I see some tumbleweeds out in the blogosphere tonight, but a few posts caught my eye…. Chris continues his look at how movie studios promote themselves, this time examining how they can better utilize their online marketing efforts. Another gem. UPDATE: Adrants has also picked up on Chris’ post. Kudos to Steve! Technorati now lets bloggers list their favorite blogs, and of course this has already led to a ranking of the most ‘popular favorite’ blogs. Get ready to hear some of the supposed A-Listers announce that ‘Oh this is all really so silly….but please add me to your favorites anyway!’ Gotta love the blogger’s ego…..of course you realize that if BMA cracks the Top 100 then I never said any of this. But favorites are nothing, bet none of you posers are blowin’ up like BMA is, cause we now have our own ‘action figure’! Businessweek scoops the world and announces that they aren’t sure that MySpace has a viable long-term business model. Tomorrow they will run an exclusive expose’ on how blogs are dying. BTW Walk The Line kicks ass.

It doesn’t happen often, but a couple of weeks ago I got what I thought was a great idea.

In reading about how some companies are starting to use blogs to promote their products, I thought, ‘why can’t a record label do this to promote their CDs’? Say pick an artist and send 100 copies of their CD to 100 bloggers, or better yet, give 100 bloggers (or 1,000, or 5,000) the chance to PICK any current CD they want from ANY current artist, and let them blog about it if they want, make it completely up to them!

Like I said, my getting a good idea doesn’t happen very often. So I got pretty excited about this one, and quickly emailed a marketing contact I had at a record label to ask them their opinion of using blogs to promote their artist’s CDs. Told them I thought it would be a great idea, and if they wanted to do something like this, let me know and I’d be happy to help get the word out through BMA.

It’s been over a week since I emailed them, and no word, so I am assuming this isn’t something they want to do. To be honest, I didn’t expect that any labels would want to do this simply because ‘no one’s done that before!’.

But can anyone give me a legitimate reason why such a campaign would NOT work? Just for example, let’s say that 1,000 CDs are given to the first 1,000 bloggers that request them, and they have their choice of any current CD from any current artist under the label’s management. The bloggers are under no obligation to blog about the CDs.

But obviously, many are going to do just that. And not only would they blog about the CD, they would likely blog about the promotion as well. Given consumers’ distrust of ‘money-grubbing labels’, finding one that was actually giving away music would be a goldmine of positive blog-love for any label smart enough to do this!

Now granted, one blogger seeing a positive review of a free CD isn’t going to sway too many readers to buy that CD. But when you see the same CD being given a good review on a different blog everyday, eventually you wonder if this might be something you should check into. Yes there would the cost of the CDs involved, but even for 1,000 CDs, I wouldn’t think the total cost would be over 1 or 2 thousand at the most, right?

So what am I missing here? Is the main reason why no labels want to do this is because they can’t get past the idea of giving away something? Or is it simply because ‘no one’s tried that before’? Perhaps I am simply giving the labels too much credit, maybe they don’t really get ‘what the big deal about blogs is anyway’.

If anyone in the record industry can address this from the label’s point of view, that would be incredible. Maybe there’s something we can’t see in the marketing mix from this side of the fence.

So what is it guys, what am I missing here? If you were in charge of marketing for a major label and this idea was pitched to you, would you do it?

My Son’s Web site is up….. www.noahlovett.com

Watch the Olympics? I did. Just a bit. Did you see how many ads GM placed for their new Chevrolet Suburban? My guess is it was a national buy, and not regional. So you are losing billions of dollars, and you come at us with a 7-passenger gas hog that starts at $45,000? Now wonder why the Toyotas and Hondas are kicking your ass. They are spending their time and money creating vehicles that people really want! Nice, low priced cars that look good and get 35+ per gallon. Fact: Gas prices are high Fact: American Families are getting smaller Fact: SUV Sales are down everwhere, except in the economy SUV niche (Escape, Equinox, etc.) Fact: The Suburban was never a vehicle for the masses I am sure Detroit had more facts than that. Why they would blow their marketing dollars on a vehicle that has no future is beyond me, and the American public. Ohh Detroit, don’t blame your unions for your trouble. Don’t blame the American public. Look in the mirror. Then ask yourself, If I had no ties to GM, would I buy one? Is it the best value for the money? Are they even attractive vehicles? Is spending 1 million on the Suburban smart? Answer that, and you will make it. Ignore that, and you may be filing for chapter 11 faster than you think…. Ohh, by the way. JK

