I’m not sure if it is because I had a bumper sticker on my car in the 90s that read “I am funkier than you,” but 5 of my friends have sent me the video below. I would imagine it is unlikely that the fellow who created this mashup received permission from the copyright holders, but the “Mother of all Funk Chords” is a fantastic example of creating something entirely new and extraordinary from divergent original sources. From a marketing standpoint, this piece is great for the remixer, Kutiman, and because Kutiman lists the source material on his site, the original creators of the music could benefit as well.
Warner’s demand that thousands of videos featuring their music be removed from YouTube gives artists another reason to think twice about signing with a major label. Two years ago, all four major labels signed a licensing agreement with YouTube that provides them with a per-stream fee for each video viewed (whether it is a video created by the majors, or one which is user generated), as well as a share of YouTube’s advertising revenue.
The existing deal is nothing to sneeze at. While it is unclear how much revenue Warner has taken in from YouTube, Universal has brought in “tens of millions of dollars” from their relationship with YouTube, according to Rio Caraeff, executive vice president of Universal Music Group’s eLabs. The problem is that Warner Music is not seeing the forest for the trees. In their quest to max out all their possible revenue streams, Warner is overlooking the fact that their music business is built on the backs of artists who need this connection with their fans to grow their base and further their career. Inserting a barrier into this process, where fans cannot add the music of their favorite artists to their homemade videos, or send around a new video to their friends, is not a good way to draw in new fans. And again, unlike traditional marketing outlets like commercial radio, YouTube is an emerging revenue stream as well. “It’s growing tremendously,” says Caraeff. “It’s up almost 80 percent for us year-over-year in the U.S. in terms of our revenue from this category.”
As Amanda Palmer from the Dresden Dolls writes on her blog “it’s abSURD. they are looking for money in a totally backwards way. money that, i should point out, i would NEVER see as an artist. if they got their way and youtube decided to give them a larger revenue share of the videos, it’s very unlikely it would ever make it’s way into the artists’ bank accounts.
i loved my videos. now they are gone. why is life so hard? did i mention that being on a major label is starting to seem like…..not such a grand idea?”
I talk a lot in my course about the fact that touring “kickstarts” (I need a better phrase here, I think, one that does not make me thing of Mötley Crüe every time I write it) all the other marketing efforts: press, retail, merch, radio (some form), and Internet. It not only gives press a reason to write about you, a reason for radio to spin your record, and retail a reason to stock your music, but it’s the best way to forge that all important “emotional connection” with your fanbase.
My friend and colleague George Howard talks about the importance of having a foot in both the online and the physical marketing realm (he calls it the Straddle). I think uStream does a great job of providing a platform to accomplish this (in terms of bringing what you do offline, online) via their free webcasting tool at www.ustream.com. Similar to the most successful online ventures, uStream is extremely user friendly. The setup is simple: once you create an account, you can embed their video player on your site, use your webcam or plug in a firewire camera to film your live event, let folks know about the show through the scheduling tools on your uStream page, and you are off to the races. You can record and archive past live events as well. All for free.
uStream has some community based features that allows fans who are watching your Webcast to chat in real time with one another (hopefully positively) about your show. Superfans can embed the player in any social networking site, too. Take a look at the player in action www.rendtheheavens.com
Radiohead and I share a couple of things in common. We both love Bill Hicks (Paul Kolderie got me backstage in 2002 where I got to talk to Jonny Greenwood about Bill), but more importantly we are both interested in user-generated content. I really liked the “Nude” remix idea where different “stems” of the song (vocals, drums, guitar etc) could be downloaded, remixed, and then entered into a contest on http://radioheadremix.com. Although some folks have a problem with buying the stems from iTunes at $.99 each, I think it’s a great visibility vehicle for the band as well as a wonderful way to interact with their community. Radiohead even provides folks with a widget to add to their Facebook profile, MySpace page or website. Marketing ploy? Yes. Creative promotion that is effective at engaging folks? Yes.
Following up on this, aniBoom is now in the semi-final stage of their In Rainbows Animated Music Video Contest. The contest invites folks to create animated videos to In Rainbows tracks, with the winner of the competition (who will be chosen by Radiohead themselves) receiving a $10,000 cash prize and a shot at having their video air on the Cartoon Network’s [adult Swim]. Below are some of my favorite semi-finalists:
Viva user generated content!
