I made a post a while back expressing my frustration with the hoards of people in Hollywood who attempt to peddle their rap albums to innocent passersby, often aggressively, and generally unsuccessfully. Not only is it just not a great way to sell your album, but it’s a horribly saturated market. I have never once been to that part of Hollywood without seeing tons of people doing so.

Anyways, the other day I was back in that area, once again being bombarded by the same.

Except for one guy.

This was a very nice guy, an immigrant who would very kindly tell his story to anyone who would listen. He was selling not a rap album, but a book of his poetry. They were actually quite good, and he was selling them for a mere $2. Furthermore, he would let anyone interested read several pages before deciding whether or not they wanted it. It was totally refreshing.

I bought the book. So did a lot of other people around me. I’m not even into poetry, but his story was so captivating and his approach so good-natured that I felt compelled to support him and his work. Is he just a damn good salesman? Maybe. Is his work any better than anyone else’s? Maybe not. But that’s the point. We’re talking about marketing.

And that’s when I got to thinking — by changing just a few simple things, this man was able to transform a market that I hate and generally avoid, into a successful sale, for not only me, but for the others I saw around me who did the same. Instead of having to create your own market somewhere, it is still quite possible to form your own niche within an existing market, so long as you have something new to offer.

This is also interesting and related to new media because the methods he used were the same methods often being used by web startups and indie record labels. Try before you buy. Sell something with a story rather than aggression. Oh, and lower prices don’t hurt either.

In the age of donationware, “pay what you want” capitalism, and in a world where you can profit while helping developing nations at the same time, it is increasingly making more and more sense to not just carve out a whole new market, but just change your approach. Focus on the customer rather than your wallet, because in the end, your wallet will end up happier too anyway.

One little change. It costs a lot of money to change target markets, change distribution avenues, or change how you build your products. But it won’t cost much at all to start listening to your customers instead of yelling at them; to give your product a story and a face rather than just a price tag. And more and more, while much of it is subconscious, the masses are choosing to go where they get the best quality of service rather than just who provides the product they want.

Whether it’s one main selling poetry on Hollywood Boulevard or a production company trying to create content for the 21st century, the same principles apply. Make use of them. You’ll be better off.

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.

What’s it worth anyway, when these days the largest window you’ll ever see the video play on is about the size of a burrito?

But it’s not just the money disappearing or the format changing. The faith has been lost, if only temporarily, in the power of a music video to brand a new artist or transform an established one’s perception. Maybe people collectively think of music as a barrage of emotion-information, instantly available and meant to be processed at speeds approaching ADHD, but that’s a little cynical. My guess is that, now, always and forever, people only get out of music what they put into it: They can tire of a hit single after digesting the catchy hook enough times and move on quick, but should they choose to really apply what a group’s saying to their life experiences, they connect with it more and start looking up show dates or blow all $25 of their remaining retirement savings on the hoodie.

See, it used to be enough to buy the record on the release date and throw a listening party with your like-minded friends. But I think the era of the more passive listener now has to share room with the new breed of consumer, who wants to vote for the next American Idol, who wants to download the song on Guitar Hero and interact with the chords, who wants to chop and screw their own versions of the song/video and put it online for their friends/one guy in Michigan who hates it/family to see.

As expected, the next wave of artists, bred to appeal to the next wave of young fans, are establishing that kind of interactive presence. Soulja Boy is a self-made man and Paramore lent their name to promotional segments for the Rock Band launch – as seen, coincidentally, on TRL, a once-humongous music video show soon to be cancelled. (Unfortunately, Paramore, your rock advice to video-game band Carrie Me Home was in vain! Muahaha.) Bang Camaro, in a daring bastardization of the last bastion of musical integrity, invites members of the audience to come onstage and sing all the lyrics to their songs, the clearest synthesis of Artist and Consumer there is. Of course, that kind of sharing has been going on since Green Day was first putting their fans on bass in packed stadiums, but never before has the presence of the audience been invited to overtake the identity of the band with oppressive gang vocals.

