Breaking Barriers and Building Bridges: Jenna LoMonaco’s Guide to Music, Marketing, and Leadership

Erik  00:00

We

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Erik  00:04

want to welcome all of our listeners to another episode of MRP, Minority Report podcast with Eric and Kerel. Each episode, we talk with real operators and leaders in media, tech and business, and today, joining us is Jenna Lamonaco, who's the Head of Marketing at ONErpm. Let's get to know Jenna here for a second. Welcome Jenna. How are

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Jenna LoMonaco  00:25

you? Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

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Erik  00:29

Absolutely can't wait to talk to you and get to know all of the exciting things happening at one rpm. But first tell us, where are you at in the world today?

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Jenna LoMonaco  00:40

I am so I'm based out of our New York office, but I'm working from home today in New Jersey.

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Erik  00:45

Alright. Shouts to New Jersey. Jersey

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Kerel Cooper  00:47

connection. Love it, love it. Love it.

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Erik  00:51

Jenna, have has? Have you always been in New Jersey? Or? 

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Jenna LoMonaco  00:55

No, I, I was born and raised in Brooklyn. I lived all over New York. The only borough I never lived in was queens, and after covid being stuck in a tiny apartment, me and my husband decided it was time to get a house with a yard in the suburbs, so we came out to New Jersey. So all right, how, how did you and your family find your way to Brooklyn, and how did you start there.

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Jenna LoMonaco  01:23

So my family migrated from Italy. So that is my grand my great grandfather moved from Italy, and then that's where my family kind of stayed, until we all started to kind of, you know, do the Brooklyn to New Jersey kind of migration that many of us do. But yeah, all of my family had has been there for quite a long time,

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Erik  01:47

and when you made your move, was it everything you hoped for? Were you happy and realizing the differences that you were hoping to maybe achieve?

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Jenna LoMonaco  01:57

Yeah, you know, I definitely like it more than I thought I would, I was scared of being, you know, a city girl in the suburbs. I think I was in a little bit of a bubble in Brooklyn, where everybody had the same thought process and values and political beliefs, and it's a little bit different in New Jersey. But other than that, it's, it's been good,

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Erik  02:19

yeah? That's great. Yeah, change, right? It's just, it's different everywhere you go, yeah, and and so tell us a little bit about kind of you know, you're at one RPM, your music industry. Was this always, like a goal of yours? Was this something you always wanted to do? Tell us a little bit about that.

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Jenna LoMonaco  02:45

Yeah. So I always say that the reason why I work in music is because I was the weird kid that listened to the Smashing Pumpkins in my bedroom alone when I was sad and like, junior high school. And I had a very eclectic taste in music growing up where I listened from, like, Rock Music, Pop Music and hip hop music, that's kind of like what I grew up on, and it was always like a massive part of my life. And then when I was in college, I originally started studying just business, like, just general, like, you know, business degree, and I realized I wanted to work in music, and wanted to be a part of it, but I didn't know how, so I went to audio engineering school, and that was, like the my first step into it, and everything just sort of evolved from there

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Erik  03:32

fascinating that sounds like you went real deep into it, too for a second. And I want to come back to that, and first everyone to maybe understand, like, what's unique about like, one rpm and kind of where it sort of fills a very particular part of the space, tell us what our one RPM really is and what's really sort of special about the organization. Absolutely.

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Jenna LoMonaco  03:57

So a lot of people know us as a distributor, but we like to consider ourselves a modern music label, and the reason for that is, yes, we do distribution, but we also do a lot of artists direct deals. We have a publishing wing. We have content creation studios. You know, we are vast in our abilities and departments and what we're able to do with artists. And our biggest thing is, how do we work with artists in a fair way, in a transparent way, and provide opportunities to artists where they still get to be in control of their careers?

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Kerel Cooper  04:30

And Jenna, tell us more about your role there, leading marketing?

