division charged with developing broad, long-term alliances with corporate marketers (as well as stewarding the company’s own brand). SFX’s various operating units already have numerous relationships with brand marketers; the trick now is to sell the overall company as infinitely stronger than the sum of its parts.

“We’re looking to form alliances with leading companies to become their lifestyle marketing consultants,” says Balzer, former president of promo shop Contemporary Marketing. SFX acquired Totowa, NJ-based Contemporary in 1998, and now uses the agency as its field-execution arm.

SFX Marketing is targeting more than 60 companies in 20 categories that it wants on the client list. Among the big names already in the fold are Anheuser-Busch, Visa, and American Express. “There are other ways to reach consumers,” says Balzer. “But we have the most diversified portfolio and the most diversified demographics.”

Presenting one face for marketers to deal with – what Balzer refers to as controlling both the venue “hardware” and the talent “software” – leads to cost-efficiencies as well. San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co. has supported emerging music for 15 years. But until 1999, its efforts encompassed events in just three markets negotiated with local venue operators. Last summer, the company joined with SFX to launch Levi’s 1st Stage, a program that this year is putting local bands on permanent secondary stages in 26 SFX-owned amphitheaters. “They let us bring [the program] to a much wider audience,” says Sheri Timmons, Levi’s director of sponsorships. The 1st Stages are now part of the concert-going experience at 800 different events. Levi’s also gets double-coverage whenever one of the major tours it sponsors – Christina Aguilera and D’Angelo this summer – hit an SFX venue.

Expansion involves more than just extra eyeballs: Since SFX owns the venues, it supplies Levi’s with free tickets the brand can use to run buy-one-get-one offers with local retailers including May Department Stores and Millers Outpost. It also allocates space on-site for the Make Them Your Own touring vehicle, a grassroots extension of Levi’s corporate branding program. (Contemporary handles the mobile tour.) In addition, SFX brought in retailer Mars Music, Fort Lauderdale, FL, to run contests to find local talent for nine of the venues. “It’s giving us a more profound impact,” says Timmons.

In a two-year deal signed last spring, Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble’s Pringles became the exclusive salty-snack sponsor of SFX venues, and is activating the alliance on-site with “experiential” tents at amphitheaters that let visitors play branded congas for a chance to win ticket upgrades. The concept leverages Pringles’ most recent ad campaign (from Grey Worldwide), which depicts cans being used as instruments. Signage, concession displays, sampling efforts, and premium giveaways support.

The program “is very different, and that’s why we like it so much,” says Pringles spokesperson Shanae Gibbs. Rather than sponsoring a concert tour and reaching one demographic, “this gives us an opportunity to engage with a lot of different consumers, some on a recurring basis,” Gibbs says.

Cups Runneth Over Can you objectively serve the needs of clients while simultaneously satisfying internal business demands, namely making money for talent-side clients and selling more tickets? “They’re selling specific properties and specific real estate,” notes Jay Coleman, president of entertainment marketing agency EMCI, Stamford, CT. “Sometimes it’s hard to wear two hats.”

“As a client, that’s something you’re concerned about,” says Marci Grebstein, vp-media and marketing communications at Staples, Inc., Westborough, MA, which has used SFX subsidiary Proserv as its “outsourced sports marketing department” for six years. “But they’ve proven that that’s not the case.”

While ideal marketing partnerships will help SFX achieve its own goals, too, client needs will win out if it comes down to a choice, executives say. “The ability to win at this game is aligning ourselves with the corporate marketplace,” says Bill Allard, president of SFX Sports Group. “We’ve got to look out for their best interests.”

One of the company’s primary goals is to work with partners to develop customized events and programs that utilize SFX’s resources rather than simply exploit existing properties, executives say.

If partnerships are handled properly, everyone’s needs can be met, Allard says, pointing to the company’s execution of last year’s U.S. Women’s Soccer Victory Tour as an example. Having signed a deal to represent the team that won last summer’s Women’s World Cup, SFX developed a fall barnstorming exhibition, then changed the itinerary after Paramus, NJ-based Toys “R” Us signed on as title sponsor. The company also worked with the toy retailer to create both on-site and in-store activities.

