Now THIS is grassroots marketing!
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.
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“Let’s say you are the Marketing Director for…..Nettwerk.” Wish it were so!
That does it, Mack, I’m stealing all your chick rock CDs away from you before you sell out completely
Andrea I think Erin Kinghorn does a pretty good job. But this story is a perfect example of why I can’t stand Jewel’s marketing right now. In 1996, as the Jewelstock story shows, it was absolutely brilliant. Today she’s trying to sing to NASCAR fans. And inbetween she’s gone from having a very promising career, to rumors that this will be her last record. No one in her camp seems to see the connection.
JD I have varied musical tastes, that’s all
As a matter of fact I’m listening to Johnny Cash’s 1969 concert in the San Quentin prison as I type this 
is that your house…?
Not my house, that’s the Bearsville Theater in New York where JewelStock was held in 1996. A small building that would likely hold 200 people at the most. Perfect venue for her music, and the perfect contrast to her yesterday trying to sing in front of over 100,000 people that didn’t give a damn about her music.
I have a hard time understanding Jewel’s whole strategy with her marketing. From sweet acoustic guitar country girl to beer-swilling Nascar fans?
Not sure where the consistency lies.
For the record, Jewel is very hot.
Jewel’s strategy is to become a pop singer. She can’t do it, and the fact that no one in her camp has told her this is why her career is dying.
However, put her in a small club with 50-100 of her hardcore fans, and she morphs into a completely amazing artist singing completely amazing music. Because she’s not singing pop-oriented music, she’s singing music from her heart that’s aimed at her hardcore fans. Music that’s never been released, and likely never will be. She’s singing the music she was meant to sing, and she’s singing it to the people it is meant for.
Course she then leaves that club and goes to a NASCAR race.
Would Sarah McLachlan be a successful pop singer? I seriously doubt it, and Nettwerk is smart enough not to push her that way.
It’s like us and our blogs. I don’t want to be all things to all people. I do want to be 100% of the things to the select people that are important and of value to me.
Pretty simple, I think.
Exactly. Like Laura Ries said the other day about Apple, you cut your losses, and go with your winners.
Looking for information and found it at this great site…
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Jewel is still goind down that "sell-out" road. I guess she doesn’t have enough money yet. It’s a shame becuase she is a good artist when she sticks with what she does best…
Found what i was looking for
nice website.
ill bookmark it and keepmyself updated.. love the house
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1996 … I’m trying to recall if that was before or after the netcrash. Regardless, today it is impossible to refrain from using the web to promote. Even if you decide to use other avenues. If your event interests them then others will post about it. Good article and very demonstrative of grassroots marketing.
I was one of the lucky fans to see the show. I brought a buddy of mine who lived in Philly (I lived on Long Island) and picked up one “Every Day Angel” and old hippie and nice guy named Joseph from the train station then headed at light speed up to Woodstock.
Back in those days I knew the way there (but a site called Mapquest helped) as I was 28 and many of my buddies were musicians who lived or played in the area.
In fact I got into Jewel after my buddy played backup guitar for her on her 2nd appearance on Conan.
Anyway it was a pretty magical moment as she was ascending but there was this core base that helped promote her.
Honestly, though, I wonder if that core actually resulted in her career growth. It’s immeasurable and long ago so we’ll never know…
I’ve since bought 2 more of her albums but got sick of her music after a while.
She does have an amazing voice live, great guitarist and stunning in person-although this was before her weight loss and makeover…
Somewhere I still have her autograph on the back of a pin number for my ignition kill in my old car…
Oh well. I was so much older then I’m younger than that now…