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Jenna LoMonaco  04:35

Yeah, absolutely. So. I oversee the US marketing team. I came I joined the company in 2021 and I was tasked with growing our marketing capabilities. So in the past few years that I've been here, I've expanded our departments. We have a really robust DSP team for you know, people who are pitching apple. People, Spotify, Amazon, all the major players. We have a digital strategy team now, influencer marketing, advertising, sync, YouTube operations. So I always like to say we have all of the services that you would get at a traditional, traditional record label. What we don't have in house is PR and radio. We hire out for those that's by design, but we are able to really support an artist from the start of their career all the way through a massive, you know, Legacy artist,

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Kerel Cooper  05:36

gotcha, gotcha. And along with music, has marketing always been a passion of yours, something you've always been interested in, or or not.

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Jenna LoMonaco  05:45

I think, no, I think that it was, it was always like, I just wanted to be involved with music. I was always, like, really paid attention to the music scene and, like, you know, connecting with artists. But it wasn't until, actually, after so I went to school for audio engineering. I started being an assistant engineer. I ran, I was a studio manager at a studio. I quickly realized that was not the fit for me for a number of reasons. And that's when I went to work in PR and I kind of evolved from there,

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Kerel Cooper  06:18

gotcha, gotcha. And then tell us. So you mentioned a little bit right, where you quickly realized that sort of, maybe going down the path of being a music engineer wasn't the path for you. What was that? What was that moment, though, in your career, where you realize, like, okay, marketing was is the path for me?

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Jenna LoMonaco  06:39

Yeah. So when I started working in PR, they also tasked me with, I was, I was maintaining artists MySpace pages, right? So I would, I would basically handle like, the same way a social media manager would. I would do that, but for my space. And I realized that, like, finding ways to connect with the fans and engage with them was so important, and I found that really exciting. And figuring out like different ways that we could make people feel connected to that artist, right? Because that's all that's that's ultimately what it is, right is that you hear a song and you feel like this person understands what I'm going through this is I'm not alone in this feeling, right? And how do we grow that feeling? How do how do we get music to those people who need to hear it, and then once they've heard it, how do we engage with them and keep them feeling like they're a part of this, of this story,

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Kerel Cooper  07:37

gotcha, gotcha. And in doing that, what does a like, what does a good day look like for you as marketing executive in the music industry?

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Jenna LoMonaco  07:49

Yeah, I think that when you have an idea and you're able to execute it, I think that's like, such a like, almost like at, like, a high, like, a wonderful feeling, when you're like, what if we did this thing, and then you're able to do it, and you see it come to life. And like, you know, fans always think that, like, when an artist is a marketing thing, it was the artist idea they did it. And that's fine. I don't I, you know, I don't need them to know that. But like, for you to see it on the other side, it's just such a cool feeling, you know,

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Erik  08:20

Jenna, I'm going to

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Erik  08:23

say a couple names here, and you say yes, if you've worked with them, mom for kings, yeah, Childish Gambino, yeah, Lenny Kravitz, yeah, Martina McBride, yeah. Nick Jonas, yeah. Demi Lovato, yep. The Killers, yeah? Elton, John, yeah. Mon Jovi, yes. I could just keep going on and on. 

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Kerel Cooper  08:47

I just, I just want the audience to understand, like, do they realize who we're talking to here?

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Erik  08:56

We had to do it. Jenna, we had to do it. And there's so many other great, just talented artists and so many, I don't want to talk to you a little bit about, because you mentioned MySpace and you got started, and it's great to hear like, how that started. Because, you know, creating that connection is really, really important, right, as, like, lovers of music and fans and and all that we can but I imagine that was very different from when you first started to, like, where it is today. Take us a little bit through that journey. So when it first started, you had some social pages and then kind of, like a little bit of an idea through, kind of the evolution of