Grebstein says the additional resources Proserv can leverage from the SFX network have been a plus. For the grand opening of the chain’s 1,000th store last year in Atlanta, SFX supplied a few players from the soccer tour, which was in the area.

“Our leveraging thoughts are always front and center,” says David Paro, senior vp of SFX Corporate Consulting, which has 13 employees and 10 clients including Staples, Schering-Plough’s Claritin, and Hershey Foods. “It makes what we do that much stronger.”

Executives say they aren’t looking to muscle out traditional marketing agencies. “When we form these alliances, we make everything we have available to them,” says Balzer. “But if they want to bring in [another agency] to help, that’s fine with us.”

“We don’t necessarily go out there and say we’re an ad agency or a promotion agency,” says Paro (whose background includes a stint at Chicago promo shop Frankel). “We manage Claritin’s baseball sponsorship, but [the] brand uses a lot of other agencies as well.”

“They’ve definitely made it more challenging for the independent [concert] promoter,” says Coleman at EMCI, which got client E superscript *Trade title sponsorships for two SFX-promoted tours this year. As far as marketing agencies go, “I think we can all co-exist. They’re helping legitimize sponsorships. As long as they deliver good value and [marketing partners] are happy, it’s good for my business, too.”

Hit Them Baby, Many More Times Despite its size, SFX hasn’t cornered the market – at least not yet. The company works under a variety of contractual arrangements, and doesn’t manage any talent on the music side of the business. So it doesn’t always hold all sponsorship rights for the tours it promotes.

A prime example is the current Britney Spears spring-through-fall tour. SFX worked with Got Milk? ad agency Bozell Worldwide to secure title-sponsorship rights for the National Fluid Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP)/Dairy Management, Inc. But additional sponsors Polaroid Corp. and Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Clairol, Inc. made deals directly with Spears’ management.

Regardless of how the deals are set up, SFX takes care of on-site execution. “The SFX people are just unbelievable implementers,” says Kurt Graetzer, ceo of Washington, DC-based MilkPEP (which used Spears in a Milk Mustache ad a couple of years ago, then brought her back this year in the campaign’s 100th flight to kick off the sponsorship.) “We’ve never been involved in this kind of concert tour before, and these guys have done a very good job getting us involved.”

“We’re in 78 cities and they took care of all the arrangements seamlessly,” adds Craig Plymesser, vp-milk marketing for Dairy Management, Inc., Rosemont, IL.

The folks at SFX also brought the milk folks and Polaroid together for a joint program on-site. Concert-goers get their pictures taken with a standee of Britney’s Milk Mustache ad using a Polariod I-Zone instant pocket camera. Contemporary Marketing handles.

Polaroid also gets space at SFX-owned venues in 20 markets to run a second photo op at which fans have their pictures taken for a billboard delivered to Spears before the show.

“It’s the first time we’ve worked with [SFX], and they’ve been terrific,” says Mary Courville, Cambridge, MA-based Polaroid’s senior marketing communications manager. (So has Spears, for that matter. See story, below.)

Just Warming Up The acquisition spree is far from over, and plans include buying additional resources on the execution end. Meanwhile, the speed with which new marketing alliances are being struck is accelerating. In just the last two months, SFX signed deals with:

– Southwest Airlines, for a sponsorship program that gets the Dallas-based airline presence at 11 amphitheaters. The pact includes presenting-sponsor status for one show at each venue and tickets Southwest can use for frequent-flier and corporate-client promotions.

– American Express, New York City, for a Summer Concerts in Blue campaign that gives a free CD to AmEx cardholders who buy tickets to SFX events in 12 markets on ticketmaster.com. Ticket buyers pick up the ducats at special Blue-branded will-call windows, and get first dibs on lawn seating through a branded AmEx gate. (Momentum Marketing, St. Louis, handles AmEx promotions.)

– Discovery Health Channel, to serve as title sponsor for the Women’s Soccer Challenge tour, which kicks off next month after team members return from the Olympics. Discovery will work with cable providers on local promotions in 12 markets.

– the National Basketball Association, to produce additional entertainment in conjunction with a new minor league the NBA is launching in mid-size cities next year.