Remember when bands used to get pissed at your for stealing the spotlight by stage-diving? Not anymore. They really need you to like them these days.

Twenty-somethings see hardly any of the bands they grew up with getting promoted (except maybe Weezer, which continues to produce the sound of an empty pistol clicking against their collective temple, album after album). The reason: We had our chance to absolve a long time ago when the labels successfully ass-punished Napster. Instead we retreated into the untold glories of Morpheus, Bearshare, Limewire, and other P2Ps, because we seriously, seriously thought music should be free all of a sudden. So with radio all but dead and the industry moving on to new, youth-skewing forms of promotion, we’re left to our own devices and the blogs of many a well-meaning hipster to figure out what the hell we want to listen to next – oh, and this new bone we’re getting thrown in the form of iTunes’ Genius App and Pandora. Not sure how those will work or evolve yet.

Point is, it’s all about the next demo now, and the next demo doesn’t care about music videos. They only knew them as Disney Channel commercials, or as locations for singers’ boyfriends to hang out and wind up in the gossip pages of OK! Their relevance has diminished because the community that once touted videos as art (that’s us if you’re not keeping track) dove into torrents and ditched the support of artists to save cash on their albums – and visionaries like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry gotta eat too, so any ambitious, creative voices simply traded up for film or went home.

Those and similar video directors’ collected works stand, in my opinion, as the last great gasp of music videos, an important series of artifacts that occupy the screen at dorm room parties as a reminder of how we used to process the identities of bands we liked and how, even in the act of commerce, they could excel at art. It’ll take a lot more than the next set of fresh video ideas to bring it back; we’re going to need to come to the conclusion as a generation that we ourselves are not nearly as clever or talented at interpreting music for ourselves as we currently think we are, and that we need both the help of the directing wunderkinds to do it and the labels to put it in front of our faces enough times.

So essentially, we’d have to get over ourselves and spend money doing it. Yeeeah. That’ll happen.

Glenn Wolsey is a young blogger from New Zealand who has gained quite a following with his own blog and web show, as well as Desktop Vibes and various projects he works on. I have personally worked with him. But lately, his reputation on the internet is slowly being chipped away at, due to the very dilemma many of us have — mixing your personal life with business.

Already having public relations issues thanks to a failed practical joke and the absence of good content on his site (a problem I myself battle, I will admit), now would be the correct time for him to take a look at his image — his brand — and take the measures necessary to restore it.

How has he done this? Well, after spending a couple months writing relatively off-topic blog entries to keep his content stream flowing, he has used his personal blog to plug a celebrity website he now works for.

It’s by far the longest entry he’s written in a while. The worst part about it is that it is misleading. Rather than explaining that he works for them, he makes the post sound as if he just “stumbled upon” this celebrity website and loves it. Only after his readers [rightfully] get upset about this does he admit it and address the fact that he is now employed by them. (He does quite a lot there, it seems.)

There’s a lesson here, folks, and that’s what I’m attempting to get at. We’ve all been in situations where we need money or a career advancement, and it requires doing some… interesting jobs. Hell, I work in Hollywood, I know a thing or two about working less-than-noble jobs for less-than-noble people.

The problem with Glenn’s situation is that his company and his persona are one and the same. If his personal blog becomes known for garbage, then Glenn himself becomes known for garbage. And since that reputation is personal, it transcends the blog itself. Any new endeavor that Glenn might undertake or become apart of will be painted with the same brush. It is a situation from which a person might never recover.

Of course, the celebrity website knew this before hiring him. They probably said to themselves, “Hmm, this kid already has people watching him. Instead of building our brand from scratch, why not get a leg-up by buying this kid’s audience?” It can be a smart business move. It’s just not good for the potential employee.

