Quantcast
“We were trying to reveal as little as possible.”
——Columbia’s Scott Greer

VIRAL MARKETING: PASSING TREND OR NEW PARADIGM?

There’s Something Going On and You Don’t Know What It Is, Do You, Mr. Jones
We couldn’t help noticing The New York Times’ attempt to make sense of nontraditional "viral marketing" moves made this year by such audacious stars as Jay-Z, Kanye West, Daft Punk and David Bowie in the June 21 think piece "Who Needs the Critics? Go Cryptic Instead."

Near the top of the article, McKinley sets up his line of inquiry, noting that during the last six months, all of the above artists have "kept their new albums under wraps, then mounted brief, intense campaigns aimed not at critics and radio programmers, but at generating waves of interest on the Internet, banking on their fans to pass along news."

Among those providing quotes to reporter James McKinley (who got the assignment instead of staff media reporter Ben Sisario, for reasons unknown) were IDJ chief Steve Bartels, Columbia VP Marketing Scott Greer and former major-label exec Steve Stoute, who now heads his own marketing agency. Translation LLC.

"It ain’t like there is a lot of money in selling records anyway," Stoute pointed out. "If the music is shared and people like it, you are going to make the money on tour… The marketing of music today has been informed by the process of how music was stolen. Everybody figured out through the hard route that once there is buzz on a song, it’s going to be shared at an intense rate."

"We were trying to reveal as little as possible," said Greer of the stealth campaign for Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories.

As for West’s Yeezus, for which he refused to release an up-front single or allow iTunes pre-orders, Bartels explained, "It was Kanye’s vision to create intrigue and mystique around the project. Kanye always wanted to create a way for fans of music to be presented an album and his vision all at one time."

Are we in the early stages of a sea change in the way high-profile artists engage the mass audience? Later today, we’ll wrestle with the possible answers to this and other intriguing questions.

NEAR TRUTHS:
SPRING BLOOMS
Here come the big guns. (3/29a)
THE COUNT: COLDPLAY IS HOT, COUNTRY'S COOKIN' IN THE U.K.
The latest tidbits from the bustling live sector (3/29a)
CITY OF HOPE TAPS MARCIANO FOR TOP HONOR
This year's philanthropic model (3/28a)
TRUST IN THE TOP 20
Hip-hop is no longer hibernating. (3/27a)
UMG BROADENS SPOTIFY OFFERINGS
Sir Lucian and Daniel are in harmony. (3/28a)
THE NEW UMG
Gosh, we hope there are more press releases.
TIKTOK BANNED!
Unless the Senate manages to make this whole thing go away, that is.
THE NEW HUGE COUNTRY ACT
No, not that one.
TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN PLAYLIST
Now 100% unlicensed!
 Email

 First Name

 Last Name

 Company

 Country
CAPTCHA code
Captcha: (type the characters above)