Jingle Punks: Agents of Change in Synch Licensing

September 15th, 2009 by Trenton

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Jared Gutstadt

SOHO, MANHATTAN: It’s a match made in heaven: music + visual media. When the right song is laid on to the right picture, the results can be legendary. While the right synchronization (or “synch”) license can move mountains for TV and film viewers, they can be even more momentous for the music artist who’s song gets picked (does an iTunes ad placement sound good to anybody out there?)

Formed in 2008 in New York City, Jingle Punks have rolled onto the scene determined to break the synch licensing mold. Their Jingle Player is its own little technological breakthrough, an intuitive new take on search and delivery intended to make life a lot easier for music supervisors for TV networks, production houses, film studios, ad agencies and beyond. But they also seem to have the human thing down as well – Jingle Punks understands that the artists they work with make the music that makes them tick, and they have an open-door submissions policy to back it up. It’s kinda like you could drop by for a cup of coffee if you found yourself in the ‘hood.

We found out this and a lot more from Jared Gutsadt, co-founder and CEO of Jingle Punks.

Q: When did you become involved with Jingle Punks, and why?
A: One year ago this week, I had a night called “the Big Kahuna.” During this night, I went to see the Black Keys in concert, had a margarita fight, and was thrown out of several NYC bars. The night ended with Dan Demole — my partner and co-founder — and I forming a bond over our love of drinking, music and how technology could help make our industry a much more interesting place.

Q: Can you explain the core business philosophy that Jingle Punks is based around. What is your business model, and who does it benefit?
A: Our business philosophy is that having great music is only part of the game. Many libraries that provide music for TV shows have some interesting choices. However, the way they are organized makes it difficult to find the diamonds in the rough.

Our material is a lot more current, and the way we deliver our music is through our proprietary database technology called the Jingle Player. First, we make sure all of our music is tagged in our system before it becomes ingested for general use. We developed an internal system for tagging our material much like the way the music DNA project works, except that we created our own list of attributes based on the needs of TV shows, commercials and films.

For example if one types in the word “Juno” into the Jingle Player, our database would find the closest available stylistic match, so that a music supervisor that would like that “Juno” sound can find it, without having to track down Kimya Dawson [of Moldy Peaches, who wrote the song “Anyone Else But You” from the Juno soundtrack].

Q: What do you feel are the needs of music supervisors today?
A: Music supervisors need good music always. But, from all the conversations I have had with people who are veterans of this industry, they tell me our tools are what sets us apart.

The Jingle Player GUI

We are not trying to do the job of a music supervisor with the Jingle Player. Let’s face it: a computer will never have taste. It is impossible for a program, no matter how complex it is, to pick a song that will resonate or emote the way a human choice will.

That being said, the tools we have created within the Jingle Player, like project bins and the ability to share choices with a creative team, and our customer service is what we hope will continue to encourage new music supervisors and creative teams to choose us as a music library.

Q: On the equal and opposite side of the equation, what do you feel are the needs of artists today?
A: Artists have been really hurt by the shrinking of the music industry. More and more amazing regional bands with solid catalogues have been overlooked by the majors, and major publishers ignore good writers that they feel won’t have commercial success.

I also think that the way many publishing deals are structured is unfair to artists. Artists see the quick dollars and jump towards this when it’s offered, not realizing that in this game, sometimes slow and steady wins the race. We never take away the ability for an artist to experiment with their material and grow their library in any direction they see fit.

Q: So let’s bring it all full circle: How does Jingle Punks simultaneously help both of those groups — artists and music supervisors?
A: The relationship is very symbiotic. Artists give us their libraries. We tag it, clients type in the type of music they are currently looking for and begin to narrow down their choices from there.

Basically, we are not hard-selling music supervisors with an agenda. We don’t try and push our cool-band-of-the-week just because they have a single out and “need” to get in “90210” or “Entourage”. Our process is extremely democratic. With our system, the music that is picked and ultimately used is based on the search terms our end users punch into the database, as opposed to the way many publishing catalogues chase trends and let cool haircuts dictate what is next up on the shopping block.