The moral failure occurred when Glenn accepted, and allowed himself — and all his projects — to become the face of something that his readers and fans don’t give a damn about.

The problem is not that he works for a celebrity site. I certainly would if they paid me enough. The problem is that he was willing to sacrifice the online persona that we know of him — his website, his Twitter account — in order to become the public face of this new endeavor. He is not merely working for them. He is transforming his image into theirs.

Please, Glenn, fix this before it’s too late.

And to those of you getting into the new media world, don’t sacrifice your own image. Because in a world where your business, your image, and your persona can essentially be the same thing, you only have to destroy one to destroy them all.

First off, let’s look at the way they try to get you to buy them. Most of the time, the artist attempting to sell you a CD hands it to you, implying that it is free, perhaps a sampler or something. Only once you take the disc handed to you (and why wouldn’t you, if you were a tourist or did not know any better) does the artist then ask for his $5-10. It is misleading, annoying, and dishonest.

(As a side note, if the musician were to actually be handing out a free CD with a couple tracks and perhaps a link to his MySpace page where you could buy the rest, that would actually work rather well.)

But beyond all that, why are they out here peddling CD’s in the first place when they can put their music up online for free, and build up an audience that way?

Yes, I know, building an audience is never easy. But online, the costs are lower, the stakes are lower, and the potential is way, way, way higher.

Last night, I uploaded about 13 images to Flickr. Before I had even given them names and descriptions, they had already gotten a handful of views, solely because they were just uploaded and Flickr shows users the most recently uploaded photos. Just by putting something online, you are probably guaranteed more eyes or ears per day than you would if you were sitting on Hollywood Blvd with a stack of CD-R’s.

And then we get to the issue of targeting. If you are simply handing your album to anyone who walks by, just the probability of merely finding someone into your genre of music is low. When your stuff is online, tagged and categorized for all, it is very likely that your listeners enjoy your music, or at least are interested in your style or genre, rather than random.

I’m not even going to cover all the different social sharing aspects of putting your work online, because those have been beaten to death already. Suffice to say, there are many rewards to be had for putting your art on the internet.

Lastly, there is the issue of time. Putting your music on MySpace takes almost no time at all, and you only have to do the hard work once. As long as you update it every once in a while, maintain a presence, and be good about keeping in contact with fans or people who send you message, you’re probably doing the best job you can at getting noticed. Or at the very least, it will still exceed any attempts you might make attempting to peddle the discs you popped out of your MacBook last night on the busy streets of Los Angeles.

The bottom line: There is absolutely no situation I can imagine where sitting outside trying to sell your CD-R’s is a better way to market your music, in terms of efficiency, time, money, audience, or any other measure of success by which you wish to judge your marketing attempts. There could be some creative ways to do both (such as my idea at the beginning, about giving away free CD samplers with links to the rest of your music) but by itself, CD peddling is no longer effective.

But then again, was it ever even very effective, even before the internet?

I still think it’s a viable resource for advertisers, but some of them are starting to sweat the advent of DVR culture. To them, that’s thousands of potential consumers, breezing past entire pods, catching only a glimpse of the last spot before Heroes resumes. As usual, sea change in response to new tech is just not an option. Small, petulant resistances are the order of the day.

Early on in the short history of DVR, TiVo offered a feature involving a five-button code that could “click” right past every 30-second ad. They didn’t promote the function, and referred to it as something designed for internal use that hackers simply discovered on their own. This, of course, is akin to the secret menu at In-N-Out Burger, in that everyone knows about it – except when you order a double-double “protein style,” you’re theoretically not screwing over the factory that makes the buns.* TiVo’s as much of a brand as any of the others, with their own product to sell, but they understood the latent animosity viewers had toward ads and they worked it like a punch press. Go them.