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Jenna LoMonaco  09:35

that. Yeah, totally. So, I mean, so, like I said, I was doing what was called digital PR, which is basically just regular PR now. And I was, I was running people's MySpace, of musicians, my face pages, and then that's when I left and went to glass note. And I was working with, we worked this artist, Secondhand Serenade, which is kind of just like a meme now, that like email song. But I. But with that was like a big one where he had, like, very involved fans on MySpace, and that was like a real connection that we were able to build with the fans. But then what that's when we signed Phoenix and Mumford and Sons and Childish Gambino and tudo Cinema Club and etc. And like all of those artists you know were, were, a lot of them were of the like indie genre, and it was trying to figure out, like, what were those ways of connecting? So you went from like the MySpace era to then, like MySpace kind of tried to, started to fade away, and then it was the Blog World, right? And like, getting, like, interacting with those blogs and those writers and the readers of the blogs that became wildly important. Facebook started to become more important. Um, and then I, you know, I was at cobalt legal services for a little while, and then I went to islands. And islands, I think, was a really exciting time, because I was working with those artists like Nick Jonas and Demi Lovato and Shawn Mendes where, um, social media was so important, and there were so many options. So like, YouTube was wildly important. Instagram was on the rise, and interacting with Instagram, with fans via instagram, facebook so important. Twitter was huge at that time, and so kind of learning, the ability to have conversations with people on different platforms in the way that they needed to have those conversations, because every platform has its own culture, right? And I think that's kind of like the evolution where it was like, it was like my space, it was like blogs and Facebook, and then it became like a bunch of platforms. And I think that's kind of where we are today, where it's mostly short form video platforms, but every every platform has its own audience, and they want to see different types of content.

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Erik  11:47

Yeah, that's fascinating, as you describe it, I feel like I can go through that journey with you on it too, and then also realizing the wide span of of artists and the genres and the differences between a Martina McBride and a Sean does, or even the killers or Fall Out Boy, right? Very, very different. And also, I'm thinking about your experience at these great organizations, they're all a little different, right? So, yeah, you have Island Records, part of something that's very, very big, and kind of having that big experience there, and then also going to something that's just built a little bit differently to even like now, right where you kind of have created a unique and special lane that so. So I'm curious, you know, you have a lot of offices that you interact with daily What's that like, having an office in Nashville and then also one in New York City and then maybe one in another country? What's that like working with groups and teams like that?

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Jenna LoMonaco  12:50

Yeah. So we have actually 43 offices globally, and so working with people across the country has been it's really great because, you know, we really, what we do is we're broken into genres, right? So I have project managers that specialize in rock, pop dance and alternative, in hip hop and R and B in country and folk and in Latin, right? And so our Miami office focuses on Latin, or Atlanta team focuses on urban our New York and in LA offices focus on rock, pop, dance and alternative. And Nashville was originally meant for country, but Nashville kind of is, like a little bit of everything now. And so it's really interesting to learn, like, culturally about, like, you know, like the deep dive into each of those genres and like how to like locally break artists, and that's like a big focus for us. And then, actually, in the past, like year or so, I've worked really heavily with our international offices, and I'm working to, you know, I really developed with my with my international teammates, how we work our artists globally, and how we interact with each other, because it's really important, you know, to be able to utilize those assets that we have and work artists all over the world, and also for them to bring artists to us, you know, and for us to really pay attention to those artists too. Like, so, for example, we have this artist out of Nigeria, Bella, and he's coming to New York this week, and he's going to be working with our team, and then he's going to Atlanta. And so, like, really focusing on, like, how we take this artist based out of Africa, and really, like, you know, prioritize them in the US as well, and that's really exciting.

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Kerel Cooper  14:41

Also. Jenna, you know what's what's very interesting and fascinating about your job and what you do, and you just talked about it. You are dealing with so many different music genres, so many different cultures, so many different types of music artists, right? And. You think about breaking an artist in Miami versus an artist in Nashville versus one you know overseas, like, how do you and the team make sure that you're keeping you're staying culturally relevant and making sure that that what you're putting out, from a marketing perspective, along with that artist, is authentic and true to that artist, because it's a wide variety of cultures, musicians like, you know, fan bases that you're dealing with, I find that very interesting.