Q: Why is NYC a good place to be setting up this business?
A: A business like ours is virtual. We theoretically could have set up in Anchorage, Alaska and perhaps someday we will. But, in NYC, we have been very lucky to be in a hub of an extraordinary amount of entertainment-related activity.

For example, by being in NYC Dan and I met our other two Jingle partners.  Ethan Goldman and Anthony Martini are both very well known and respected in their fields of TV and music management, respectively, and if we were not NYC-based an opportunity to connect with them would have been missed.

Being in NYC also allows us to take meetings in the TV, commercial and film world everyday. Also, New York is always buzzing with new bands and touring regional acts. This means that five days a week I’m walking the beat at Pianos, Mercury Lounge, Bowery, Arlene’s and various other hot spots where we scout and find talent to fill up our library with.

Q: What have been the challenges and rewards that have come to light while setting up Jingle Punks?
A: The biggest issues we have has been the organization and logging of the music submissions we get. Our company has a meager staff on a day-to-day basis, but this ensures that the way music is ingested is done in a thoughtful way.

That being said, if we had a very large and well-trained group of Jingle Musicologists on staff, we could ingest over 5000 new cues a month. As we have it now we are only able to ingest 1000 new cues monthly — which is not a terrible statistic.

Q:  How are you finding your core groups of users — artists and music supervisors — and convincing them of your credibility in this early stage?
A: Although Jingle Punks is only one year old, the combined experience of our team is why people chose to work with us. I have been doing production music and worked as an editor for Viacom for almost nine years. I also have played in bands my entire life and managed to meet some amazing contacts which I am only exploring now, while I was in my band phase.

Dan has been working in database and computer systems for many years, and his past experience includes Electronic Arts game programming as well as work on the Apache Helicopter systems for the US government.

(Artist Relations exec) Anthony Martini has worked for dozens of years in the realm of music management and we rely on him to bring us fresh bands.

(Client Relations exec) Ethan Goldman is a development executive at Viacom, and been our secret weapon in terms of getting us access and meetings with every network and film person we can think of.

Basically, the credibility issue hasn’t really been an issue for us.  In reality I think people just look at our model as a fresh take on a very stale and out-of-date model.

Q: What are your company’s benchmarks for success and growth?
A: Because we came out of the gates so fast, it’s really hard sometimes for us to look back and assess where we came from and where we are going.

I guess the first big benchmark for us was hearing our music on a network show on ABC (“The Unusuals”). We also really had a huge reality check (no pun intended) when we watched entire episodes of this season’s “Real Housewives of Atlanta” and heard our music wall-to-wall throughout.

In my mind, hearing our music stand up to the challenges of various genres makes me proud and it helps us stand by the quality of the tunes we have in Jingle Punks. I guess another exciting measure of growth will be this fall when our music starts popping up on places like HBO, AMC and in a few indie tastemaker films.

Q: What’s the best part of your job, and what’s the toughest part of your job?
A: The best part of my job is discovering the music that no one has ever heard of and trying to champion it first.

The worst part of my job is deadlines and chasing paperwork. Our hope is that in the next year we will introduce a system that allows our clients the ability to automate cue sheets. Collecting ASCAP and BMI royalties is a huge part of our revenue stream and we want to make sure our artists and ourselves collect everything we need to collect. Automation of this process will be a giant leap forward for Jingle Punks.

Q: Any advice for artists who want to improve their chances of getting synch placements?
A: My advice is make what you feel. I can always tell when we get music that is not honest. Good music is not about the trends of the day or the sonic quality. Some of the coolest bands we have in our library recorded their music with a meager budget or on their home systems, but the music itself was honest. Regardless of what genre you chose to work in, if your aim is true, this will always make you unique.