– an unnamed automotive manufacturer, to run test-drives for its trucks on the racing tracks of the Wrenchhead.com Monster Jam series (an SFX-owned tour) the day after events are held.

Is the company too big for it’s own good – and too large to serve the interests of scores of marketing partners? “There’s always that perception,” says Allard. “But there’s a real intense desire to be client-focused and help build brands.”

The merger with Clear Channel and its 830 radio stations offers an incredible opportunity to bring local media support to the current strategy, Allard says. And it fills the only “little void” SFX had, he suggests.

Last question: With all this custom development of entertainment events taking place, are there enough ticket-buyers to go around? “I don’t think there will ever be too much entertainment out there. The market will always dictate how much there is,” says Entertainment Marketing Letter’s Schau. “And somebody always wants something.”

Don’t be surprised if most of those somethings are produced by SFX.

POLAROID HAS A CRUSH ON BRITNEY. Corporate marketers know the potential risk: Plunk down millions to get the tour sponsorship, then wring your hands as the talent turns out to be completely uncooperative. But mega-star Britney Spears has proved to be a sensation in that respect as well.

“She has been absolutely wonderful to work with,” says Mary Courville, senior marketing communications manager at Polaroid Corp., Cambridge, MA, which turned its sponsorship of Spears’ 2000 tour into “a truly integrated” marketing campaign for its tweens- and teen-focused I-Zone instant pocket camera in large part due to the singer’s willingness to assist, Courville says.

Polaroid’s activation during the first leg of the tour last spring was relatively subdued, mainly featuring venue signage and radio tie-ins. (“We got in a little late,” notes Courville.) But the company has heavily leveraged its status during the tour’s second leg.

In addition to appearing on signage, ads, and P-O-P, Spears and her dancing entourage actually use I-Zones in two numbers during the performance – which begins each night with an MC taking I-Zone shots of front-row ticket-holders for inclusion in the tour’s scrapbook. By that point, most concert-goers have already seen what the I-Zone can do, since Polariod runs one and sometimes two “experiential” promotions outside venues (See main story).

Other components of the campaign include print ads in teen magazines, radio tie-ins, a special Web site offering scenes from the tour, and a contest dangling a trip for four to a show in West Palm Beach and face-to-face time with Spears. A retail sweepstakes for a trip to an Orlando concert is running in such chains as Kmart, Target, Wal-Mart, and Wolf Camera. Goodby Silverstein, San Francisco, handles advertising, New York City-based Porter Novelli p.r., and Communicator of Chicago retail promotions. “She’s helped us get to our target market in a very effective manner,” says Courville.

Hey, Britney even agreed to pose for the cover of a promotion marketing magazine. Celebrities don’t get more cooperative than that.

SFX HAS SPENT THREE YEARS AMASSING A LIVE-ENTERTAINMENT EMPIRE. NOW IT WANTS TO PUT CORPORATE PARTNERS CENTER STAGE.

Don’t know what N Sync, Ozzy Osbourne, monster trucks, and the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team have in common? Then it’s time you were introduced to the world of SFX, Inc.

If you haven’t yet heard of this company, you probably haven’t been involved in much live-entertainment marketing recently – or, for that matter, haven’t been keeping up with industry news. Here’s a brief (if that’s possible) primer on what New York City-based SFX is:

– the largest promoter of music concerts and festivals in North America. This year’s list of tours include Britney Spears, N Sync, The Backstreet Boys, Dave Matthews Band, Tina Turner, George Strait, Ozzfest, Santana, and The Who. Of the estimated 35 million concert tickets that will be sold in the U.S. in 2000, 70 percent will be for SFX shows.

– owner of the nation’s largest network of live-event venues, with 120 indoor and outdoor theaters in 31 U.S. cities and 11 more in Canada.

– the biggest operator of Broadway touring companies, with 13,722 shows in 55 markets this year. It also produces shows on the Great White Way, including current hit Jekyll and Hyde and the upcoming Seussical the Musical.

– a major player in “family entertainment” events, such as Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance and live tours for Nickelodeon’s Rugrats and Blue’s Clues, to name a few.

