With all the changes happening in the market today, we often get into the mindset that we need to completely change the game in order to compete. Much of this is rebellion against the traditional way of doing things. Much of this is a survival method for artists who feel they won’t get noticed unless they do something completely groundbreaking. And much of this is from people who just aren’t sure what the best way to market their work is. But we lose sight of the fact that in reality, often times you only have to change one little thing in order to change the game.
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Before I begin, I should acknowledge that “Whither the Music Video” is not a complete sentence, yet has come to gain legitimacy through years of misuse in cool titles for articles about the sorry state of [insert dying/in-transition art form].
Branching off of Dan’s recent entry re: Coldplay’s videos, it seems to me that this has been the sad standard for some time now. The more artists that leave record labels to galvanize their own fan bases however they see fit, the more that the task of the music video falls into the hands of a friend or assistant who records some blandly candid backstage footage, which more often than not winds up buried in the band’s MySpace page. And even when the suits do throw a little Thanks-For-Not-Doing-Heroin-This-Era money at their bands, the videos just look like the same low-budjy turds, only polished. Shake the camera a lot to cover up the lack of a set, overexpose to cover up the lack of a set, pack the thing with tight close-up shots of the singer’s face to cover up the…well, you get it.
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Gary Vaynerchuk may have proudly declared that you are your own brand, but it is important to realize this is a double-edged sword. Use your personal image for your brand, and you can get a lot of attention and be recognized personally for your business accomplishments. But if you find yourself sacrificing quality for money, as many companies need to do at one time or another, your own image and reputation could be at stake.
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Posted by Daniel on August 18th, 2008 in Business | 1 Comment »
The current leader of the retail-advertising-via-plasma-television market (do we have a better name for this yet?) appears to be RippleTV, an El Segundo-based company that has over 1500 locations nationwide, with the largest concentration of displays located here in Los Angeles.
While they certainly have more of the local market than Danoo, a competing company I have previously written about, their choice of locations is just such that I haven’t run into them as often. Until they invaded my favorite coffee shop.
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A good way to watch your company die is to bite the hand that feeds you. In order to protect my integrity as a lowly bit player in this industry, I will change the names of the offending parties to which I refer.
The Bleinstein Company, no stranger to disappointing revenue, now plumbs its reputation as a champion of independent cinema and the voices behind them in press releases for their DVD distributions banner, Third Rail Releasing (not an offending party). That reputation, however, was earned back when the Bleinsteins ran Bliramax. Now, with their chips relatively down and no Oscar prospects on the foreseeable horizon, they’re quick to regard their straight-to-DVD acquisitions as mere cash grabs, and Third Rail’s work as “a good way of differentiating between what we really believe in, and what has been for ancillary value.”
I am quick to respond.
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As most of you may know, the long-awaited iPhone 3G was released today, with much fanfare, long lines, and a painful activation process. Once mine was fully operational, I headed straight for the App Store, which is where iPhone owners can [finally!] download and install programs, both free and commercial. The thing that surprised me the most when looking at the list of available applications was the amount of new media integration — and the amount of large companies that are finally getting aboard the new media train.
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Today, while at Hollywood & Highland, I stopped into the Green Earth Cafe to get a Caesar salad and noticed the plasma television mounted behind the counter. Powered by a company and service called Danoo, the television was performing a task that I’ve often predicted would be on the rise — showing activities and events within close proximity to the cafe, and outputting highly targeted advertising.
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A few days ago, it was announced that the Orange County Register will be outsourcing some of their editing to India. This, of course, is one of the dumbest things a newspaper has done in a while. (Outsource editing of the English language to a non-English speaking mass of people?) But beyond that, it is an example of how truly the newspaper industry just doesn’t understand new media. The Orange County Register, of all papers, should be best poised to make good in this new economy, but as we can see, this is not what is happening.
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Everyone loves to talk about the death and the demise of record companies, as if they’re all going to curl up and die today, returning the power back to the artist. Personally, I think this is a load of crap. While certainly the record industry is in decline and huge changes to be made, none of those changes will involve the death of all the major record labels. There are, however, some interesting possibilities for the future of the industry, and I will present one of my theories for you now.
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