Eugene Friesen is a world-renown Grammy® award-winning cellist who recently ventured into the volatile world of marketing and entrepreneurship when he decided to market a video of his critically-acclaimed live program, CelloMan. A member of the Paul Winter consort for over a decade, Eugene has had the privilege of exploring all styles and genres of music, yet the marketing of music demanded its own skills not taught in music school. Fortunately for Eugene, David Brier of DBD International, an ardent admirer of music in general and Eugene in particular, happened to e-mail Eugene, asking for any new releases, right around the time he was struggling with the marketing. They struck a chord that has been reverberating ever since.

Q: Eugene, what's your background?

EF: Personally, my parents were Mennonites who emigrated from Russia. Musically, I began studying at six and took up the cello, among other instruments, by the time I was ten. I studied for a year in Los Angeles with Nathaniel Rosen and later graduated from the Yale School of Music. I've been a member of the Paul Winter Consort since then, and enjoyed a brief stint from 1980 to 1982 in the Delos String Quartet, playing classical chamber music. I have traveled to the corners of the world and jammed with musicians everywhere, developing unique techniques on the cello as a result.

Q: When did you first decide to produce your own music and market it?

EF: I've wanted to do so for twenty years. Working with Paul Winter, I've produced three albums of my music: New Friend, a midnight improvisation in the world's largest Gothic cathedral, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York; another called Arms Around You; and last year, we made a third album called The Song of Rivers, commissioned by an environmental group in California.

But I hadn't produced and marketed these myself, just composed and played in them. That changed as a result of my teaming with a mask maker, Rob Faust, over the last couple of years. We have developed a program for children called CelloMan, which we've performed all over the United States. It was while we were readying a video release for CelloMan that David Brier came to the rescue. He's designed all the materials for the release.

Q: What did the marketing for the video look like when DBD International first contacted you?

EF: We were thinking of just direct marketing. While we are still counting on that as our main marketing thrust, David (DBD Creative Director) has created a design that is so visually alluring that we are going to place it in the bigger bookstore chains and the alternative market. When you're just a couple of people working on your own, the idea of approaching Barnes & Nobles or Borders seems way too daunting. That is until someone like David suggests you should do it and then orchestrates a whole campaign to bring your product to market.

Q: What else did DBD International do for your marketing?

EF: David has helped with an extraordinary belief in and commitment to the product. I have worked with many designers, and I thought originally that was what David was bringing to the table. But, he's much, much more than a designer: I feel he is a partner in my product. He's someone who cares passionately about every aspect of not only how the product looks, but also representing it in the most favorable light. For us, that meant finding connections-he's the one who suggested getting quotes on the video box from cello maestro Yo Yo Ma. David has such a sense of confidence that he goes to the top to make every connection he feels the product should have.

I am impressed with his underlying knowledge of music and musical artists. He is obviously a sensitive music listener. The fact that he knows the scene is a big help. It's fun and valuable, having someone to bounce around ideas with and who can come up with them. But over and above that, David made it his business to study the market and know it well enough tosee major currents and jump in.

That's where he came up with the idea that we should hook up with the broader movement to further music education in schools. He suggested that, rather than just creating a package, we should make it an educational tool as well. So, we're including information about, and photographs of, the cello inside the video box. This is revolutionary.

Working in concert with DBD International has given our marketing a professional tenor and lifted us, despite the diminutive size of our operation in the music industry, into the same league as the major labels. The brand identity that marketing professionals talk of, and which DBD International has developed for us, is key to getting us noticed and remembered in the marketplace. The fact that to date, we have also garnered industry recognition, only furthers our influence. In fact, the CelloMan poster was picked as one of the few posters in the world to be a finalist in the annual "Most Memorable Poster of 1999" competition, a highly prestigious accomplishment in itself.

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