One needs only to take a walk down Boylston Street pass the new Apple store at 8AM to see how important word of mouth is to Apple and their new iPhone. Apple is legendary for their marketing (customer service is another thing - I waited close to an hour last week to get an iPhone, in which time Apple was only able to service ONE person). Their integrated marketing campaigns are amazing, from the traditional print, packaging, television, and branding components; to their forward thinking viral and word of mouth campaigns.
To get a large group of people to evangelize about your product or service is the end goal of any marketing campaign, and it’s something that my friend Dave Balter knows a lot about. In 2002, Dave founded BzzAgent, a word of mouth media company that currently coordinates 450,000 volunteer “agents” in the US, Canada, and the U.K.. Dave recently wrote and self-published his second book on Word of Mouth marketing, creatively titled “The Word of Mouth Manual Volume II.” It’s a great read, illustrated with examples from the Grateful Dead, Crocs, and of course, Apple. The book is for sale for $45 on Amazon, but Dave’s provided the book to a few folks for free, as a PDF download, available here. If you’ve ever been curious about how or why word of mouth marketing works, or how to get folks to start talking about your own product, I recommend you check it out.
Make Our Video
Radiohead and I share a couple of things in common. We both love Bill Hicks (Paul Kolderie got me backstage in 2002 where I got to talk to Jonny Greenwood about Bill), but more importantly we are both interested in user-generated content. I really liked the “Nude” remix idea where different “stems” of the song (vocals, drums, guitar etc) could be downloaded, remixed, and then entered into a contest on http://radioheadremix.com. Although some folks have a problem with buying the stems from iTunes at $.99 each, I think it’s a great visibility vehicle for the band as well as a wonderful way to interact with their community. Radiohead even provides folks with a widget to add to their Facebook profile, MySpace page or website. Marketing ploy? Yes. Creative promotion that is effective at engaging folks? Yes.
Following up on this, aniBoom is now in the semi-final stage of their In Rainbows Animated Music Video Contest. The contest invites folks to create animated videos to In Rainbows tracks, with the winner of the competition (who will be chosen by Radiohead themselves) receiving a $10,000 cash prize and a shot at having their video air on the Cartoon Network’s [adult Swim]. Below are some of my favorite semi-finalists:
Viva user generated content!
SXSW
Whew. Just got back from one of the largest music conferences in the world – SXSW (South By South West) in Austin, TX. It’s like a musical wonderland down there. I was floored by Earthless, These are Powers, A Place to Bury Strangers, Chuck Prophet, Mark Kozelek, Brad Barr, The Peasantry, and in particular, Monotonix, which might have put on one of the most ridiculous/riveting performance I have ever seen. Check them out:
I suppose that seeing good music at SXSW is a given, but now that I am back and catching up with my RSS feeds and emails, it’s a little surprising for me to see that some folks have an opinion that SXSW is a waste of time for bands, the business has changed in such a way that the industry folks in attendance don’t make a difference anymore, and that the conference is so crowded there is little chance that bands can make any impact anyway.
To me, that’s a bit of a close-minded and jaded way to look at things.
It might be true that the major label A&R folks that are at SXSW are interested in locking bands into 360 deals that are likely not in the best interest of artists. But from a promotional and business standpoint, there are fantastic opportunities. We all know the Internet has changed everything about the business – sales, distribution, and how music is discovered. Commercial radio has fizzled as a means to expose folks to new music, having been replaced by blogs and online music communities. And the blogs have been in full effect at SXSW. Sean Moeller runs a tremendous music blog/site called Daytrotter, and he’s been holed up at Big Orange Studios in Austin the whole week recording exclusive live sets and interviews with folks like Peter Bjorn, from Peter Bjorn and John, Kaki King, and Johnathan Rice. The notion that there is too much competition at SXSW is discounted by that fact that the Internet allows the new breed of tastemakers to bring SXSW to you. All it takes is one blogger writing about your performance to make an impact on hundreds or thousands of folks immediately, both through editorial and multimedia content.
It always comes back to the music. If your music kills and you work hard, good things will happen. Berklee put on a show on Friday afternoon at Friends on 6th street, where my good friend and Berklee alum Brad Barr performed. Brad played a beautiful Townes Van Zandt-inspired set (to my ears) of original music. Directly after the show, Brad was approached to play a solo set at the High Sierra Music Festival in California next year, as well as an opportunity to play Middlebury College. Cory Brown, the founder of artist-friendly Absolutely Kosher records, was in attendance too, rocking out to The Peasantry. It’s tough for me to see how these things could be viewed as anything but positive for Brad and The Peasantry.
Barry Kelly, Dave Franz, and myself shot some video interviews with heavy hitter forward thinking industry folks while we were down in Austin. I’ll post a link when we have the piece edited all together.
In addition to Music Marketing 201, I’m also teaching Dave Kusek’s Future of Music course. The first lesson in the course looks at the difference between the music business and the record business (there’s a big difference, of course), what a major/independent label offer musicians, the importance of touring and merch, and an overview of publishing.
