Ideas For Guerilla Marketing Promotion Of A Hypothetical Band?

[Mudchild]

Hey all

Just wanted to throw this in the arena...

I'm doing a music business assignment for Uni, and would like to pick some brains. We have to imagine we are a small record label promoting a hypothetical band in relation to a cd/download release, and we have to come up with 'guerilla marketing' ideas on how we would do something radical/inventive/memorable/newsworthy - ANYTHING that would get the band noticed, increase its following, get publicity, increase visibility, get people interested etc etc. The more creative the idea the better.

I've got some little puny ideas but I'm wondering if anyone could share any ideas, perhaps from your own experiences in bands? I've been racking my brains, but nothing particularly imaginitive is coming up!

I'd be grateful for any constructive thoughts.

thanks

[Nightwolf]

Take ideas from the NIN promo for "year Zero", make websites with clues to more websites, prizes, free downloads, meet ups ETC...

The more interactive you make the promo, the better.

not sure if this will work:

summary of year zero clues

Keep us in the loop, we'll help if we can

[Steve]

From an idea that John mentioned. Call the band 'Free Beer' Then, when they play, You'll have a sign announcing 'Free Beer tonight!'

Get the Band to play in your local Precinct! and video the result! People are always attracted to celebrities being filmed!

[Lazz]

I'm doing a music business assignment for Uni, and would like to pick some brains........

I'd be grateful for any constructive thoughts.

Hey Mud.

Looks like you may have some starting ideas here - and good luck with the assignment.

But I personally tend to regard this sort of request as cheating.

Granted, I am a miserable grumpy git with old-fashioned perspectives on the value of educational process, but I really do believe that a university student should be learning to take complete responsibility for their own assignments. Pointless you being on the course if you negate its currency so readily. If you had some ideas or concept designs of your own and laid them out here in search of input and critique, that would be one thing, and perfectly acceptable as such, but - especially this being your first post and all - trying to get others to do the work for you just seems a little tacky to me. You are expected (by all your teachers as well as me) to be use your own imagination. Not to borrow ours.

Sorry.

[Steve]

*Grumpy old git!*

[Lazz]

Guilty.

(But I did say sorry to dear Mud, didn't I)

Edited March 16, 2007 by Lazz

[Mudchild]

Hey Mud.

Looks like you may have some starting ideas here - and good luck with the assignment.

But I personally tend to regard this sort of request as cheating.

Granted, I am a miserable grumpy git with old-fashioned perspectives on the value of educational process, but I really do believe that a university student should be learning to take complete responsibility for their own assignments. Pointless you being on the course if you negate its currency so readily. If you had some ideas or concept designs of your own and laid them out here in search of input and critique, that would be one thing, and perfectly acceptable as such, but - especially this being your first post and all - trying to get others to do the work for you just seems a little tacky to me. You are expected (by all your teachers as well as me) to be use your own imagination. Not to borrow ours.

Sorry.

Lazz, I take your point, but you are making some assumptions about me. I've worked my butt off on this course already and it's paying off. The course is an MSC in Music Engineering and Production, so it's largely to do with use of studio technology, which is where my main interest lies. But one module is Music Business, which is NOT my forte, nor something I want to focus on after this course. Therefore, due to something of a lack of good ideas in regard to this particular assignment, I could see no earthly good reason that I shouldn't consult the wisdom of the world, via the web, as a part of a much wider research process. This misapprehension that I am asking people here to 'do my homework for me' is simply incorrect. All I'm asking for is a few novel ideas/useful anecdotes. I will still be working hard and at length to develop a coherent assignment and design a marketing plan.

I imagine my teacher would applaud my resourcefulness in seeking good ideas from any source I could find. Perhaps I will ask him what he thinks.

Similarly, if I was employed as some kind of marketing person in a record label (unlikely), I can't imagine my employer would be encouraging me to NOT use other peoples' ideas - I think they would expect me to use whatever I could find/think of/brainstorm, as long as I developed it into a realistic working plan.