So advertisers had to spread their messages elsewhere, meaning Mountain Dew poured into our movie theaters with pre-pre-show spots, online pop-ups appeared with more frequency than Suck in Deep Impact and even seemingly friendly drinkers at clubs and bars could now be “undercover marketers.” Lately, it seems they’re more intent on tracking us than ever (see: Viacom ordering access to YouTube user data) to achieve that holy grail known as targeted marketing. If we’re not going to give them our eyeballs for thirty seconds, then by God, they’ll take whatever we’re giving YouTube!

“All right staff, I’ve been perusing this user data and apparently America loves watching bunnies get policed by irritable chickens…What are you waiting for? Get out of here! I want thirty solid gold chicken-and-bunny ideas by 3 PM sharp!”

I say these advertisers are too quick to assume the role of Decency-Smashing Corporate Monoliths, especially if they hope to earn our trust. Some (many) actually like to watch Super Bowl ads because the joy taken in those spots’ creative processes is visible. Also, Burt Reynolds might show up. But when you can’t guarantee a Super Bowl-sized audience to match what you’re paying your team, you can simply develop new and interesting ways of presenting pretty mediocre content.

That means intriguing (read: often confusing) narrative segments, dispersed in multiple short-form bursts over the course of an entire show, or sometimes taking place during an entire pod, as Orbit gum did for the 2008 MTV Movie Awards. As long as they seem less like ads and more like viral comedy bits, the better.

The CW, who’s got to be eager to attract advertisers**, has predictably been leading the charge with this stuff. They debuted “content wraps,” which disguises product marketing within 2-minute story segments, somewhat like Orbit’s work but less overt. Included is an excerpt from the LA Times, due to its hilarity.

It helps to think of a content wrap as a sandwich. The products that advertisers want to sell are the meat. The mini-programming elements wrapped around them are the bread that holds it all together and – in CW executives’ dreams, at least – makes consumers want to take a bite and keep on eating.

Last year, the CW rolled out a similar concept but for ten-second spots, branded them “CWickies” and Electronic Arts went for it. Large filmic advertising blocks make sense, but why would companies pay for less airtime?

Part of it may have to do with research on attention spans, or market testing that shows auds respond better to faster, punchier ads. But I think these are more logical byproducts of a greater source known as Corporate Panic. Shakeups like DVR convince advertisers to try something, anything new. They store up money for days like these, and now they’re throwing it at the wall to see what sticks, what “engages” us.

Then again, I suppose it’s easy to say that bigwigs will do anything but cooperate with the tide of technology, when trade publications did their best to integrate the internet as part of their identity – and we all know how that’s turning out.

Oh well, the omelet’s almost done anyway.

* And that’s assuming you and everyone else in the restaurant hates the buns and considers them a burden on your otherwise delicious burger. When really, the bun’s one of the best parts.

** Aliens in America is a good show. Or was. I don’t know if it’s still on.

Services like this have been cropping up all over the place, but Danoo appears to be unique in a couple different ways. First off, it appears to be a widespread system, available in many locations around the country. This is interesting because as of yet, most retailers I’ve seen attempting to integrate a service like this have been trying to operate their own unique service, and encountering a lot of problems along the way.

But the part that I find more interesting is that Danoo strikes individual contracts with smaller, independent cafes and shops around the country as opposed to larger, singular contracts with chains. I like this idea because it is giving independent businesses the ability to keep up with the larger companies by offering this cutting-edge service, as well as letting them secure some revenue by letting them into the massive targeted advertising business before their competitors do.

Here in Los Angeles, there are quite a few places already that provide this service. I’m curious to hear from readers if things like this are cropping up in other parts of the country as quickly as they seem to be doing so here.

This market is going to become the absolute biggest thing in advertising, and smart plasma televisions are just the beginning.

I think that in the traditional sense of spending tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars on stereotypical music videos that air on television almost certainly is a dead market. It isn’t cost-effective, people don’t like them, and nobody wants to watch short-subject material on cable television, anyway.