Blog search is coming to cellphones, and it will first arrive here before the summer in Ericsson K610, K800 and K790 models. These phones will be the first cellphones to come pre-loaded with the necessary blog-search software. It will also allow you to set-up your own blog if you don’t already have one. “We are seeing exponential growth in blogging and consumers are turning more and more often to the Internet as a means of sharing information or images in personal blogs,” said Jan Wareby, corporate executive vice president, head of sales and marketing, Sony Ericsson. “By working with Google, we’re able to offer a quick and easy way for people to blog as they discover how convenient it is as a way to share words and pictures with friends, family and beyond.” Funny, I thought blogs were dying? Like the Toshiba barcode technology, this will make it easier for consumers to get product reviews/opinions on the fly. But I’m sure the biggest benefit is being able to search for new BMA posts while you’re redeeming that coupon at KFC, right?

More notes n quotes from that wacky playground we call the ‘blogosphere’. Label: Life has the scoop on how The Arctic Monkeys use TV as a marketing tool: They don’t. The internet-sensation turned record-breaking musicians have said they won’t be making any further TV appearances. Drummer Matt Helders says, “The TV interviews we did were abysmal. We just don’t want to do it. We don’t think we should have to do that stuff just because we’re in a band.”. So let’s see…..a group that built a huge following by word of mouth and by giving kick-ass live shows and passing out demo CDs of their songs, has said they won’t be appearing on TV. Of course this will only make their live shows that much more popular. Great move, but I have to wonder how long it will be before that rule flies out the window when they come to the states? Stick to your guns, boys! Adverblog raps about how one of eBay’s competitors, Belgium’s Hebbes.be, gamed their system. They listed several items, then the pic for the item was a sign that said ‘Sorry, already sold on Hebbes.be’. Pretty good, which is why eBay has already pulled the auctions. Ernie Schenck has the story of how the Beasties passed out 50 videocams to the crowd at one of their concerts, and told them to shoot whatever they wanted. They editted the film that was shot, and created a documentary from the footage. All consumers want is to be listened to. In this case the Beastie Boys went the extra step and directly involved their fans in the creation process. Genius.

Let’s say you are the Marketing Director for…..Nettwerk (just for example). The president of the company has put you in charge of promoting a pair of concerts for a new, but promising recording artist that Nettwerk signed last year. The artist so far has no hit singles, but their debut CD is receiving good reviews, and the president of Nettwerk wants to galvanize support for the artist at the grassroots level. To that end, your task is to find a way to promote the concerts via the internet only, to a very small, but very dedicated group of fans. In fact, the president has told you that he wants these 2 concerts to be the spark that launches the artists’ career. Better yet, he wants the buzz for these concerts to be so big that these fans will willingly travel across the country, and even come from Canada to see the artist perform. It’s the end of February, and the concerts will be in July. How would you use the internet to reach these fans, and build buzz for these concerts? Create a MySpace profile and blog about the concert there? Maybe send 500 CDs to 500 bloggers if they will blog about the concerts? You start brainstorming when you get an email from the president saying that the first concert will be FREE! Hell this will be a piece of cake! Then that afternoon the president stops by and tells you that he left out a few details of how he wants to promote the concerts. You can’t use MySpace. You can’t use blogs, you can’t create a website for the concerts, no scratch that, you can’t use any websites at all. You can only use consumer-generated media, and you ALSO have to convince the concert attendees to handle almost all of the arrangements for the concerts themselves. Impossible you say? Guess again, because it happened. And it didn’t happen in 2006, it happened in 1996. That’s right, it happened back in 1996, when an artist used the internet, thought by many at the time to be a passing fad, to promote themselves and convince their fans to arrange for a pair of concerts that many attendees referred to as a ‘life-changing experience’. Who was the artist? Well I’m not going to give that away till a link at the end of this post. That link will send you to the first-hand account of what happened from one of the concert-organizers. He tells the simply amazing story of how one artist used a relatively new medium, the internet, to reach their fans, and also the incredible story of the lengths these fans went to organize these concerts, to share two magical evenings with an artist they loved.(As an aside, these two concerts totalled a staggering 7+ hours, featuring *64* songs with FIVE encores!) This artist used ‘viral marketing’ to reach ‘customer evangelists’ before either term had been coined. If they could do this in 1996 when the internet was just taking baby steps, then artists in 2006 have no excuse. And yes Jewel, that includes you. Here is the simply amazing account of how these concerts were organized, and executed.

