Bryan Leach’s Polo Grounds Music has inked an exclusive marketing and public relations partnership with Fila, which will simultaneously promote Polo Grounds’ roster of artists and Fila’s new lifestyle apparel and footwear lines, the label announced today (February 6).
Secured via the label’s new Brand Marketing Division, the deal combines print, broadcast, and online advertising for Fila with traditional album promotions strategies that will coincide with each of the featured artists’ new projects.
“The campaigns [will] coincide with the product releases from Fila,” Polo Grounds Founder and CEO Bryan Leach told AllHipHop.com. “We already have a campaign with 18-year-old singer/songwriter/musician Boxie and Diamond, formerly of Crime Mob, ready to go. New campaigns with Hurricane Chris, C-Ride & our newest signing Candace Jones also lined up. Each campaign will be relevant to each artist’s direction.”
The first artist featured in the campaign is Polo Grounds’ marquee artist, Hurricane Chris, who has appeared in Fila’s new ad campaign, which coincides with the launch of Fila’s “Helmsman” shoe.
The print version of the new campaign can be seen in Blender, Fader, BPM and Giant magazines and is accompanied by Fila’s return to television advertising, through a new spot that began airing exclusively on BET last week.
The ad was the first initiative by the Polo Grounds Brand Marketing department, which created, directed and produced the commercial campaign.
Leach, who founded Polo Grounds after an 10-year-stint with TVT Records, said the company will also continue to create the concept for all of Fila’s national product TV ads.
With 2008 shaping up as an aggressive release year for Polo Grounds Music, the New York based company will see almost all of it’s entire roster of artists and management clients included in Fila’s campaigns.
“We decided to launch our Brand Marketing Division of Polo Grounds this year, to complete our entertainment and marketing reach,” Leach continued. “We made sure we talked to companies that we felt we understood. Fila needed to reconnect with a certain market and felt Polo Grounds helped them do that.”
Polo Grounds is also readying new releases by Nina Sky and Lil Josh & Ernest, who, like Hurricane Chris and Candace Jones, will be released via the imprint’s partnership with J Records.
In addition to Diamond, who remains on the Warner Brothers roster despite the split from her former group, Polo Grounds Music also manages Derrty/Universal artist Avery Storm.