– the nation’s leading sports marketing agency. Numerous divisions represent more than 650 professional athletes (including a guy named Jordan), produce more than 100 hours of network TV programming, and operate such varied events as the Monster Jam truck tour, the Breeder’s Cup horse race, ATP Tennis events, and the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship, in addition to providing a variety of consulting and marketing services for corporate clients.

“They are the absolute steamrollers in the live industry,” says Michael Schau, managing editor of Entertainment Marketing Letter, New York City. “They really have taken over.”

SFX’s $1.7 billion empire was assembled through the acquisition of more than 45 companies (the latest being last month’s purchase of motorsports marketing shop Cotter Group) since December 1997, when radio magnate Robert Sillerman turned his attention to the live market. The move was undertaken to establish an unprecedented – and inimitable – giant in entertainment properties management, and to create what SFX executives call a “new paradigm” in lifestyle marketing that surpasses traditional sponsorship models in both reach and effectiveness. Founder Sillerman calls the concept a new “frontier for brand innovation” in the company’s latest annual report.

The visionary Sillerman is gone, having stepped aside this summer after selling his company to radio and outdoor conglomerate Clear Channel Communications in a $4.6 billion deal. But his goal of making SFX a major player in event marketing is just now starting to hit its stride.

SFX began developing a company-wide marketing strategy in July 1999, when it named Paula Balzer president of SFX Marketing, a 70-person (and counting) division charged with developing broad, long-term alliances with corporate marketers (as well as stewarding the company’s own brand). SFX’s various operating units already have numerous relationships with brand marketers; the trick now is to sell the overall company as infinitely stronger than the sum of its parts.

“We’re looking to form alliances with leading companies to become their lifestyle marketing consultants,” says Balzer, former president of promo shop Contemporary Marketing. SFX acquired Totowa, NJ-based Contemporary in 1998, and now uses the agency as its field-execution arm.

SFX Marketing is targeting more than 60 companies in 20 categories that it wants on the client list. Among the big names already in the fold are Anheuser-Busch, Visa, and American Express. “There are other ways to reach consumers,” says Balzer. “But we have the most diversified portfolio and the most diversified demographics.”

Presenting one face for marketers to deal with – what Balzer refers to as controlling both the venue “hardware” and the talent “software” – leads to cost-efficiencies as well. San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co. has supported emerging music for 15 years. But until 1999, its efforts encompassed events in just three markets negotiated with local venue operators. Last summer, the company joined with SFX to launch Levi’s 1st Stage, a program that this year is putting local bands on permanent secondary stages in 26 SFX-owned amphitheaters. “They let us bring [the program] to a much wider audience,” says Sheri Timmons, Levi’s director of sponsorships. The 1st Stages are now part of the concert-going experience at 800 different events. Levi’s also gets double-coverage whenever one of the major tours it sponsors – Christina Aguilera and D’Angelo this summer – hit an SFX venue.

Expansion involves more than just extra eyeballs: Since SFX owns the venues, it supplies Levi’s with free tickets the brand can use to run buy-one-get-one offers with local retailers including May Department Stores and Millers Outpost. It also allocates space on-site for the Make Them Your Own touring vehicle, a grassroots extension of Levi’s corporate branding program. (Contemporary handles the mobile tour.) In addition, SFX brought in retailer Mars Music, Fort Lauderdale, FL, to run contests to find local talent for nine of the venues. “It’s giving us a more profound impact,” says Timmons.

In a two-year deal signed last spring, Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble’s Pringles became the exclusive salty-snack sponsor of SFX venues, and is activating the alliance on-site with “experiential” tents at amphitheaters that let visitors play branded congas for a chance to win ticket upgrades. The concept leverages Pringles’ most recent ad campaign (from Grey Worldwide), which depicts cans being used as instruments. Signage, concession displays, sampling efforts, and premium giveaways support.

The program “is very different, and that’s why we like it so much,” says Pringles spokesperson Shanae Gibbs. Rather than sponsoring a concert tour and reaching one demographic, “this gives us an opportunity to engage with a lot of different consumers, some on a recurring basis,” Gibbs says.