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Jenna LoMonaco  15:37

Yeah, no, that's a huge focus for us. So when it comes to the US and different genres, I think that's why we have those people that are really focused in the genre, because every genre is its own subculture, and we want to respect to the subculture, right? And then you have different countries and different countries. Obviously, we all have our own culture, and so we kind of we approach that in two ways. One is, we've actually spent this whole year doing these master classes where every single territory has presented to the rest of the company. What are the things you need to know about working in artists here? Because it's really easy for us to all think like, oh, this is how you work in artists. Yeah, in the US, but in Australia, that's totally different, right? And so, how do you work an artist in that other country? What are the nuances of understanding how to respect the culture? What is, what are fans looking for? What are the genres that are kind of global, that are popular? What are those genres that might not exist out anywhere outside of you know of that specific territory. And so really understanding to learn and respect the culture of all of these different markets is so important, and we're trying to educate each other on it so that we can be as respectful as possible, but also to be as successful as possible, because you have to know how to engage with that audience base in order for them to be open to listening to new music that is outside of outside of their market.

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Kerel Cooper  17:12

Gotcha, do you find that subcultures are growing in terms of their influence Totally?

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Jenna LoMonaco  17:21

I mean, I think that oftentimes you need to break within that world first before you can, you can reach out wider. And, I mean, I think it's always been like that, right? Like thinking back to like, like Fall Out Boy working with them, like, when I was in high school, they were like, an email bands that I was obsessed with, right? And like, within that culture of evil music, they were, they were huge, but they needed to break in that world first. And now, you know, they are still, they're a top 40 pop artists that my eight year old god daughter is obsessed with. You know what I mean, this artist that, like I saw a break within that culture of pop punk music 20 years ago, right? So, like, you need to be able to, kind of, it's that like bubble of reaching out into, you know, different layers of pop culture, but you have to hit that core audience first gotcha.

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Kerel Cooper  18:22

Gotcha. What's advice that you would give anyone who's thinking about entering the music industry for their career?

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Jenna LoMonaco  18:31

Yeah, I think that you have to really love it. You have to have passion for it, and you have to be willing to work hard. I think you know, my 20s were about my career. I worked really, really hard all the time, and I really, I really sunk myself into it. And I think it's not the type of thing that you can do casually. This is, this is a career of passion, and so you have to be ready to work really hard, and you can only do that if you truly love it.

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Erik  19:07

Jenna, I like the way you describe that, and I'm curious. You know, we've talked about audio engineering passion and the love for just music and all kinds of genres we talked to marketing. And I think one part that's kind of missing from this, but I think plays into what you do every day, every day, is like technology as well. Oh yeah, yeah. So tell us a little bit about sort of the technology that or technologies utilized in order to kind of make your week and your month and your year successful. Talk a little bit about that

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Jenna LoMonaco  19:47

totally so one rpm in particular, we have incredible tech. We have incredible tech. So we have our own CMS platform that we use on an everyday basis. And so our team has the login to log into all of the accounts that we have. And then if you're an artist or manager, you have your your login to get into this platform as well. And basically, you are able to log into your dashboard and see exactly what it is that we're working on when it was done. What needs to get done? What were the results? What are you streaming? What are you making? What's your what you're recouping? We are fully transparent, and it not only allows for extreme organization, because everything is there very easily to see, very easy to find, but it's really important for us to be transparent, right? Artists know exactly what it is that we're spending when we spent it, what the results were of those campaigns, we don't hide anything. And that's really important, because I think artists today are really smart, right? It's not the type of situation where they're just like, hey, I want to make music. You know, do best, right? Like artists now are entrepreneurs, right? And so they want to understand what their budgets look like, what the projections are, how they're recouping. And we work really diligently to make sure that that information is very easily provided to them and very easy to find

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Erik  21:21

that's great. Thank you. I read an article, an interview with you not too long ago about the importance of having other female peers and co workers in executive positions, having leadership roles. Can you tell us a little bit about how that impacts you and how that affects you?