If education is preparation for the 'real world', then the reality is that I would NOT be working in isolation in the 'real world', and nor should I in this assignment.

Throughout this course, the tutors have encouraged us to teach each other, pool resources and ideas, be a team, share our strengths - a pretty good modus operandi in all areas of life, don't you think?

Furthermore, by asking this question here, I have actually learnt something! Isn't that the whole point of my course, this forum, and the question I asked at the top of this thread?

[Steve]

I agree with mud. Use whatever comes to hand! If you wanna know how an engine works? Ask a mechanic! The ideas put forward here might inspire other ideas! I don't see anything wrong with this approach.

My prawn coctail sandwich has just exploded down my shirt!

[Nightwolf]

Granted, I am a miserable grumpy git with old-fashioned perspectives on the value of educational process

The hell you say

and well said Mud

[john]

Hey

Sitting on the fence I understand both points of view. I've seen some people use ideas exactly as supplied. You can tell by the questions they ask and the comments they make. That said, a friend of my was a music tech lecturer in Dublin. One of his students handed in a an exercise, and there in the credits was Songstuff!

The thing is, it's really down to the individual what they do with information and up to them to credit their sources appropriately. After all, looking up a book and getting idea is a common method of research. The problem is not someone using a passage etc. it is not crediting the source. That said if their thesis was a complete reproduction that demonstrated a complete lack of original ideas, I'm sure they would fail!

When I believe that someone will use info verbatim it is disappointing.

Good luck with the assignment. I'll have a think and post back.

Cheers

John

[Mudchild]

Hey

Sitting on the fence I understand both points of view. I've seen some people use ideas exactly as supplied. You can tell by the questions they ask and the comments they make. That said, a friend of my was a music tech lecturer in Dublin. One of his students handed in a an exercise, and there in the credits was Songstuff!

The thing is, it's really down to the individual what they do with information and up to them to credit their sources appropriately. After all, looking up a book and getting idea is a common method of research. The problem is not someone using a passage etc. it is not crediting the source. That said if their thesis was a complete reproduction that demonstrated a complete lack of original ideas, I'm sure they would fail!

When I believe that someone will use info verbatim it is disappointing.

Good luck with the assignment. I'll have a think and post back.

Cheers

John

Thanks for the balanced response. Rest assured I'm only looking for a few ideas which I will then develop myself - I've still got a lot of work ahead of me!

[Lazz]

Lazz, I take your point, but you are making some assumptions about me.

Thank you.

And yes, you are right - I certainly was.

But I am convinced anew by the coherence and articulacy of your response.

(As well as the gentle rebukes of my fellow old gits here.)

I fear we can always depend upon John for balance.

And Steve for choosing unexploded prawn cocktail sandwiches over the pre-exploded alternative.

Thanks for your understanding, Mud.

I shall now shut up and go away.

Whereabouts are you studying this course?

[ATom2]

Hello there Mud.

I played in local / sub-regional bands pretty much all of my adult life. I started in '78 and finally stopped in '03. I can tell you what worked well for us, and what was a waste of time.

Waste of time.

• Live video recording.
  
• Free stuff...to an extent.
  
• Studio CD's
  
• Bars
  

What works.

• Live CD's
  
• Business cards / Smallish posters. Forget the large gaudy ones. No one wants them and they cost a fortune.
  
• Free stuff, but only t-shirts during summer festivals.
  
• Get into as many festivals as possible. For some reason, these are extra special times and people tend to remember who you are and the added benefit is, the better bands remember you, invite you to other events, and the snowball starts.
  
• I can not emphasize summer festivals enough.
  
• Did I mention summer festivals?
  

This is just a quick answer for a not so easy question.

Tom

[ATom2]

Group: Moderators

Posts: 1,666

Joined: 10-May 03

From: Wisconsin - The land of......um....cows?

Member No.: 86

Main Musical Instrument:Keyboards

Uh, you might want to ignore everything I said!

