Milking Mozart

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Exploiting the image rights of long–gone celebrities can be a lucrative business, says Richard Brass, so is it any wonder that companies are quick to jump on the bandwagon?

Music can inspire remarkable surges of creativity. Given the right tune at the right moment, even the most placid people can be roused to dramatic acts of invention, energy or passion and come out the other end changed for ever. At least that’s what happened this year to one Austrian entrepreneur. Clearly moved by the spirit of Mozart, he set out to mark the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth in the most fitting way he could. And, summoning all his energies and innovative skills, he duly came up with a bra that plays snatches of one of Mozart’s most famous tunes: ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’.

He isn’t alone. ‘Serenade No. 13’ for strings in D-cup major is just the tip of a terrifying avalanche of Mozartiana that has swept the country all year long. Salzburg is Mozartland at any time, but this year, the place has gone Wolfgang-bonkers. There is, of course, the music, which is being given a harder going-over than at any time since it first popped out of Wolfie’s head. All 22 of his operas were performed at the Salzburg Festival during the summer, and over the year the city is hosting an ear-testing 260 concerts and 55 masses of his music.

The Viennese are not letting themselves be left out. The house in which Mozart wrote ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ has been specially restored, and the Vienna City Marathon this year adopted the snappy motto of ‘Run Vienna – enjoy Mozart’, stationing costumed musicians performing his sonatas along the route to give the runners an extra burst.

But beyond the music a mountain of kitsch has arisen big enough to cast a shadow over the Alps. Alongside the usual T-shirts, calendars and coffee mugs, Austrian entrepreneurs thinking only of their cultural heritage are offering Mozart beer and Mozart wine, Mozart baby bottles, Mozart milkshakes, Mozart underwear, Mozart umbrellas, jigsaw puzzles, music boxes, chocolates and even a specially commissioned Mozart yoghurt-and-milk drink.

That milk drink could be a fitting symbol for a year of activities aimed at squeezing the last drop of cash from the reputation of a man who, despite his success, was never much good with money and whose main written legacy, besides his pages of music, was a thick stack of begging letters.

The value of the Mozart brand today has been estimated at US$6.5 billion, and when the numbers from the year’s anniversary business are finally totted up it will be clear quite how nicely a lot of people are doing out of poor old Wolfgang Amadeus, more than two centuries after he was laid in his unmarked grave.

It’s nearly 30 years since Elvis Presley ate his last burger but, according to Forbes magazine, he still made US$52 million last year.

Profit from beyond the grave
Mozart isn’t the only individual earning money from his name from the grave. The list of celebrities whose reputations are still coining it well into their afterlives would keep plenty of IP professionals in fine wine. It’s nearly 30 years since Elvis Presley ate his last burger but, according to Forbes magazine, he still made US$52 million last year. Kurt Cobain once furiously attacked a rival band for being commercialised sellouts, but he pulled in US$50 million last year, more than a decade after his death.

Albert Einstein’s business acumen was never his strong point, yet his image earned US$20 million last year, more even than Shakespeare, whose heirs would have collected just over US$8 million if copyright lasted a few hundred years longer. Marilyn Monroe’s estate still gets US$8 million, Andy Warhol brings in an annual US$16 million, and if Che Guevara had spent a little more time on IP and a little less on fomenting world revolution, there’s no saying how much cash he’d be generating. But none of them have quite made it into the Mozart superleague. Elvis may be big, but until you hear ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ belting out of women’s undergarments, Wolfgang will still be the king.

This article first appeared in IP Review, issue 16

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