You know the deal, no big posts, just bits and babbles… Ernie Schenck blogs about how Wheaties may be left without their champion this Olympics. Why not Emily Hughes? Poor girl had almost no time to train for the games, and ended up giving the performance of her life. No she didn’t win a medal, but she did perform like a champion. While teammates Sasha Cohen and Kimmie Meissner expressed disappointment at finishing 2nd and 6th, Hughes stated that finishing 7th was ‘the best of the best’. She gets my vote. Chris has been on a roll this week, as he details how successful he feels the movie industry has been in incorporating new forms of media such as blogs into their promotional efforts. Good write-up and it looks like it will be a series. Adfreak made my day with this story of a few women that want to sue Clay Aiken’s record label for false-advertising. The reason? There are rumors that Clay be gay, and they feel misled. In their complaint to the FTC (seriously), the women state “This is tantamount to a manufacturer concealing information about a defective product”. Then a spokes….person…for the group added: “As consumers, we feel ripped off. It is obvious now that the private Clay is very different from the manufactured packaged public Clay that was marketed to us.”. I bet they are also AOL users. Ryan commented to the KFC TiVo post that he went the distance and watched the ad, got the code, entered it into the website, and was promptly told that he couldn’t have the ‘free’ sandwich, because he was told he was ‘too young to participate’. That’s nothing, KFC is too stupid to realize that this promotion sucks.

More stories/links I couldn’t get in their own post, so they are all swirled together here. Chris at Movie Marketing Madness points us to the blog for the movie Superman Returns. Chris thinks it’s a good start, but not perfect. I agree, and some of the links were almost impossible to see in red based on a red background. Still, could have been a lot worse. Laura Ries has a great post on Apple and the importance of putting your emphasis on your best products. Love this quote: “Focus. Make your best horse a big winner and the whole barn will share in the glory.” Scott at Media Orchard hacks Technorati, and shows us his warez. I was reading random blogs the other day, and found this gem: “Next week I will launch another great blog. It will need an audience, and links.” There’s always a catch.

The other day I was writing a post and I typed out ‘Andrea said’, and realized that I was assuming that everyone here knows who Andrea is. And Jordan, JD, etc. Most of you that read BMA likely do recognize these names, but in case you don’t, here’s the list of most of our frequent commenters, and their blogs. I wanted to list their blogs because they are all quite good, so stop by and check them out. Jordan - Tell Ten Friends JD - Musical Ramblings Andrea - New Millenium PR Ryan - Ashton Media Jayniek - Critical Fluff Tara - Tarametblog Lee - The Nimble Canvas Sorry if I left anyone out, I went back through this week and last.

