Many French people have noticed new billboards bearing the effigy of the group Yelle, and promoting their new album “L’Ère du Verseau”, in Los Angeles. Installed on September 21, they are the work of a lesser-known patron: Frenchman Marc Goldstein, founder of the communication agency 10K Advertising, specializing in the purchase of billboards.
He discovered the trio of Julie Budet, Grand Marnier and Tepr via the film The Hustle by Chris Addison, in which the famous song “I Want To See You” sounds. Caught by “Poetic and erotic lyrics”, “A naughty French spirit à la Gainsbourg”, “The singer’s hypnotic voice and the ingenuity of the sound”, he directly uses the Shazam app to find out who is behind that sound. The universe of Yelle transports him, and in particular their clips “Creatives worthy of Jean-Baptiste Mondino and Rita Mitsouko” : “They were on my radar”, he admits.
And chance did things well. Indeed, the agency has at that time space available on its inventory of advertising panels. When Marc Goldstein contacts Grand Marnier, he thinks of a scam. “But it was for the love of art”, comments the patron, who refuses to mention the amount of this operation because “This is a gift”. And he is very satisfied with the result: nearly 9,000 “likes” on the group’s Instagram post. “Many Americans reacted”, welcomes Marc Goldstein, surprised by the audience of the electro-pop trio in the United States. The latter has been touring there for nearly 10 years and has even been invited to perform at Coachella and open for Katy Perry.
The timing wasn’t random, either. “The situation is very difficult for the artists at the moment, they are deprived of stage and of income”, warns the Frenchman who previously worked as a journalist and music photographer – notably for the public radio station KCRW. He is also concerned about the disappearance of concert halls, one of the many consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic for the music industry. Thus, The Satellite (in Silverlake) has already announced its final closure.
This is the first time that the 10K Advertising agency, created 7 years ago, has helped a French group in this way. But this selfless act is in line with their vocation to give back advertising space to music. “We want to support independent groups and labels, by offering them low prices for panels”, argues Marc Goldstein, who transformed Sunset Boulevard, between Silverlake and Echo Park, into “Sunset trip for independent groups” and not for fast food chains. For the love of music.