Part of the first assignment in the course has students evaluate a hypothetical situation involving a songwriter that is beginning to have some success, and is now being courted by a major. The question: should this artist take the major label deal?
It’s a pretty broad question in theory, and one that requires a lot of questions in return. What are the terms of the deal? Is this a 360 deal that will require this artist to relinquish control (financially and creatively) of merchandise, touring income, publishing? Does this artist feel that a major label can effectively do things that the artist cannot do for him/herself?
From a critical thinking standpoint, all the above (and more) should be considered (by a lawyer, if possible). But from a knee-jerk standpoint, my first thought is to walk away. Consider these two news releases from last week. The first is from London’s Guardian paper:
“EMI, bought by Guy Hands’ Terra Firma group last year, confirmed today that worldwide headcount will be cut by between 1,500 and 2,000 as it slashes costs.
Confirming EMI insiders’ fears, the company said ahead of staff briefings this morning that it was launching ‘a series of wide-ranging initiatives within its recorded music division to enable the group to become the world’s most innovative, artist friendly and consumer-focused music company.”
On the flip side, there continue to be interesting ideas popping up on how artists can run their own label. Take a look at this company, called Slice The Pie. The company enables artists to connect with financers who want to invest in music. It looks to me like the company is in its infant stages, but it is definitely an interesting idea.
I’ve worked at labels. And while I think that a small tightly run forward-thinking label can survive and prosper in this environment (Stone’s Throw is one of my favorite examples at the moment), I still think the majors are a ways off from being even remotely close to navigating the current environment. I think times are going to continue to get worse for the majors before they get better, and the resources available to independent musicians are going to continue to improve.
On The Corner
I’m loving the promo video that Sony made to support the Miles Davis On The Corner box set (the 8th, and last, in an incredible series of high-end sets designed for Miles completists). The 12 minute video, which Sony has provided to Amazon to help sell the $140 set, contains footage from Miles’s On The Corner band playing in Vienna in 1973, as well as a recent interview with the core members of that band (bassist Michael Henderson, guitarist Pete Cosey and alto sax player Dave Liebman) in Miles’s former backyard on W.77th in NYC!
Watch it here: On The Corner Interview
Although Bitches Brew is considered the real departure (from traditional jazz) album, On The Corner is the record that I continue to go back to. What Miles was doing 35 years ago would not seem out of place at all if it was released today. Truly a timeless record.
A lot of the credit has to go to producer Teo Macero, who pretty much compiled On The Corner from a series of jams. Check out a 2004 video interview with Teo (who does a great Miles impression) from Artists House Music:
Radiohead Rocking The Online Marketing Campaign (And You Could Too!)
Following up on the DJ set that Thom Yorke did on Thursday evening, radiohead.tv hosted a second straight night of live performances, videos and cover songs in what is appearing to be some sort of Webcast series. Excellent stuff – a homemade video for the new 15 Steps song using images from the Brad Pitt film Se7en (with Thom’s head playing the role of Gweneth Paltrow), a great Smiths cover, and a red hot live version of Bodysnatchers, the second song from the “In Rainbows” record.
Radiohead is, of course, in a unique position as one of the biggest bands in the world, and they are going to be getting a ton of publicity no matter what they do. But what’s interesting to me is how fun this all is, and the fact that any band can pull off essentially the same thing. The Se7en clip looks like it took someone about 25 minutes to make using iMovie!
Check out Thom’s DJ set from Nov 8th here:
Bodysnatchers clip from last night’s Webcast is here:
Se7en/15 Steps video:
Smiths Headmaster Ritual live cover:
The (growing) Cost of Doing Business
There may be more music produced now than ever, but it certainly is not getting any cheaper to promote it to traditional outlets. David from Digital Audio Insider has written a great piece about the realities of servicing your record to press and radio. College radio is relatively untainted by the consolidation and lack of diversity that haunts commercial radio, and can be a good option for independent bands that appeal to the 18-24 demographic. The same can be said for press, who generally review records and concerts based on buzz and quality, rather than ad dollars (unlike commercial radio and most retail visibility).
As David points out in his piece, press and radio do not react well to emails containing links to MP3s to review. They need the proper CD in a package, with a one sheet. The financial realities of this break out like this:
$1.81 per CD package
+
There are about 1000 college stations which are eligible to send their playlists to CMJ (College Music Journal). Say you are in a hip-hop band and want to get added to the Hip-Hop chart on CMJ. 300 stations report to this.
+ 300 CDs
If you are sending CDs to CMJ, then you are likely touring as well. If you are touring, you want to support your dates by getting press visibility in key markets, as well as try for some national hip-hop pubs. Let’s say you do a press mailing to 300 outlets to cover major regional papers and targeted national media.
+ 300 CDs
= $1,086 for mailing costs.
Of course, you are going to want to hire an indie to help you at press and radio. Depending on your goals, how long your campaign is, and who you use, this could cost you anywhere from $1,000-$4,000 for a radio campaign, and between $1000-$5000 a month for three months for publicity coverage.