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Jenna LoMonaco  21:47

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm very lucky in that I have a lot of co workers here on RPM that, like are globally, really high in our leadership, our pool of leadership, and I think that for so long, this industry was male dominated and women's voices weren't heard, I think that we offer a really important perspective. I think that um, there is an element of connection and vulnerability when it comes to how we interpret music that is totally different from a male perspective, which is fine, but I think that you need beauty both perspectives, right? And I think that we offer a it when it comes to leadership, a more emotional and kinder touch when it comes to dealing with people. And that's not to say that men don't have that ability at all. That's not what I mean to say. But I think that we are able to prioritize people's feelings and and and their um and their needs within their career trajectory. And I find that that's something that as leaders, we're very skilled at. You got super powers? I love it, yeah, yeah. And also, you know that is to go back to like, why things didn't work out for me in the recording industry space is because that is very male dominated, and it was, quite frankly, an unsafe place for me to be. And so I think that the more equal the playing field is, it's it's safer for women to be able to be in this field when we are looking out for each other, and good men that look out for women as well. There are many of those as well.

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Kerel Cooper  23:51

All right, easy question for you, what's in your music rotation?

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Jenna LoMonaco  23:56

Oh, good one. So honestly, fully about the Cardi B Album right now I'm obsessed with her. So that was my weekend listening to that. I kind of jump all over the place when it comes to my musical style. Style is is so all over the place. I feel like I almost need to look at my Spotify to tell you, I feel like whenever somebody asks that question, you're like, wait, I listen to music. Yeah.

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Kerel Cooper  24:32

Cardi B. Cardi B is a good answer, though,

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Jenna LoMonaco  24:34

yeah, yeah, no, I think she's amazing.

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Kerel Cooper  24:39

All right, two questions here. So we like to, we like to ask every guest to give us a question to ask our next guest. So I'm gonna, so here's the question that our last guest wanted us to ask you, okay, looking back at your childhood. It. What do you think are the qualities that you had that you wish that you were still connected to today?

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Jenna LoMonaco  25:08

Oh, wow. Um, I think that I actually have thought about this particular thing before. I think that when you're young, you connect to music on such a visceral level, right? Because you're in that, like, young, angsty, like, everything feels crazy and out of control. And so you connect with music and a different way, right? Like, I'm in my 40s now, and so I'm not as, like, angry and like, you know, I have a lot of my life figured out at this point. And so I feel like, you know, when you're a teenager and you're younger, you kind of see that side of music, and that offers a really good perspective of of your like in being able to market music. And so I always try to go back to that when I'm thinking about how to connect to to fans, because I am aware that I am not in that place anymore, and I have to, kind of like, take myself back to that. Do you have to have your skill set of like, what is happening within the music space and how people want to be marketed now, but then also, just like, kind of connecting with that younger version of yourself?

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Kerel Cooper  26:19

Yeah, I love that. Love that. All right now, what's a question you want you want us to ask? Excuse me, what's a question you want us to ask our next guest?

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Jenna LoMonaco  26:31

Yeah, I would say, What is something that you went through in your early career, like a situation that you had in your early career that you if you can go back to that moment now, knowing what you know as a more mature, grown adult within your fields, how would you have handled that situation differently?

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Erik  26:57

Sorry, my screen locked up. That out so watch all right, on three, two,

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Erik  27:09

all right. Jenna, thanks so much for hanging out with us. A lot of yeah, a lot of our audience loves to continue the conversation or learn more about you. What are some ways that they can connect with you or learn more. Sure.

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Jenna LoMonaco  27:23

So I'm on LinkedIn. I'm just by channel Monaco, and all of my social profiles are under genosaurus. I never changed that from when I was in my 20s,

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Erik  27:36

still in there. Nice. Well, great. Well, thanks a lot again. Jenna, we really appreciate you spending some time and sharing a whole lot about you and like what you're up to, and some great advice as well. So thanks again, awesome. And thanks everyone for listening to another episode, and you can find lots of more episodes wherever you find all of your audio and video. Just search for Minority Report podcasts. Look for the logo. Thanks everyone.

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28:03

Thank you. Bye.

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