If I was in charge of marketing for the CBS show "Cold Case" I would........

Get people to buy music!

Marketing plan over.

Thanks for coming..............er......you look confused.

OK I should explain. Cold Case is a detective show featuring a bunch of foxy police solving "unsolved cases" from years past. It is a good show and one thing that they do so well, maybe better then any other show, is work music in each episode and the songs featured in each episode is specifically from whatever time period that the "case" took place.

Music is another character in this show since it sets the time and mood of the episode. CBS understands the important role it plays since it has a whole section of the Cold Case website listing the songs featured in each episode.

So this got me thinking........(and here is where I tell you what I would do if I worked for them etc etc).....instead of just listing the music used on the show........why are they not offering the songs for sale?

I know there would be licensing and royalty issues but CBS doesn't have to do this on their own. Why not talk with iTunes and set up a section of the site as "Music from Cold Case" and when they choose the songs from the Cold Case spot (and not from the artist's location on iTunes) the album art would show up with the cols case logo and the words "Sunday at 9pm" or whatever.

Staying "top of mind" with multiple "touches" (and I mean good touches) is so important and marketers need to use every available tool to accomplish this.

If you ask me......it is a good thing I am hear to dispense these free ideas :)

-saul