KFC needs revenue so badly they are going subliminal with their latest ‘Tivo-proof’ commercial for their Buffalo Snackers sandwich. The new ad looks innocent enough, but includes a special promo code (Buffalo) that you can only view by watching the commercial frame by frame.(IOW if you skip it with Tivo you are SOL) The code allows you to go to KFC’s website, put it in (Buffalo), and your reward is a coupon for a free crapass 99 cent Buffalo Snackers sandwich. Course now that everyone knows the code (Buffalo), we can tell all our friends on other blogs and go back to ignoring KFC’s ads in peace.

Back in December, Meredith at Alan Taylor Communications was kind enough to give BMA the advance scoop on the new Staples ad that debuted right after the New Year. Now they are about to unveil another spot, and she’s again trusted your friendly neighborhood blog with the goods. And I have to admit, it sounds pretty funny, judge for yourself from the description she sent me:

The 30-second “The Wall” commercial created by McCann Erickson, opens on an Emperor in ancient China, standing on a grassy rolling hill, staring off into the distance with a small group of consorts behind him. Galloping towards the Emperor is a large army of fierce warriors. As they approach, a consort pulls out an ornate lacquer box. One of the Emperor’s men opens it and inside is an Easy Button. With the warriors dangerously close, the Emperor confidently steps forward with his arms crossed and his has one of his warriors confidently pushes the Easy Button. Suddenly, the ground rumbles dramatically. A cloud of dust appears and we see a wall quickly rise from the ground behind the Emperor. The commercial cuts to reveal it’s none other than the Great Wall of China that has sprung up out of the earth. Unfortunately for the Emperor, the Great Wall has sprung up behind him, separating him from his consorts. He wears a deadpan expression as he stands before the opposing army, completely alone and says “dang.”

Guess that’s the people’s way of saying the Emperor was the real problem, eh? Also note this seems to be a bit of a marketing extension, at first the Staples ‘Easy’ button was used to make your office life easier, now they are leaving the workplace and making your life easier. You can view the commercial starting on Sunday at Staples website, and it will also start showing up in both network and cable spots the same day.

In a move that may officially be the last nail in the online service’s coffin, AOL has announced today that they are RAISING prices. Starting next month, AOL will raise prices for dial-up service, which accounts for 75% of AOL’s subscribers, to $25.90 a month, matching the price for broadband service. But here’s the kicker, their reason for doing so: ” AOL executives have said broadband will help boost usage and, consequently, revenue from advertising.” So there you have it. They are raising prices for 75% of their users, and what do the users get in return? Why more ads! Sounds like what AOL wants to do, is send more ads to its customers, and have them pay an extra $2 a month for the privilege. It will shock you to know that AOL’s membership has been slipping since peaking in 2002 at 26.7 million users. They rationalize this to the press by saying that the dial-up price increase to equal that of broadband will mean that users will now have faster internet by switching to broadband. Be serious, are we really supposed to believe that 75% of AOL’s customers that are stuck with dial-up could have switched to broadband, but didn’t want to pay the extra two dollars? AOL says they are in partnerships with telecommunications companies to offer broadband to ‘most’ of their current dial-up customers. Any AOL dial-up customers want to verify that they have recently been offered broadband service? Memo to companies that are wanting to raise prices: Tell me why the move benefits ME, not you.

Geert at Brandopia has the all too typical story of the fragile psyche of the blogger. Fanta wanted to release a new flavor of cola to the Belgium market. Ogilvy, who was handling the account, decided to consult select Belgian bloggers on how they could involve the blogosphere. In working with bloggers, they decided to release the new flavor of drink, Thai Fanta, to select bloggers a week before the press received the product. This was the first type of promotional campaign in Belgium to incorporate bloggers into the equation. Here’s where the problem comes into play: Ogilvy didn’t send the new flavor to ALL the bloggers they originally consulted about the promotion, only some of them. And of course, that resulted in bitching from the ones that Ogilvy talked to them about how to set up the promotion, but then didn’t send a coke to. Should Ogilvy have sent ALL the bloggers a free coke that they originally talked to and that helped them create the promotion? Sure, but let’s remember that this IS their first time attempting such a program in Belgium, and unless I am misreading the story, they never promised to send Fantas to everyone. Let’s all lighten up, ok? To the Belgian bloggers that are upset, you have a right to be upset. But let’s not go overboard, ok?

