Why Music Marketing Is Usually Bad

A few days ago I saw this article, "Why Authenticity Matters" (PR 2.0 , 8/24/09), and it really hit home. It wasn't written about music marketing, but it touched upon many of the reasons most music marketing is bad. The author, Jeremy Toeman, suggested some guidelines when promoting yourself or your company/products (which, in this case, would be music).

Commenting: ... no anonymous comments, anytime, anywhere, ever, on anything industry-related ...

Music Tie-In: We've all seen bands do this. They will get on discussion boards, pretend they are fans, and either pump up their own music or trash someone else's music. The tactic is so obvious that it backfires. The band it was meant to help ends up looking bad, juvenile, and inexperienced.

Ratings: The best policy possible would be to abstain from rating your own (or competitor’s) products. But even the President is allowed to vote for himself in an election, so ultimately I see no reason why you cannot give your own product a 5-star rating on a review site. That is, if you have used the product! There should be no “rallying the troops” to game a system. If you haven’t used your own company’s product, you have no business rating it. It should go without saying by this time that no “fake” ratings are ever acceptable.

Music Tie-In: Think of all the times times you've seen fan-based CD and live show reviews which are over-the-top, look like they were written by the band itself, or have been submitted by zealous fans who send in multiple reviews under fake names. Similarly, don't give fake bad reviews to someone else. When the reviews don't match the reality, people will find out soon enough and the reviewer's credibility is shot.

Popularity Contests/Votes: ... The problem is these systems are inherently gamed – in other words, nobody should ever assume they are honest. ... My general philosophy is that all popularity contests are bad things, and everyone should avoid them like the plague. If you must participate, well then one-person, one-vote, and just leave it at that.

Music Tie-In: I'm not a fan of battle-of-the-bands and online contests for the above reasons. I have seen some talented bands/artists win contests, but more often than not, the winners are simply those who are most aggressive about getting out the vote.

And even with sites that aren't offering contests, if there is any sort of ranking, the system will be gamed. Take MySpace, for example. In the beginning, people thought the numbers of plays and friends actually meant something. But when it became apparent that there was often no correlation between the amount of action on MySpace and the band's talent or success (and especially after bands started using computer programs to artificially inflated their numbers), the entire system became discredited.

Here are two other kinds of fakery that Toeman doesn't mention, but are common in music marketing.

The Fake Discovery. The public story: The artist was "discovered" on MySpace or YouTube and got a label deal as a result. The reality: The artist has a father in the music or entertainment industry, so the label deal was already in the works before the Internet campaign began.

The Unearned Feature. The public story: The staffers at a music website sorted through lots of music to find the best artists to feature on their home page. The reality: Someone (e.g., the artist, a manager, a record label) paid for the "featured" status. Sort of like payola, but on the Internet rather than on radio.

Toeman concludes his article with this:

Whether it’s blogging, tweeting, social networks, or other vehicles for communication, it’s safe to say that cover-ups are near-impossible to pull off. Every action you take that is disingenuous or unauthentic will be remembered. Fake reviews will be sniffed out. We recommend taking the high road, regardless of what you see others doing. It may take all your strength at times to not take the easy path, but trust me, it’s worth it in the end.

I'll add that it's simply bad marketing. Hype a band or artist without true fan support and there will be no momentum to sustain the marketing after the manufactured attention has come and gone.

Suzanne Lainson
@slainson on Twitter

The Artist and Her Fans

Another sidetrack from the "selling stuff" series, but I saw a quote last week from Amanda Palmer, which I wanted to address.

Let me start off by saying Amanda Palmer is important.

Not because she is reinventing the music business. (She isn't. What she does works for her, but won't work for many others.)

Not because she has made some money using Twitter. (There are more lucrative ways to make money.)

But because she makes insightful comments about her life as an artist in an age where technology allows her to have some semblance of intimacy between herself and thousands of fans. She's not actually having a real dialogue with thousands of fans, but she's giving enough of herself to a few, and allowing everyone to watch, that it approximates intimacy.

She's also less guarded than many. She lets fans come to her gatherings. She gets rides from them when she's in their towns. She crashes at their houses. Most people would have trouble doing that, and celebrities have run into enough crazy fans that many won't go out into the world without a protective entourage, but Palmer appears to be comfortable with it.

... there's a real implicit sense of trust and honor. I trust my fans so much it's almost absurd. I just know that they're good people. I meet them. I hang out with them. I know them. And when a creepy one shows up, it doesn't take long before the crowd calls them out and rejects them from the pit. It's self-policing. "Interview: Amanda 'Fucking' Palmer, Part 2," hypebot, 7/21/09

She has thought about her relationship with her fans quite a bit.

Why are we so connected at all times through text and twitter, with our artists, with our friends, with THE WHOLE WORLD? To what end? "Interview: Amanda 'Fucking' Palmer, Part 1," hypebot, 7/20/09

And her conclusion:

i started making the music in the first place not because i wanted music, but because i wanted human connection.
music was the bridge there.

