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
Communications news and views, from Starcom Australia
Showing posts with label integration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label integration. Show all posts
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Google Creative Lab
I was fortunate enough to have breakfast this morning with the head of Googles 'Creative Lab' - Andy Brendt. It was a smallish affair with about 20 people at the table. Andy, is extremely credentialed and was last Co President of O&M New York, having risen through the ranks as a creative guru.
Interestingly, the attendees were primarily agency heads, rather than those with specifically digital backgrounds. And the discussions were not about Search, or even Google. At all.
Instead, the old debate of Creative vs Media, Mainstream vs Digital, and mostly separation vs integration rose its ugly head. It seems this is still an enormously topical subject in the States and Andy wanted to see if we suffer from this in Australia as well. Short answer. Yes.
What we could all agree on was that it doesn't matter who does what, as long as we work together to create brilliance for our clients and their brands.
Andy is fervently in favour of a one shop solution. I'm less inclined to think that it's a one size fits all arena. I believe we need our clients to lead the integration charge. And it has to start from inside out. If they are silo'd within their marketing teams, you can bet that's how they are briefing us (which often happens with digital).
From where I sit the bigger issue is Australian digital resource and ability. If we continue at the current pace, we could be 5 years away from groundbreaking fully integrated work. Why? 1/ We are expereincing a skills shortage and 2/ Right now, we are still governed by traditionalists at the top end of spectrum (particularly at the client end).
So how do we create an environment where we at SMV can move at a much faster pace than the market? First step I believe is more education. For our leaders, for our clients, and even our creative partners. We must be vigilant and I'm afraid, we need to start yesterday. So it's a good thing in some instances we did.
Interestingly, the attendees were primarily agency heads, rather than those with specifically digital backgrounds. And the discussions were not about Search, or even Google. At all.
Instead, the old debate of Creative vs Media, Mainstream vs Digital, and mostly separation vs integration rose its ugly head. It seems this is still an enormously topical subject in the States and Andy wanted to see if we suffer from this in Australia as well. Short answer. Yes.
What we could all agree on was that it doesn't matter who does what, as long as we work together to create brilliance for our clients and their brands.
Andy is fervently in favour of a one shop solution. I'm less inclined to think that it's a one size fits all arena. I believe we need our clients to lead the integration charge. And it has to start from inside out. If they are silo'd within their marketing teams, you can bet that's how they are briefing us (which often happens with digital).
From where I sit the bigger issue is Australian digital resource and ability. If we continue at the current pace, we could be 5 years away from groundbreaking fully integrated work. Why? 1/ We are expereincing a skills shortage and 2/ Right now, we are still governed by traditionalists at the top end of spectrum (particularly at the client end).
So how do we create an environment where we at SMV can move at a much faster pace than the market? First step I believe is more education. For our leaders, for our clients, and even our creative partners. We must be vigilant and I'm afraid, we need to start yesterday. So it's a good thing in some instances we did.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Free Mars Bars
Check this out, I'm a little envious of the ingenuity to be honest, talk about a seamless online to offline experience....and for one of our clients no less! What will WE think of next.
http://www.springwise.com/marketing_advertising/real_mars_bars_for_virtual_fri/
http://www.springwise.com/marketing_advertising/real_mars_bars_for_virtual_fri/
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