(This is a week and a half late and is being posted after a busy week and a hiatus from blogging. More posts about the conference to come.)

Of the few panels I saw at the Leadership Music Digital Conference in Nashville last week, the "Marketing to Millennials" gave the most food for thought.

Hal Hassel from Echo had some very good takes on how to approach millennials. When he was asked if millennials will still spend on music, he said "absolutely" and stressed two ingredients: quality and authenticity. "It has to feel pretty genuine," he told the audience.

Dorrian Porter of Mozes spoke of the need to build a relationship. "The biggest challenge is to market today, monetize later."

"You need to use tools that millennials use," Hassel added later. "Social networking is not just a fad."

Not to dismiss the fine guests, but the most compelling part of the panel was the Mozes-powered text messages displayed on a widescreen behind the panelists.

A text appeared asking what millennials had broke using these web tools. "Taylor Swift" said a response. (I should point out the context of the word "break" in this case. In most industry circles, and especially in Nashville, an artist doesn't break until mainstream success is attained. Half a million is a start, but platinum is a better measuring stick. In some circles 100,000 album sales and a tour of large clubs counts as breaking. Not here.)

I couldn't help but jump in. "Swift had radio," I wrote, and continued to ask if anybody had broke using just millennial tools. Not an iPod commercial. Not with the help of the Disney media machine. Not Big Machine Record's radio promotion budget. Just Web 2.0.

Someone texted "Ingrid Michaelson." Nope. A "Grey's Anatomy" sync is mass media, and her label, while her own, is distributed by Sony BMG-owned RED.

Colbie Caillet? She had a big MySpace crowd before signing, but she wouldn't be a hit without Universal Republic. Carrie Underwood? She had "American Idol," the most mass of all media.

Obvious examples like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails are rare exceptions to the rule. They already had the ears of both fans and the media, had sold millions of albums and had become strong draws on the live circuit. In a sense, though, both artists broke for a second time. The resulting publicity surrounding their choice of sale and distribution of self-released albums allowed them to find a few new fans. The twist here is the bands' impacts would not have been the same without the help of the mainstream press.

The bottom line is that mass media matters, and mass media is the source of much of the Web 2.0 chatter that is mistakenly assumed to be operating outside of the reaches of corporate America's influence. A millennial may hear about an artist through viral marketing, or get a song sent via IM, or have a link emailed from a friend, but mass media gets the ball rolling for much of the music discovery that exists in mainstream America. It may feel more genuine, but the impetus for it all was the good ol' marketing department conference call.

I'll go one step further: Labels that successfully operate in stealth are beating the millennials at their own game by hiding the source of the marketing message. If kids are turned off by overt gestures, make the gestures covert.

A purchase of Feist's The Reminder may feel more genuine (as in grass roots) because of its use in an Apple commercial, but that was a mass medium spreading a multi-million-dollar corporate marketing message organized by a top ad agency. At the end of the day, there's not that much difference between an Apple commercial and the old MTV. It may feel different, it may be a different gatekeeper, but it's still music discovery that arose through the efforts of labels and publishers.