(it took me a long time to admit this to myself, because i felt guilty and like a naughty/bad/inauthentic artist when i truly discovered this, in my mid-twenties, classic crisis time).

BUT this is, hands fucking down, also why people listen, why they search, why they want art.

connection = primary.
music/art = secondary.

"AFP Responds to Bob Lefsetz re: Imogen Heap/music as a means of connection," The Shadowbox, 8/15/09

This triggered a response from fans about whether they just need the art to connect to the artist, or whether they need a direct connection to the artist as well. (You can read some of their comments at the above link.)

Bob Lefsetz also wrote about connecting.

The new Joni Mitchell is not a musician, but a blogger, detailing his or her own truth in the hope that someone, somewhere, will read the words and the writer will not feel so alone. "The Lost,"Lefsetz Letter, 8/2/09

He's talking about the writer seeking fans to connect. But his thoughts also apply in reverse: the fan seeking the artist to connect.

It's a topic we can explore at length when discussing the future of the music business and, even further, how the entire world of art is changing as new communication tools develop. Look for more blog posts from me on the subject.

Suzanne Lainson
@slainson on Twitter

3 Ways In Which Music Start-ups Can Still Innovate

In PaidContent's damning but mostly accurate assessment of the music start-up space, editor Rafat Ali writes that iLike's unspectacular exit indicates the party is over, and investors should retreat to sectors offering greater opportunity and higher multiples. At this point we've all come to accept that music is/should be free, and for a variety of reasons, nobody really seems to be benefiting from it.

Is this reason enough to quit? Or should we think of 2009 -- ten years into the digital revolution -- as halftime, with two quarters left to turn the game around? Think how many Superbowls and NBA Championships would have gone the other way had the team down at the half just packed up their lockers and left. The global music industry is losing nearly $20B/year in revenue. That this represents failure or opportunity depends on whether you believe the commercialization of music in general -- which began in earnest 100 years ago -- was part of a natural evolution, or represents a Darwinian detour.

Let’s start by looking at whether music is truly "free". Industry panelists and venture capitalists have been touting this theory for a while: that music has become a commodity, like water. Free and ubiquitous.

We should be so lucky!

With water I can check into a hotel room in any city, go to any public restroom, turn the spigot on any gardenhose, and my expectation is that the H20 will be free-flowing. Not so with music. With the exception of the iTunes/iPod/iPhone ecosystem -- now 25% of U.S. music purchases—none of the currently available services or devices are compatible. Really, if we've innovated as far as we can, why can I STILL not load my Playlist.com to my Palm Pre or send it wirelessly to the cute girl at Starbucks? It seems that while the digital revolution has rendered music creation and consumption irrevocably democratized, the music itself is not at all ubiquitous.

While PaidContent points out numerous hurdles, at some point creators, rights owners, technologists, legislators and publishers are gonna have to sit at the same table and hammer something out. Until we solve this fundamental compatibility problem, the true monetization of all types of intellectual property is at stake.

One of the raps on the music start-up space is there’s way too many “me too” services getting funded, and the sameness drives down exit values. There is a lot of truth to this, and it doesn't just apply to digital music. In the VOD space, how is Vimeo better than Veoh better than Vuzu better than Vevo better than.... Focusing on feature enhancements is not a sustainable growth strategy. I'm sorry but there's a nerd in Sunnyvale trying to out-innovate you in his garage right now.

Instead, here are 3 areas in which digital music start-ups could be moving the ball down the field: (1) Perfect microtransaction standards, software and processes so copyright owners can be fairly compensated; (2) Perfect the analytics of music experience and “consumption” in order to improve and better quantify music’s value proposition to brand advertisers/sponsors; and (3) Perfect music recommendation software to take into account the myriad behavioral and contextual reasons why we prefer one track over another. Sorry, Pandora, but just because two songs are in B-flat and are played in a "lively" tempo doesn't mean I'm gonna love 'em both.

Whoever writes this clever piece of code will sell for a lot more than $19MM.

Fan Interaction the Imogen Heap Way

Another slight detour from the "selling stuff" series. But I wanted to highlight Imogen Heap, who I have mentioned before. Lately she has been getting a slew of publicity (undoubtedly tied to the fact that she has a new album coming out on August 25) for her online activities encouraging and sustaining fan involvement. Here's a very good overview.

Although she maintains creative control of her album, she sells through Sony in the UK and RCA in the US.

"I go through huge swathes of doubt about myself and the record," Heap says. "I don't have a boyfriend to say, 'People love what you do, carry on‚' so the Twitter gang have sort of become my surrogate boyfriend."

They also mean that her labels have none of the traditional anxiety about reconnecting her with her fan base, despite the long gap between records.

