is promoting the second single off his . Note the ringtone and homepage cross-promotions in the video subtitles.
I really like this single:
big cake, big shrimp on a big plate
is doing a documentary series called LPTV as they record their next album and do all the other stuff they do.
A trailer for a music video? That seemed really pretentious and off the mark when I saw it until I found that it's a trailer for the video''s premier at NYTimes.com.
On the homepage?
This feels like big news to me for independent hip hop. In fact, Def Jux is one of the Hip Hop Signs of LIfe about which I'll be posting next week.
Congratulations to whoever put this together!
Posted by Clyde on March 15, 2007 in What was particularly cool to me, in addition to the MP3s, was the fact that the download includes cd cover art in a .PDF that can be printed out and used in a cd case.
I wouldn't do that but I loved the gesture and .
This free release resulted in coverage and reviews in such media outlets as , , , and in what seems to be a [as linked from at Stones Throw]. In addition, a search on Icerocket for currently brings up numerous posts about the release.
Assuming that all those MP3s floating around won't undermine sales of the CD, which may be different if it comes out, this free MP3s and graphics release served as a truly productive early preview and announcement.
Update and Correction:
It looks like this project was not intended as an album but was a :
This 9-track collab was a free download for the first week of 2007. Stay tuned for possible release.
On the speculative tip, perhaps it was intended for promotional purposes but got such a positive response that they're considering doing something more with it.
Thanks to DJ Miratek for helping clarify.
Posted by Clyde on January 15, 2007 in While putting together this week's new hip hop releases report I've run into numerous chopped screwed versions of albums that it looks like Amazon is carrying, some of which I would normally list, but that aren't identified as chopped screwed versions.
While not getting listed here won't destroy anyone's career, it also means that fans that shop on Amazon won't have a clue that there's a chopped screwed version available through that outlet.
Since chopped screwed versions of albums don't usually get much of a marketing push, you'd think folks would want to take advantage of simple free ways to increase their visibility that go beyond getting filed in the cd bin next to the unchopped version. It's so consistent that I think it may have something to do with how Amazon deals with the item registration process but it's been going on so long that it's ultimately a failure on the part of record labels.
Basically, it looks like a whole lot of labels aren't checking their Amazon listings.
That's also too bad because there's an increasingly broad range of older albums that are being chopped screwed and I don't see them getting much, if any, attention. On the other hand, labels may be treating chopped screwed versions as the equivalent of mixtapes, good only for some cheap publicity and quick returns with minimal outlay.
Posted by Clyde on November 5, 2006 in [Mr. Young has added some background information in the comments that clarify that the real action was going on in Second Life's Teen Grid.]
MTV has more on the creation of featuring InWorld's Jordan Bigel aka Dire Lobo.
Posted by Clyde on August 15, 2006 in Two areas I try to follow for marketing developments relevant to ProHipHop are film and gaming. Though I'm trying not to post too often on non hip hop related endeavors, like everyone else interested in online marketing, the saga of Snakes on a Plane has caught my attention.
FOSTER CITY, Calif.
, Aug. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- CafePress.com and New Line Cinema announce the launch of a partnership allowing fans the opportunity to create merchandise inspired by the film Snakes on a Plane.
Creating a unique program in the true 'citizen' spirit of Snakes on a Plane, New Line is partnering with fans to permit them to become official licensees of Snakes merchandise. An interactive promotion with CafePress.com will permit their network of over 2.
9 million members to unleash their creativity to transform Snakes artwork and ideas into unique gifts and share in the revenue stream. This completely unique approach to fan licensing has never previously been embraced by any motion picture studio.
What particularly caught my attention was the concept of partnering with fans to permit them to become official licensees of Snakes merchandise .
It's a rather startling development in licensing and takes a variety of emergent threads and ties them together quite nicely. From what I can tell, shopkeepers are still making their tiny cut while the promotion will benefit both CafePress.com and the makers of Snakes on a Plane.
One of the things that's especially important is that this approach allows content owners to create a legal context for fan created content while monetizing that activity in a reasonably non-restrictive manner.
By utilizing CafePress.com, they can also extend the process to folks that would never get around to making a bootleg t-shirt but might consider buying one if the opportunity arose as well as letting affiliates like me run ads that link to Snakes on a Plane products.
It's really one of the smarter moves I've seen of late.
However, checking the CafePress.com site, I was surprised to not initially find anything on the home page though a search for snakes on a plane took me to the Portal but with one of those long nutty database addresses that caused me to turn to Google for the url.
Rechecking the home page I finally saw the Portal ad in rotation with other ads so it was quite easy to miss.
Since there are already 1,320 designs in the Portal, I assume this has been set up long enough to include the domain in the press release, but apparently I've got a lot of funny ideas about such things since they simply included the CafePress.com homepage.
Let's just say that sending journalists to a home page where they may not necessarily notice a rotating ad sounds like an odd lapse for a campaign that has worked the Internet to filth.
Unfortunately, I don't have time for a roundup of all the folks writing about this campaign, but did find that the seems to reflect the involvement of Snakes on a Plane marketing entities. Whatever the deal is there, the entry goes into quite a bit of detail about the marketing campaign.
Chris Thilk at also takes an extensive look at the campaign and remarks that among his favorite decisions by New Line was their decision to work with CafePress.com.
I'm really struck by the fact that the movie itself doesn't sound nearly as interesting as the campaign and that the campaign itself suggests interesting artistic possibilities for marketing products that don't yet exist.
By the way, saying the campaign may be more interesting than the movie is not an insult, by any means. I mean, would you go to a movie called Snakes on a Plane starring Samuel L. Jackson if everybody kept telling you it was interesting?
I'd be looking for funny, creepy, scary, lightweight, entertaining, etc.
Posted by Clyde on August 14, 2006 in AdPulp excerpts the same parts I would have excerpted from an interview with indie rocker John Vanderslice that includes a , for example:
You know, it's weird, if someone posts something on Metafilter, I look on my website and all of a sudden, we're getting like 25,000 unique visitors in one day, you know. And we got a review on Pixel Revolt in Rolling Stone.
And the day that that review came out, there was no bump whatsoever. And that was a good review. And we got no bump in traffic on the website.
That's insane. . .
After that I was like, Fuck paying a publicist to work your record, lets just email all the bloggers and send them a record or some MP3's.
While I do think the Internet makes it possible for an artist to be much more easily involved in their own marketing, I think good publicists are including the Internet in their mix of activities. I also think that a review in Rolling Stone can be useful beyond traffic to one's website but it does raise the issue that print media needs to prove its ROI not only to advertisers but also to the artists themselves.
Of course, some artists are going to do much better reaching out online than in print, in which case, online is definitely the way to go, whether the artist, the publicist/marketing agency or, ideally, a combination handle the matter.
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