Cups Runneth Over Can you objectively serve the needs of clients while simultaneously satisfying internal business demands, namely making money for talent-side clients and selling more tickets? “They’re selling specific properties and specific real estate,” notes Jay Coleman, president of entertainment marketing agency EMCI, Stamford, CT. “Sometimes it’s hard to wear two hats.”

“As a client, that’s something you’re concerned about,” says Marci Grebstein, vp-media and marketing communications at Staples, Inc., Westborough, MA, which has used SFX subsidiary Proserv as its “outsourced sports marketing department” for six years. “But they’ve proven that that’s not the case.”

While ideal marketing partnerships will help SFX achieve its own goals, too, client needs will win out if it comes down to a choice, executives say. “The ability to win at this game is aligning ourselves with the corporate marketplace,” says Bill Allard, president of SFX Sports Group. “We’ve got to look out for their best interests.”

One of the company’s primary goals is to work with partners to develop customized events and programs that utilize SFX’s resources rather than simply exploit existing properties, executives say.

If partnerships are handled properly, everyone’s needs can be met, Allard says, pointing to the company’s execution of last year’s U.S. Women’s Soccer Victory Tour as an example. Having signed a deal to represent the team that won last summer’s Women’s World Cup, SFX developed a fall barnstorming exhibition, then changed the itinerary after Paramus, NJ-based Toys “R” Us signed on as title sponsor. The company also worked with the toy retailer to create both on-site and in-store activities.

Grebstein says the additional resources Proserv can leverage from the SFX network have been a plus. For the grand opening of the chain’s 1,000th store last year in Atlanta, SFX supplied a few players from the soccer tour, which was in the area.

“Our leveraging thoughts are always front and center,” says David Paro, senior vp of SFX Corporate Consulting, which has 13 employees and 10 clients including Staples, Schering-Plough’s Claritin, and Hershey Foods. “It makes what we do that much stronger.”

Executives say they aren’t looking to muscle out traditional marketing agencies. “When we form these alliances, we make everything we have available to them,” says Balzer. “But if they want to bring in [another agency] to help, that’s fine with us.”

“We don’t necessarily go out there and say we’re an ad agency or a promotion agency,” says Paro (whose background includes a stint at Chicago promo shop Frankel). “We manage Claritin’s baseball sponsorship, but [the] brand uses a lot of other agencies as well.”

“They’ve definitely made it more challenging for the independent [concert] promoter,” says Coleman at EMCI, which got client E superscript *Trade title sponsorships for two SFX-promoted tours this year. As far as marketing agencies go, “I think we can all co-exist. They’re helping legitimize sponsorships. As long as they deliver good value and [marketing partners] are happy, it’s good for my business, too.”

Hit Them Baby, Many More Times Despite its size, SFX hasn’t cornered the market – at least not yet. The company works under a variety of contractual arrangements, and doesn’t manage any talent on the music side of the business. So it doesn’t always hold all sponsorship rights for the tours it promotes.

A prime example is the current Britney Spears spring-through-fall tour. SFX worked with Got Milk? ad agency Bozell Worldwide to secure title-sponsorship rights for the National Fluid Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP)/Dairy Management, Inc. But additional sponsors Polaroid Corp. and Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Clairol, Inc. made deals directly with Spears’ management.

Regardless of how the deals are set up, SFX takes care of on-site execution. “The SFX people are just unbelievable implementers,” says Kurt Graetzer, ceo of Washington, DC-based MilkPEP (which used Spears in a Milk Mustache ad a couple of years ago, then brought her back this year in the campaign’s 100th flight to kick off the sponsorship.) “We’ve never been involved in this kind of concert tour before, and these guys have done a very good job getting us involved.”

“We’re in 78 cities and they took care of all the arrangements seamlessly,” adds Craig Plymesser, vp-milk marketing for Dairy Management, Inc., Rosemont, IL.

The folks at SFX also brought the milk folks and Polaroid together for a joint program on-site. Concert-goers get their pictures taken with a standee of Britney’s Milk Mustache ad using a Polariod I-Zone instant pocket camera. Contemporary Marketing handles.