"It's been a while," says Aaron Borns, New York-based senior VP of marketing for RCA Music Group. "But she's been so diligent about communicating with her fans, it doesn't feel like she's been away." "Imogen Heap: On the Fast Track," Billboard, 6/20/09

But although Heap's story is being billed as another example of the new music business, as music commentator Bob Lefsetz points out, "... suddenly, you’re no longer a musician, but a personality. ... Just about everything Imogen has done here has nothing to do with music."

The "new music business model" stories have a lot to do with marketing, branding, and relationships. The stories we are getting now are pitched to tech blogs, creating a hook that may encourage those who haven't heard the artists to check them out. It's an interesting variation on what has long been a part of music marketing, the music PR machine.

"It will be interesting to see if people do go and buy the record in this age when people don’t buy records,” she says. “I think if anyone does have a chance, it is probably me. Because people feel attached to it, we’re related. It would be quite rude to download it for free after they’ve watched me putting all this work in.” "Imogen Heap: all hail the online queen," Telegraph, 7/31/09

Here are a couple of other stories which came out at the same time. Again, I assume the fact that we are getting a lot of Heap stories is related to the upcoming album release.

Imogen Heap Changing the Way Music Is Made, Musings for a Darkened Room, 7/21/09

Musicians watch and learn from @imogenheap, TechJuicer, 7/21/09

Suzanne Lainson
@slainson on Twitter

UPDATE, 8/14/09

I noticed that not online does Heap have her own Twitter account, @imogenheap, but there is also a separate one for PR, @heapwire, which reinforces the main point of this blog entry.

The Mariah Carey Ad Controversy

Detouring momentarily from my series on "selling stuff," I wanted to put down a few thoughts on the idea of including a mini-magazine, complete with ads, in CD packages and attached to digital albums.

The first deal, created for the Mariah Carey release Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel on Sept. 15, is a 34-page co-production with Elle magazine that includes lifestyle ads from Elizabeth Arden, Angel Champagne, Carmen Steffens, Le Metier de Beaute and the Bahamas Board of Tourism. Providing the experiment goes well, the label is eyeing bigger brand deals for booklets of CDs by Rihanna, Bon Jovi, Kanye West and other artists. "The Monetization of Mimi: Mariah CD to Have Ads," Brandweek, 8/1/09

The reaction has been very negative in most circles. Typical comments: Greedy labels. Crossing the line between art and music. Foisting ads on a public that doesn't want them and is already paying for the music.

Being the marketing person that I am, and a strong believer in sponsorship support of sports, music, art, and non-profits, I don't have a problem with the concept. But I see a lot of problems with how it has been presented in the media and, as a consequence, how it is being perceived among music fans and critics.

I'll point to this as the primary offending comment:

“The idea was really simple thinking: ‘We sell millions of records, so you should advertise with us,’” said Antonio “L.A.” Reid, chairman, Island Def Jam Music Group, a unit of Universal Music Group. “My artists have substantial circulation—when you sell 2 million, 5 million, 8 million, that’s a lot of eyeballs. Most magazines aren’t as successful as those records.”

There is nothing being said about benefits for fans. How does this promotional package bring value to them? If it is being done well, it should be offering something to them. Discounts? Limited edition offerings? Unique content?

This is as close to fan value as it gets:

The mini magazine contains Mariah-centric editorial (“VIP Access to Her Sexy Love Life,” “Amazing Closet,” “Recording Rituals”) and lifestyle advertising along with lyrics and other CD booklet elements. Elle contributed the editorial and designed the layout.

Granted this article was directed to advertisers and marketing professionals rather than fans, but even so, why is this idea being touted as a way to benefit labels rather as a way to improve the relationship between fans and artists? Why is it being sold as another form of print advertising rather than something else?

On the other hand, maybe we should give credit to Reid for being honest rather than trying to spin the story. In a world where product placement on TV and in movies is common, where there are weekly promotional tie-ins with fast food kids' meals, and where print magazines have long looked for added value packages to offer advertisers, this development is basically business-as-usual. He's touting the millions of eyeballs that these ads will reach, which has been the premise of mass media advertising. And perhaps the fan base for mass market artists is so used to non-stop ads that they aren't offended anyway.

Unfortunately, instead of being accepted by fans/critics as business-as-usual, the concept seems to highlight everything that is perceived to be wrong about major labels, celebrity culture, and mass marketing.

If this had been an independent artist or even one on a small label, the reaction might have been more favorable. Sponsorship and advertising have long gone hand-in-hand in action sports, so I feel the right pairing will be accepted in music as well.

And if this had been presented as a benefit to fans and as a way to support an artist and/or cause, I also believe the reaction would have been different.

Therefore, my advice to anyone exploring music-related sponsorships and advertising: Put the fans first. Don't bother to do it if they don't benefit. When you are touting the idea to the press, if you can't come up with a single fan-focused aspect to your promotion, this is not the right project for you to pursue.

Suzanne Lainson
@slainson on Twitter