Rob Rodell

So, what do these three have in common?

In the 1980s, amidst the Cola Wars, at which time Pepsi taste tests were showing that consumers preferred Pepsi’s sweeter taste to Coke, Pepsi embarked upon a marketing strategy to upstage Coke even more, by hitching its star to the two biggest musical stars at the time.

Now Pepsi’s strategy is also very interesting. If you watched Jobs, you will remember that at one stage old Steve hired the big marketing cheese from Pepsi, to take Apple to the next level – this…

Thriller is the biggest selling album of all time, and will probably remain that way. In the 110-year-odd history of recorded music, no other artist has had their album bought an estimated 115 million times, though figures vary wildly between the official 42 million and the unofficial 50-65 million or higher. But there can be no doubt that the album is the Everest of contemporary musical works.

Thriller was in essence a coming of age for Michael Jackson, who was a sprightly 23-year-old when he began…

It’s been over 30 years since young kids (and even some adults) around the world started emulating the crotch-grab, the glove, the hat and the moonwalk. June 2019 will mark 10 years since the King of Pop died. But the legend and the memory of Michael Jackson live on.

Born into a musical family, MJ started out as a lead singer at a very young age, and was an integral part of the Jackson 5. In the 70s he established himself as a serious solo artist, but it wasn’t until 1982 when he turned the world on its…

The cult of celebrity is stronger than ever. No stranger to fame himself, it was Andy Warhol who is credited with famously quipping that everybody gets their 15 minutes of fame (and to drive the point home, the concept of fame has just been mentioned four times in this sentence alone). Then someone came along and changed that to 15 megs (MB) of fame. These days, it’s more like 15 seconds of fame.

With a global population approaching 7 billion, there are a lot of eyes eager for creative content to keep…

Boatloads of artists are always asking me how to make a sustainable career in the music industry. This is one of those questions that always leads to the search for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but it is a valid question, and it does have an answer, albeit a very difficult one.

The two-step process to becoming a successful artist that still applies today is the following: you have to be persistent and be in it for the long-haul, and you have got to have a hit. This is very difficult, but not…

Okay, so maybe their marriage is a bit like Kim and Kanye’s match made in publicity heaven. It ain’t gonna hurt either of their personal brands. Or maybe she and Jay-Z really love each other. Either way, there’s no denying that Beyoncé is pop royalty – and, like Diana Ross, she is married to a modern-day Motown Berry Gordy.

The gossip mongers are leading us to believe that Beyoncé and Jay are on the rocks, and that her Little Miss “I’m in control of everything and my life is perfect” persona is finally…