WUMA (WashU Marketing Association) and the Producers Club Presents: Blake Coppelson

Last Tuesday, WashU Marketing Association and Producers Club welcomed Blake Coppelson, the founder of an EDM distributor: Proximity, to Washington University. 

In the first half of the event, Blake Coppelson talked to all the attendees about Proximity and the music industry.

A couple of highlights included:

• Tech is always disrupting the music industry. The Proximity team created software that helps curate playlists for its listeners, beating YouTube.
• Saturation is an issue
  • There are so many albums and songs out there it’s hard for artists to break through, also hard for producers/the people around artists to find the next “breakout artists”
• Startups are valuable
  • If you’re looking to go into the music industry, don’t intern at a giant. You won’t get good experience. Intern for a small label or be entrepreneurial and go out and discover somebody and make them big. That experience is more valuable than the name-brand internship.
• Differentiation is key
  • For example, he’s exploring crossovers between classical music and popular music
• There is a value of doing what makes you happy
  • He’s much more fulfilled doing this than he would’ve been as a dentist, which is what he was planning on doing before doing Proximity.

“I was not planning this at all… I was going to be a dentist. This is what makes me happy waking up every day.”

– Blake Coppelson

In the second half of the event, The Producers Club presented 5 original songs to present and gain valuable feedback from Blake. Additionally, 5 teams of WUMA members were able to present their strategy to brand and market their songs and gain insight on how to break into the music industry. In all, every attendees enjoyed the experience and left with valuable takeaways.

“I came here to learn from Blake and his experiences in marketing strategies as someone in the music industry. It was cool being able to receive feedback from a professional with a professional brand and I definitely learned some invaluable things from this event.”

–  Sailesh Sitaram (Class of 2023)

Guest speaker Blake Coppleson shares about marketing strategies for the music industry | Tuesday, February 05, 2019