Pop band Weezer’s latest album, Hurley, launched earlier this week (Sept 14), and rather than simply buying ad space to promote the launch they have enlisted the help of ‘Youtube celebrities’ to help get the word out.
With the help of music distribution and marketing specialist DashGo, Weezer reached out to 75 popular YouTube creators and invited them to include the band in their videos.
“To facilitate this free-form taping, they set aside two days in a Los Angeles studio with instructions that read, “We’re up for just about anything that can be filmed in the studio. The finished clip will be yours to release and distribute on Sept. 14, 2010. […] It was then up to the YouTubers-whose channels have millions of subscribers and aggregated well over a billion total video views-to write and produce the segments with the band.” The creators were also encouraged to include copy which promoted the album release, but weren’t required to.
http://www.musicreview.co.za/2010/09/15/weezer-invades-youtube-on-hurley-release-date/
On Tuesdays YouTube regularly promotes ‘Music Tuesday’ on their homepage, allowing many of these videos to be promoted in front of a global audience of 24 million plus people in one day (Comscore, July 2010).
Weezer were able to capitalise on the built-in audience of these content creators (often in the hundreds of thousands) as well as the millions who visit youtube.com everyday. These videos will undoubtedly be shared around the net as the band continues to grow their connection with YouTube from their video for Pork and Beans which featured many YouTube stars and has generated 2 million plus views.
For Weezer, who are known for their quirkiness, this is a perfect fit for their fans who are more than likely already fans of the various YouTube channels who promoted the band. It also allows the band to reach new audiences as people seek out the videos.
For many, there is a grey area around blogger outreach and what constitutes as ‘cash for comment’. If you pick your audiences and channels correctly and are able to work collaboratively on the creative development, then these programs can work much more effectively than a standard media buy.
More Info on Weezer's Hurley launch:
USA Today
AdWeek Blog
Clickz Marketing News
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