One of the most important aspects of any marketing campaign is getting yourself in front of the right kinds of people. In the music world, that normally means people who listen to similar kinds of music, or certain groups of people in particular age ranges that have specific sets of interests or hobbies.
But more recently, it's started to mean people who want something for free.
Last week, a singer/rapper called Paz deployed two campaigns to promote his new mixtape, Young, Broke and Fameless. One used a service called FrostClick, which displayed Paz's image and a link to the mixtape on the welcome page of a P2P platform called FrostWire. A wide variety of artists have used FrostClick, which has been used to promote everything from movies to e-books to software over the past couple of years.
The other campaign involved bundling Paz's mixtape with uTorrent software, something that people like the Yes Men have done before already, and both campaigns, in tandem, seem to have been successful: Young Broke and Fameless has been downloaded over 200,000 times.
On the one hand, that kind of publicity is almost impossible to duplicate, but it's possible that the campaigns' success should be taken with several grains of salt.
To begin with, Paz may be sending his potential fans the wrong message. The range of opinions held by torrent and P2P users about content is fairly wide, and to many of them, Paz may be tacitly signaling that he believes all content ought to be free. How many of the fans he gains this way will be willing to purchase his next release?
Secondly, it's possible that Paz's following (over 19,000 strong on Facebook) may not be attractive to labels, most of whom tend to regard torrent users as enemies more than assets.
Finally (and perhaps most importantly), this windfall of downloads has resulted in very little excitement within the larger music community. To date, only one of Paz's songs has appeared on any of the blogs featured in Hype Machine's, Elbows,' or MOG's networks, and it was a remix by a relatively well-known DJ. And for all the talk about how artists have been able to raise their profiles without the traditional means of promotion (i.e. radio), almost nobody has managed to do this without blog support, all of which means that, successful campaigns aside, Paz may stay young, broke and fameless for some time to come.
But more recently, it's started to mean people who want something for free.
Last week, a singer/rapper called Paz deployed two campaigns to promote his new mixtape, Young, Broke and Fameless. One used a service called FrostClick, which displayed Paz's image and a link to the mixtape on the welcome page of a P2P platform called FrostWire. A wide variety of artists have used FrostClick, which has been used to promote everything from movies to e-books to software over the past couple of years.
The other campaign involved bundling Paz's mixtape with uTorrent software, something that people like the Yes Men have done before already, and both campaigns, in tandem, seem to have been successful: Young Broke and Fameless has been downloaded over 200,000 times.
On the one hand, that kind of publicity is almost impossible to duplicate, but it's possible that the campaigns' success should be taken with several grains of salt.
To begin with, Paz may be sending his potential fans the wrong message. The range of opinions held by torrent and P2P users about content is fairly wide, and to many of them, Paz may be tacitly signaling that he believes all content ought to be free. How many of the fans he gains this way will be willing to purchase his next release?
Secondly, it's possible that Paz's following (over 19,000 strong on Facebook) may not be attractive to labels, most of whom tend to regard torrent users as enemies more than assets.
Finally (and perhaps most importantly), this windfall of downloads has resulted in very little excitement within the larger music community. To date, only one of Paz's songs has appeared on any of the blogs featured in Hype Machine's, Elbows,' or MOG's networks, and it was a remix by a relatively well-known DJ. And for all the talk about how artists have been able to raise their profiles without the traditional means of promotion (i.e. radio), almost nobody has managed to do this without blog support, all of which means that, successful campaigns aside, Paz may stay young, broke and fameless for some time to come.
