VidEG: Pixies "Bagboy" (2013)

Much retweeted: notice of tour, vid + free MP3 download

ACT: The Pixies

TRACK: Bagboy

YEAR: 2013

DIRECTOR: LAMAR+NIK

GENRE: Alt rock

MAIN AUDIENCE: 25-44 (recent/original fans), but clearly targeting new 15-24 + possibly younger teens/tweens; M-oriented vid?

LYRICS

Money is recouped by gathering email addresses

I've blogged on The Pixies before: see this post detailing the band's style, including their quirky take on vids (or 'anti-vids'), or this post detailing their classic single-take vid Velouria (more egs here and here; comparisons to Jesus and Mary Chain here)

THE VIDEO IS EMBEDDED AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST

LAMAR+NIK often feature non-CGI sculpture-as-title. Reminds me of films like Napoleon Dynamite

IN BRIEF: TYPICALLY ODDBALL, FILMIC PIXIES VID...

• The use of digital media to promote this is exemplary
• its timed to help promote a tour: the MP3 is available free
• with controversial content rendering it unsuitable for pre-watershed UK screening, its main life will be online
• the media language is odd for a music vid, more cinematic in its approach, especially editing
• the central character is a clear representation of a (younger) fan, tho' there may be veiled criticism in there too
• its hard to judge whether this will succeed in appealing to a young, new Pixies fanbase
• there are some touches of creative genius...

SOME BACKGROUND: EXEMPLARY DIGITAL AGE RELEASE FROM DINOSAURS

Users are encouraged to tweet/FB post

This is a great example of an act originating decades ago (so long ago in fact that your blog author was barely out of primary school) that have firmly grasped the challenge and opportunity presented by digitisation and social media. I stumbled across news of a new release on Facebook ... forgot about it ... decided to log in to a Twitter account I've not looked at since setting it up years ago ... and quickly came across a link again.

News of a tour is all over the blogosphere, twittersphere, FB, e-zines and magazines (depending on what feeds you subscribe to of course). The comeback of this band is newsworthy for many publications/outlets, but the killer hook that's guaranteed the print/screen inches, thumbs up, likes, retweets and whatnots is a new video, plus the opportunity to download the track for free.
That last detail helps show the shift from music sales to ticket/merchandise sales for many acts in the digital age, plus revenue more from streaming (often by sharing in the website's, eg YouTube, advertising revenue) than physical sales.

 "You are proselytizing alone listening to the voice with your ears" (sample lyric)

Screenshot taken 4 days after this was uploaded. Note the FREE DOWNLOAD link, + director's site URL

THE VID: BASIC SUMMARY

Music vids as ads

We've discussed 2 examples, both of which used the expensive but prestigious ad-breaks within Saturday's X Factor to launch the campaign. In each cases we can see a company looking to extend (or consolidate) its reach to the lower end of the youth market, 15-24, with humour the main tool used to achieve this.

I came across these examples by reading the Media Guardian online - can i urge you all again to flick through this from time to time...

We can take from this the widening use of the music video format; as well as commercials for bands/singles/albums/tours/merchandise, as well as 'art films', we are seeing the form used within advertising - an ad trying to disguise its status as an ad!

In the 2nd example we get a straightforward use of juxtaposition which you could consider yourselves: the urban, bling-heavy rap set and performed in a farm by supposed farmer types wearing country clothing! Nice effects with the tractor, the owl and quirky shots of cows all thrown in.



The song dates back to 1980, so as well as our core youth target audience we're looking at clear appeal to a secondary nostalgic mature youth market, 35-44.


As Media Monkey notes:

At first glance Monkey was mightily impressed with the breathtakingly fresh, unique and offbeat approach the ad agency BBH had taken creating dairy company Yeo Valley's first TV ad. It was a a well-planned debut: Create an ad of a bunch of young "farmers" performing a rap homage to their trade and hog an eye-wateringly expensive two-minute slot in The X Factor's first live knockout round on Saturday. Except it seems that the idea for the campaign may not be that new at all. It seems a Canadian TV campaign from a year ago, the "Milk Rap" by the Dairy Farmers of Ontario, which aimed to make milk a bit "cooler" (strapline: "It doesn't get any cooler than this") featured a bunch of, you guessed it, young hip farming typers rapping about the virtues of the white stuff.
Spot the difference, you decide: here's the Yeo Valley TV ad and the Canadian Milk TV ad .

There's a nice link from this into our 2nd stimulus song: Cars...