What the...

ow..ow..ow...ow..

[Steve]

Group: Moderators

Posts: 1,666

Tom's one of the beasts!

[Mudchild]

Thank you.

And yes, you are right - I certainly was.

But I am convinced anew by the coherence and articulacy of your response.

(As well as the gentle rebukes of my fellow old gits here.)

I fear we can always depend upon John for balance.

And Steve for choosing unexploded prawn cocktail sandwiches over the pre-exploded alternative.

Thanks for your understanding, Mud.

I shall now shut up and go away.

Whereabouts are you studying this course?

Thanks for the message Lazz

I am starting to wonder if I can somehow work some marketing ideas into the medium of an exploding prawn cocktail sandwich...

In answer to your question, I am studying at Universtiy of Glamorgan in Wales, UK. There are pros and cons to the course, but it's certainly great to have 24/7 access to analogue & digital recording facilities for a whole year... worth the price of admission alone!

[john]

Ok, real world promotion:

Build support locally:->

Gigs in local shopping centers

Press releases to your local free press (local article are scanned by larger papers looking for stories especially during the summer "silly" season)

Make sure your band gigs are listed in local music listings, including any radio listings that cover your genre or area

Enter battle of the bands competitions

play free music festivals

try and get a residency

sell your CDs and merchandise to fans at gigs. that means someone to man the stall at every gig!

To get broader press coverage you need to have a story that is newsworthy. If you already have a big reputation etc just blowing your nose seems newsworthy these days, but for unknown artists you really need to do something which is in itself newsworthy. This is often achieving acclaim by sales, but just as often it is simply a publicity stunt with some added spin. You need to plan what to do. Make the ordinary extraordinary. So for example busking make a band video with the band effectively setting up on a street like buskers (you should be able to do this without permission, but it would be worth checking with your local authorities) draw in a crowd by telling them you are making a video. Make sure you have several cameras, and maybe a few people filming it on mobile phones (make sure you act like you don't know the mobile phone users! They are your audience plants). Location? A street outside or very near a TV station, or a radio station, newspaper office etc. Contact their music press office and local news desk (plus any others you can think on. Invite them along. Hand out fliers (perhaps a free gig invite) to the audience. Gather names for a newsletter. Give away a few T-shirts to the correct demographic in the audience, under the understanding that they have to be wearing them for the vid. Prepare a press release, and make sure you copy the newspaper/TV/radio station in question. You get the idea. Publicity stunts.

You can tie something like that up with the internet very easily by releasing some of the mobile phone footage on youtube etc.

Lastly I would suggest that you tie up and coordinate any online-offline campaigns. Real world promo can bring a lot of people to a band website, but the website should time offerings/news and of course feature to coincide with real world campaigns. The website provides some stickion! Each RW campaign provides a spike, the web allows you to preserve some of the visitors (provide music, vid clips, a newsletter and a forum). This allows RW campaigns to build on the success of the last more easily.

You have to keep in the public eye, preferably with credible news, otherwise you are seen as a media whore (unless of course that is what is desired )

Broader than that there are lots of interesting guerilla campaigns where being abstract is used to tweak peoples interest. Or something not quite legal (projections onto the buildings of the UK House of Commons springs to mind). The unexpected and perhaps contriversial (and of course leaked to the press beforehand) is commonly employed.

Hope this gives some ideas.

Cheers

John

[Mudchild]

It certainly does! Many thanks John.

[john]

One quick thing to bear in mind... all the press works to deadlines. When planning anything that involves the press (newspapers,tv,radio,internet) it pays to remember that the better the quality of the material you supply them, the more likely they are to use your story. It makes it easier to meet deadlines if they don't need to do much to get your article ready for publishing. The same is true for location. If the journo in question has to jump through hoops to cover your story, they won't. Well maybe if there was already a major buzz about you and they thought they had exclusivity, but even then...

So, make it simple for the journos! Think about what they need/want and give it to them and more.