I have several things I want to blog about, but I can’t squeeze a full post out of any of them, so I’m going to mish-mash everything together here for your reading pleasure. Seth Godin has found a soon-to-be college graduate that has created a website in an effort to showcase his work and help him get a job. He posts: “Rather than making average resumes to send to lots of companies to get past computer screeners so he could get an average job, he built a website. I Hired Jeff Clark! Jeff Clark is looking for a marketing job…. Sign of things to come.” Truly revolutionary ider, I bet no one else has thought of that, right Danny? Check out Ryan’s blog, he makes much more sense than I do.(BTW Ryan I tried to leave a comment on one of your posts, it might not have gone through) Andrea at New Millenium PR makes a great point about how in a perfect world charities wouldn’t have to market themselves. Sadly she’s right. Then again, there are many that inspire others to give, through their actions. Speaking of Andrea, thanks to her and Scott at Media Orchard for mentioning my Will Blog for Cash post. A tall frosty 20 oz Dr Pepper in a brand new plastic container awaits both of you the next time we bump into each other on the A-Lister speaking circuit! And thanks to Serge for the kind words! BTW what’s the deal with all the great PR blogs popping up all of the sudden? And finally, I’ll close with another marketing disaster from my dear beloved Jewel. Today on the frontpage of her website, she proudly announces that she’ll be performing this weekend at…..wait for it…..a NASCAR race. That’s right, her ‘marketing’ team thinks the target audience for her music is NASCAR fans. Here’s a what-if for everyone: What-if Jewel took the money that she is going to spend to haul her and her band and her musical equipment from her ranch in Texas to California for the race, and INSTEAD took 1000 copies of her upcoming CD, and gave it to 1000 bloggers, with the condition that they blog about the CD after they listen to it? Which promotional event would likely result in more CD sales? More positive exposure for Jewel and her music? Nah, I think the NASCAR race is definitely the way to go.

For those that haven’t been keeping up with the latest Martha-Donald bitchfest, here’s a primer: 1 - Martha says that her Apprentice was never supposed to be on the air opposite Donny’s, and that her stint was supposed to involve her FIRING Donald. “Having two `Apprentices’ was as unfair to him as it was unfair to me,” she told Newsweek. “But Donald really wanted to stay on.” 2 - Don fires back yesterday via a letter to Martha with: “Your performance was terrible in that the show lacked mood, temperament and just about everything a show needs for success,” he wrote. “I knew it would fail as soon as I first saw it _ and your low ratings bore me out.” 3 - Martha replied with “The letter is so mean-spirited and reckless that I almost can’t believe my longtime friend Donald Trump wrote it.”. 4 - And finally….Don went on-air with his buddy Donny Deutsch on The Big Idea late last night, and said: “Of course the letter was mean-spirited, but I think what she did was mean-spirited.” Of course Don is overreacting in order to create a public firestorm hoping that it will translate into higher ratings for his Apprentice, which sees Season Five debut next Monday. The real question is, does anyone care anymore? Note to self: You’re spending too much time reading Gawker

Our pal Chris over at Adjab mentions the story of a new partnership between XM and Napster that could revolutionize satellite radio and online music services. In 2 weeks XM will make available a pair of portable XM-enabled MP3 players. The players, one from Pioneer, and one from Samsung, will both feature a ‘bookmark’ button, when you hear a song you like playing on the radio, you bookmark it, then when you dock your player, the songs you marked are automatically downloaded from Napster! Damned skippy if you ask me. AdAge has the details , including this interesting quote from Scott Karnedy Sr VP of Ad Sales for XM:

“Our next generation of products coming out in the next two weeks will be an XM-enabled MP3 player with, in the simplest terms, that ‘buy’ button. The next generation [after that] will be that if you want to hit that button for more information about that product you just heard described.”

