Marketing

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?

EMI kills it in order to earn $5,400 every 6 months.

Last week Damien Kulash Jr of Oz band ‘Ok Go’ wrote a piece in the New York Times highlighting the difficulty the band are having marketing their new album. If you remember Ok Go’s viral hit of 2006 for their track ‘Here It Goes Again’ featuring the band on treadmills. A classic that adhere’s to the first rule – why should people share it? Because its pretty damn good.

You see thanks to the embed function on Youtube the video was allowed to be shared on music blogs and social networks. It’s success broke the band internationally. In the three years after the viral they have played over 700 shows on five continents. Breaking a band internationally is no mean feat either and this viral with its low production values no doubt helped shift tickets, albums and merchandise – contributing to their labels balance sheet in doing so.

So it would seem that Ok Go and EMI owe this simple embed function a lot of thanks. It is the embed function that allowed the video to adhere to rule two – make it easy to share.

The band have a new album in the offing and want to embark on a similar viral strategy to promote it. Why not viral has been good to them. Except now they can’t. EMI have signed a deal with Youtube to turn views on the Youtube site into cash, earning between $0.04c and $0.08c hard cash per view. However such revenue is only when the video is viewed on  Youtube and not when it is embedded into another site. In order to get round this, the embed function has been disabled on Youtube which means the video can no longer be shared, as such all EMI artist videos will only be allowed to be shown on the Youtube site. Rule two has now been broken.

So what does this mean, the stats in Damien Kulash piece speak for themselves. Since the EMI revenue deal has come into place views of the ‘Here It Goes Again’ have dropped by 90%, from 10,000 per day to 1,000. The band have earned just over $27 and the label just $5400 – in the first six months of the deal. You have to really ask are things that bad at EMI they have to wring every last penny out of it?

As I said virals can live on forever and with bands bringing out new material, these virals, along with albums, tracks, live performances all help solidify and build a fanbase. These are the people that provide the revenue. So under all circumstances look at ways increase the fanbase. This viral is an effective and extremely cheap way of doing so. Trying to put a stranglehold on the viral-ability of the video and all future video’s is hardly going to grow the fanbase. I mean EMI have to look no further than ‘Ok Go’ to see how this worked for them. By putting this stranglehold on their artists, the label have effectively said ‘we don’t want another hit such as Ok Go’. When you consider how little that very popular viral has made for the firm in six months, you have to wonder how much the firm earns from Youtube against what it costs the firm in potential revenues from other sources. I have said it before videos and virals are adverts, in this case adverts for Ok Go concerts, albums, tracks, merchandise.

It just doesn’t make sense from Ok Go’s perspective, or for EMI’s revenues or for their stable of artists. It’s amazing just how the record industry cannot be more fluid (for want of a better term) or flexible. Their continued lack of innovation and short sightedness has pretty much brought their industry to its knees, and by the looks of things that is where it is going to stay for a long time to come.

The full article from the NY times is here.

For now OK Go’s ‘Here It Goes Again’ is available to embed on an unofficial page. You see EMI – you’re not even making your full potential revenue from Youtube.

Related posts:

1. Listening Without Prejudice: IamWhoIam
2. Guerrilla, Ambient and Viral Movie Marketing (4): Cloverfield ‘V’ The Dark Knight
3. Guerrilla, Ambient & Viral Movie Marketing Pt 1: Blair Witch Project
4. Guerrilla, Ambient & Viral Movie Marketing Pt 2: 2001 – 2006
5. 10 key Elements of a Social Media Strategy

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