Polaroid also gets space at SFX-owned venues in 20 markets to run a second photo op at which fans have their pictures taken for a billboard delivered to Spears before the show.

“It’s the first time we’ve worked with [SFX], and they’ve been terrific,” says Mary Courville, Cambridge, MA-based Polaroid’s senior marketing communications manager. (So has Spears, for that matter. See story, below.)

Just Warming Up The acquisition spree is far from over, and plans include buying additional resources on the execution end. Meanwhile, the speed with which new marketing alliances are being struck is accelerating. In just the last two months, SFX signed deals with:

– Southwest Airlines, for a sponsorship program that gets the Dallas-based airline presence at 11 amphitheaters. The pact includes presenting-sponsor status for one show at each venue and tickets Southwest can use for frequent-flier and corporate-client promotions.

– American Express, New York City, for a Summer Concerts in Blue campaign that gives a free CD to AmEx cardholders who buy tickets to SFX events in 12 markets on ticketmaster.com. Ticket buyers pick up the ducats at special Blue-branded will-call windows, and get first dibs on lawn seating through a branded AmEx gate. (Momentum Marketing, St. Louis, handles AmEx promotions.)

– Discovery Health Channel, to serve as title sponsor for the Women’s Soccer Challenge tour, which kicks off next month after team members return from the Olympics. Discovery will work with cable providers on local promotions in 12 markets.

– the National Basketball Association, to produce additional entertainment in conjunction with a new minor league the NBA is launching in mid-size cities next year.

– an unnamed automotive manufacturer, to run test-drives for its trucks on the racing tracks of the Wrenchhead.com Monster Jam series (an SFX-owned tour) the day after events are held.

Is the company too big for it’s own good – and too large to serve the interests of scores of marketing partners? “There’s always that perception,” says Allard. “But there’s a real intense desire to be client-focused and help build brands.”

The merger with Clear Channel and its 830 radio stations offers an incredible opportunity to bring local media support to the current strategy, Allard says. And it fills the only “little void” SFX had, he suggests.

Last question: With all this custom development of entertainment events taking place, are there enough ticket-buyers to go around? “I don’t think there will ever be too much entertainment out there. The market will always dictate how much there is,” says Entertainment Marketing Letter’s Schau. “And somebody always wants something.”

Don’t be surprised if most of those somethings are produced by SFX.

POLAROID HAS A CRUSH ON BRITNEY. Corporate marketers know the potential risk: Plunk down millions to get the tour sponsorship, then wring your hands as the talent turns out to be completely uncooperative. But mega-star Britney Spears has proved to be a sensation in that respect as well.

“She has been absolutely wonderful to work with,” says Mary Courville, senior marketing communications manager at Polaroid Corp., Cambridge, MA, which turned its sponsorship of Spears’ 2000 tour into “a truly integrated” marketing campaign for its tweens- and teen-focused I-Zone instant pocket camera in large part due to the singer’s willingness to assist, Courville says.

Polaroid’s activation during the first leg of the tour last spring was relatively subdued, mainly featuring venue signage and radio tie-ins. (“We got in a little late,” notes Courville.) But the company has heavily leveraged its status during the tour’s second leg.

In addition to appearing on signage, ads, and P-O-P, Spears and her dancing entourage actually use I-Zones in two numbers during the performance – which begins each night with an MC taking I-Zone shots of front-row ticket-holders for inclusion in the tour’s scrapbook. By that point, most concert-goers have already seen what the I-Zone can do, since Polariod runs one and sometimes two “experiential” promotions outside venues (See main story).

Other components of the campaign include print ads in teen magazines, radio tie-ins, a special Web site offering scenes from the tour, and a contest dangling a trip for four to a show in West Palm Beach and face-to-face time with Spears. A retail sweepstakes for a trip to an Orlando concert is running in such chains as Kmart, Target, Wal-Mart, and Wolf Camera. Goodby Silverstein, San Francisco, handles advertising, New York City-based Porter Novelli p.r., and Communicator of Chicago retail promotions. “She’s helped us get to our target market in a very effective manner,” says Courville.

Hey, Britney even agreed to pose for the cover of a promotion marketing magazine. Celebrities don’t get more cooperative than that.