Now my question is: Will this be an exclusive partnership to offer ‘bookmarking’ that XM has with Napster? If so, that means the scramble is on to see who locks up Sirius. Remember Amazon’s new media player/service they are about to unveil? This would be a great way to jumpstart that effort. And it would be a great way to leave iTunes out in the cold. At this point, it’s going to take such a shift in product distribution to pose a threat to Apple’s dominance of the music download space.

Another first for content distribution via iPod, as the pilot for NBC’s new series Conviction will be available from iTunes prior to its airing on NBC. An added bonus is that the download will be free. The series will premiere on NBC on March 3rd, but you can download the pilot any time between now and the 3rd for free. Beginning on March 4th, all episodes of the series will be available the day after being broadcast on NBC, for $1.99. Remembering how pinheadish network execs have been recently, it wouldn’t surprise me if NBC decided to cancel Conviction before it ever airs, if they don’t reach a certain number of downloads of the pilot via iTunes.

Guys, we’ve all been there. You’re racing along the interstate, windows down, the engine’s purring like a kitten, and just when you’re about to realize that you are perfectly content with life, it happens. “Sweetie, is there any reason why we are doing 80 MPH with all the windows down?” You are abruptly shaken from driving bliss and jolted back to the real world by a person in your passenger seat that seems to have no face, just a scattered head of hair flying in 573 different directions at once. You have almost convinced yourself that you are dreaming, and you attempt to turn back and return to driving nirvana wh……. “Honey! Seriously, why do you have the windows AND the sunroof open? Can’t you at least close one, I mean….look at my hair!” NOW you remember, your girlfriend, that’s the name of your antagonist! Visibly angered, you reply “Sweetie we’ll be there soon, and besides (looking at girlfriend’s hair), that’s why I carry a brush!” And apparently, my big mouth is why I have an ex-girlfriend. So I think most guys can sympathize with the latest series of commercials from Volkswagen featuring ‘My Fast’, the new character created by Crispin Porter + Bogusky(Burger King). ‘My Fast’ is the character that controls the driver, and makes sure he always remembers that going fast is all that matters in life. Given that CP+B is behind the ads, you know there has to be a viral element. All new GTIs that are purchased will come with a ‘My Fast’ figurine just like the ones in the commercials. These have also been given to dealerships, and many are already showing up on eBay, and commanding big money. You can check out all 4 of the current commercials in the series here at LeftLane.com. Women might not like them, but they aren’t aimed at women, they are aimed at the boyfriends that they are about to dump for spending more time with My Fast, than they do with them.

At least that’s what they claim. From a press release from Dove:

Beginning today women can follow Felicity Huffman into a dream state as she has mom-to-mom chats with America’s beloved TV moms — Carol Brady, Lily Munster and June Cleaver. Dove, the global beauty brand, is premiering three groundbreaking Webisodes to launch its new Calming Night product collection. Directed by Penny Marshall, each Webisode shows Huffman as she is literally transposed into the Brady, Munster and Cleaver households. The Webisodes are available at http://www.dovenight.com/ through Apr. 9, 2006.

Sounds like it could be pretty cool, but there’s only one problem: You can’t view them. At least I couldn’t when I just tried, by going to their website. When I clicked the link, it asked for a username and password, which of course I don’t have. The press release was just published minutes before I left this post, so maybe they’ll have it corrected by the time you read it. The release also tells us that “Women can visit http://www.dovenight.com to receive free Dove Calming Night product samples.” As for the men, looks like our cranky asses are going to bed without shit. UPDATE: Our eagle-eyed readers, who are never cranky and always get a full-night’s sleep without the aid of a TV character icon, have spotted that the site is now up and running fine.