This is probably not too thrilling for MTV and similar avenues. Although MTV largely abandoned the music video arena years ago in favor of idiotic television shows, they have been trying to make a comeback with their new FNMTV label, a Pete Wentz-hosted show designed to debut music videos to the public. (The show thus far has not done very well.)

But the concept of a band using a video of one of their songs is not dead at all. In fact, that’s a hugely growing market. The difference is that we are replacing famous directors with fans and friends of the artists, and we’re replacing MTV and VH1 with YouTube, MySpace, and the bands’ own web properties.

I think there is definitely still a market for professionally-produced videos provided that they are unique and well-done. Artists like Red Hot Chili Peppers have done very well with their music videos because, although produced and distributed traditionally, they have always been very original, creative, and memorable.

The distribution method will still be changing, but I personally feel that even in the generation of social media and the “everyone can make a movie” mentality, there will always be a market for well-done, professional content.

In the meantime, it will be very exciting to what R.E.M. and other artists come up.

After you get past the obvious hilarity of this contest (the MySpace page features an overflowing Big Mac with the phrase “You So Want One” above it) we end up with an idea that a lot of companies have been adopting lately. The question is whether or not it will pay off for McDonald’s.

Why have companies been outsourcing their commercials to the public, anyway?

1. It’s cheaper! This is the most obviously explanation, of course. Even though it may seem like costs for running a contest like this would be quite high, they pale in comparison to the production and distribution budget for a “real” commercial, which would be in the millions, if not tens of millions, of dollars.

2. It makes your customers feel involved. The whole reason YouTube took off wasn’t because of theincredible quality of available content. (Can you sense my sarcasm?) It was because it gave everyone a voice. Anyone can create content. Other companies have since found that giving your customers some sort of a voice keeps them happy.

3. It markets itself. All these kids writing songs for this contest will be putting them online, sending them to their friends, putting them on their blogs… By the time this contest is over, hundreds of thousands of people will have seen/heard commercials for McDonald’s, and since McDonald’s has specified the lyrics of the song, their marketing message will have been absorbed by them all.

So will this work? That depends on the definition. I am highly skeptical as to whether things like this will actually cause huge numbers of people to flock to the burger place, especially the people who will end up seeing this on television. Also, no offense to McDonald’s, but there aren’t too many companies with aworse reputation amongst young people.

But among the kids who submit entries for this contest, I think there’s actually a pretty good chance they’ll feel like heading over to McDonald’s for a burger. Wouldn’t you, after spending that many hours marketing someone’s product for free?

Will McDonald’s profit from this little competition? I doubt it, but I could be wrong. And hey, there’s something to be said for the power of new media if even companies like McDonald’s are starting to believe in it.

¹ not at all

Starbucks has begun putting plasma televisions in all their stores that show you what song is currently playing, who it’s by, and what album it is on. Furthermore, if you open iTunes during this time, you can find out this information as well, along with a list of the songs played previously in that location. This is genius.

A few weeks ago, I was at my coffee shop of choice when a song came on that I liked and totally would’ve purchased on the spot if only I had a clue what it was. But I did not, and as such the music industry lost a sale.

The music industry is likely losing millions of potential sales because of this.

Some sort of service along the lines of this Starbucks one should be implemented anywhere music plays and where people congregate. It will earn money for both the venue and the music industry, and introduce people to new music in the process.

Whenever a song is playing in the background of an episode of The Hills, MTV overlays the title and artist, as well as a short URL you can use to later to find out more. This is brilliant! I cannot recall the number of times I have been watching a television show and wondered what the background music was.

Clearly, this is a market worth tapping into, as sites like What’s That Called? have been around for years, not to mention tons of forums, blog posts, and Yahoo! Answers questions on the subject.

I only hope this method of marketing expands to other television shows and forms of media, and that people figure out how to make money from this promotion.

Oh, and yes, I apologize for my lack of posts, and you can consider this one to be the first of a long stream of regular content from now on.