Hurts (UK band) & Their Online Marketing

I’ve been a fan of UK synth band Hurts since I first heard a remix of their track Wonderful Life on last years NME Radar mix. Its a total 1980′s fest, and even their videos have something Pet Shop Boys about them. For a band that have very little material they have picked up an amazing amount of publicity in recent months and a few things about their online marketing caught my eye. Their marketing approach is a slight bit different with a heavy emphasis on integrating video and social networks to their marketing ahead of their website to build awareness and drive up fans.

Youtubes Biggest Virtual Choir

Here’s a pretty cool viral from Eric Whitacre who conducted the worlds largest virtual choir. Its 185 voices, 243 tracks, and involved people from 12 countries, including Ireland. The result is an amazing piece of work which is posted below.

When Music Virals Came of Age

The use of the internet to create a viral sensation is nothing new, but over the last few months there’s been a sense that the viral is coming of age. It is exemplified in music virals where the form is breaking new ground and moving to a new stage in its development. Artists are leveraging virals in new and interesting ways in order to generate extra revenues, which somewhat underlines the importance the music video still has to play in the marketing mix. Here’s four recent examples….

VT: Crystal Swing, Tron Legacy, IamAmIWhoAmI, BMW

VT: March 16th, 2010

The weeks best virals includes Ireland’s crountry and western internet sensations Crystal Swing and how they became Irelands first viral stars, Tron Legacy and its viral camapign, the latest IamAmIWhoAmI viral shows whoever it is it isn’t Christina, how social media is transforming retail and the new viral from BMW.

VT: Ok Go, Skoda, State of the Internet, Mercedes, IamAmIWhoAmI, Improv Everywhere

VT: Tuesday March 2nd, 2010 – The weeks best new virals: 1. Ok Go ‘This Too Shall Pass’ The new Ok Go video is on Youtube and its possible to embed! Last week I wrote about how EMI had signed a deal with the video sharing site that disabled the embed function. It would seem [...]

EMI’s Anti Viral Marketing Strategy

There’s a few basic rules in viral marketing that must be adhered to in order for the viral effect to work. They are; make it worthwhile (in other words why would people share it?) and make it as easy to share as possible. On the downside creating a viral hit is more than just two steps, it’s far from easy, on the upside once you have one it can become a very important tool in the marketing arsenal, something which can live on beyond it’s intended lifespan thanks to the likes of Youtube. This kind of marketing depends on people to ‘share it’ therefore there is no additional costs to the ‘owner’ outside of production costs making it highly effective, and incredibly difficult to pull off. So what do you do when you have a viral hit that after 4 years has clocked up over 50 million views and still gets 10,000 views per day?

Listening Without Prejudice: IamWhoIam

In last weeks Viral Tuesday I featured the latest video from IamWhoIam. The virals originated from Sony and were initially distributed to music blogs and are believed to be part of a marketing campaign to promote an upcoming album. But the most interesting part is that the virals are not attributed to any artist. This has lead to wild speculation online that it could be anyone from Christina Aquiera to The Knife, Lady Gaga, Goldfrapp or even Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails. Thats a wide palate of diverse musical backgrounds.

VT: RATM, Panic Attack, 9 Year Olds, Jack Bauer V Santa

December 22nd 2009
This is the final list of the best new virals I’ll be posting this year. It’s been a week when social media took on the big guns and won not only with Rage Against The Machine’s chart conquering effort but also a $300 dollar short had Hollywood calling on an unknown Uruguayan film makers door.

17/08: 10 Milestones in Music Marketing

10 Milestones in Music Marketing: Found this interesting list of milestones in Music Marketing which includes OK Go’s use of Youtube for their low budget video and Radioheads In Rainbows release. Oddly Myspace and Napster were left out from the original list

How To Spotify The Revenue

There’s an interesting piece on new service Spotify over at On The Record. The service has been referenced in a few articles of late so it was good to get a decent handle on what the service provides. The free version is not yet available here, but when it is the service will allow free access to a library of over 8 million songs, with an ad break every 30 or so minutes, or a €10 per month premium account without teh ads. It’s backed by the music industry as a means of fighting back against illegal downloaders.