Based on these numbers, bands are looking at $12,000-$15,000 on the low end to do an effective campaign to press and college radio.
Pretty effective argument for maxing out your tour, community and online marketing efforts first, huh?
The Wu Tang Clan are rocking the press in support of their December 4th 8 diagrams release. It was announced earlier this month that the Wu secured the first Beatles sample in history, George Harrison’s While My Guitar Gently Weeps. While the band subsequently posted on their MySpace page that this isn’t quite true, the press bump they got for their new record from this news was tremendous.
But to me, even more outstanding is the news that Wu leader RZA won the 1st Annual Chess Kings Invitational, this past weekend in San Francisco!
Who CANT write about that??
I talk about the importance of creating a press story in my Berkleemusic Music Marketing 201 course. I’m sure the Wu’s publicity team is on cloud nine with the news the band is generating leading up to street date.
Check out: Wu-tang Clan - Da Mystery of Chessboxin’
Prince and the Devolution?
Prince has always been a bit of an enigma to me. Although I was a relatively early adopter (Purple Rain was one of the first cassettes I ever bought, right after Duran Duran Rio), I sort of lost interest by the early 90s. But even when I wasn’t listening to his music, I was always keenly aware of Prince’s marketing chops. The slave/symbol thing might have been a little out there, but great marketing - it kept Prince in the public eye when there was a bit of a lull due to a fight with his label.
That being said, I jumped back on the Prince train with his 2004 Musicology release and subsequent tour. The music was impressive, but even more impressive was Prince’s tour sales strategy. Prince gave away a copy of his new record with every ticket sold on his arena tour, and SoundScanned every one (meaning that every CD that he gave away with the price of the ticket was counted as a sale by SoundScan, the company the record industry uses to account for retail or show sales). It was a brilliant idea for a couple reasons. First, his record reached #1 based on these show sales, which generated even more press for him. Second, it shows that Prince understands the power of “word of mouth” to sell his music.
At least that is what I thought. I was surprised to read today that Prince took a page from Metallica’s playbook by personally fighting YouTube and demanding that his footage be removed. Prince has hired a firm, appropriately named Web Sheriff, to remove the offensive videos. I found the description of their difficulties to be pretty funny:
“In the last couple of weeks we have directly removed approximately 2,000 Prince videos from YouTube,” said Web Sheriff managing director John Giacobbi. “The problem is that one can reduce it to zero and then the next day there will be 100 or 500 or whatever…” he told Reuters.
Seems like an exercise in futility to me.
Perhaps this is another brilliant press move on Prince’s part. But I think the YouTube video of Prince’s solo at the end of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” from the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame show did more to raise his visibility than pretty much anything else he could have done at the time. It doesn’t seem right to me that someone who would spit in the eye of his record label by bundling his CD in with newspapers in England would fight such a powerful promotional vehicle.
Does Street Date Still Matter?
The Arts and Crafts label is a good example of label that understands the importance of a brand. Much the same as Stones Throw, I know that 9 times out of 10 times I’ll be into what the label puts out. Maybe it’s the fact that more than half the bands on the label have members who play with Broken Social Scene (who are great), but I like to think that they have a particular aesthetic and musical taste that mirrors mine. It makes me want to support them and buy their records/downloads.
Which leads me to the unorthodox release of the new Stars record. Days after the record was mastered, the label released it online, months prior to its retail street date. The following was posted on the bands Website:
Traditional music business practice says we are to begin sending out copies of this album now. We give advance copies to print publications in hopes of securing features that coincide with our September date. We meet with radio stations in hopes of securing airplay. etc, etc.
Inevitably someone will leak the album.
Throughout this process, the most important people in this value chain, the fans, are given only two options - wait until September 25th to legally purchase the new album or choose from a variety of sources and download the album for free, at any time.
We hope you’ll choose to support the band, and choose to pay for their album. However we don’t think it’s fair you should have to wait until September 25th to do so.
We believe that the line between the media and the public is now completely grey.
What is the difference between a writer for a big glossy music magazine and a student writing about their favourite bands on their blog? What differentiates a commercial radio station from someone adding a song to their lastfm channel? or their myspace page?
As such, we are making the new Stars album available for legal download today, four days after its completion. The CD and double vinyl versions of the album will still be released on our official release date, September 25th. We hope you will continue to support music retailers should a physical album in all its packaged glory be your choice of format.
It’s our hope that given a clear, legal alternative to downloading music for free, you will choose to support the creators.
We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
Sincerely,
Stars and Arts&Crafts
Whether these motives are indeed true, or this was just a really shrewd marketing move by the label…I’m not sure. Arts and Crafts may have a point…I do know that the press are eating the record up, with positive reviews in Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Stylus and about a hundred million music blogs. Press may be propelled to cover this release more thoroughly as it’s the first time this tactic has been taken. But if every artist did the same, would press be so kind? What if your fan base is less computer savvy than Stars? Will they still be able to find the record if there is no retail or radio coverage? Independent retail definitely holds a grudge when they think they have been wronged (read my Smashing Pumpkins commentary here). Does this even matter anymore?
