Bands are a dime a dozen these days. Today’s technology makes it easier then ever to record a song, shoot and edit a music video, and publish it to the web. So what’s gonna make you / your band stand out from the rest… a CREATIVE idea!
Take for instance, Atomic Tom’s brilliant Guerilla Marketing video. These guys shot a music video on NYC train using their iPhones as both video cameras and ALL OF THEIR INSTRUMENTS! The concept behind this video is genius on soo many levels.
The video starts off saying that all the band’s instruments were recently stolen. If that’s true.. way to improvise. Creativity often comes from restraint. I had never seen instrument apps being put to practical use. Impromptu performances on a NYC train are nothing new. An impromptu performance using your iphone as a microphone, piano, guitar, bass, drum kit, and video camera, definitely is! Is this the end of physical instruments? Did the iPhone kill the instrument like video killed the radio star?? Regardless, this is an awesome example of how technology is changing every aspect of our lives. And not for nothing, Apple should be using this video as their new commercial and paying the band for it!
Atomic Tom and Universal Records could have spent a small fortune buying print ads in magazines, airtime on radio stations, or tv commercials. Instead they embraced the new face of marketing and went viral. Prior to the ” Take Me Out, ” release, the majority of their YouTube videos didn’t have many plays at all. This video currently stands at 1.3 million views!!! They gained 210,000 plays over the course of me writing this… you can’t pay for that type of publicity! For example, until this morning I had never of these guys and now I’m blogging about them and have sent the video link to at least 20 friends. Who I’m sure sent it to at least 10 of their friends, posted on their Facebook wall, tweeted about, so on and so on. You need to allow your fans, clients, whoever, to take your photos, songs, videos, etc… and repost them at will! Restricting your content to just your website or YouTube channel only hurts you. You should make it as easy as possible for your audience to redistribute your content for free and not only will they be back with credit cards in hand, so will their friends. Case in point: I saw Atomic Tom’s video on my friend’s Facebook wall this morning, googled the band, landed on their MySpace, listened to some more of their music, and finally clicked a link to buy the album from iTunes.
Whatever your industry, you need to set yourself apart from the crowd and cultivate an audience. And you don’t need to spend a fortune to do so. All you have to do, is put your thinking cap on and eat a huge bowl of creativity for breakfast!
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