ALT VIDEOS Tendencies to tout tour tickets

I've blogged on alternative, secondary music video formats before: the one-take, single shot video; the lyric video; the album trailer; the special edition or merchandise unwrapping.

To this list, one worth pondering for an additional quickfire production that will help to drive website and social media content and engagement, add the tour date video (with website plugging included too).

The example is from 80s crossover (punk/thrash) legends Suicidal Tendencies. The video, spotted from a browse of the TeamRock site, a rich source for spotting evolving marketing strategies, includes several features:

• performance footage
• album art and website splash page, with plugs for both
• like the most basic lyric videos, the main content is a vertically scrolling list of tour dates, white font on a black background
• the audio consists of a snippet from a new album track, NOT the full track
• The unpolished look is further evidence of how artists have incorporated audience approaches (fan-made videos) into their own playbooks. Even the mighty Metallica have dropped an unwrapping video, a hugely popular format that may have had pop origins but is now seen from audiences and artists across the age and genre spectrum.

I'll add to this more insight gleaned from the TeamRock site (an e-zine side to a stable of print magazines such as Classic Rock); Iron Maiden providing another example of how acts monetise themselves in an era of low record sales:

Iron Maiden Fan Club members will be given access to an exclusive pre-sale, with information available via the official website.A Trooper VIP upgrade package will also be available, giving fans early access to the venue, exclusive goodies as well as food and Trooper beer. VIP tickets cost £140 and gig tickets will need to be bought separately. [LouderSound]

Artists variously charge for photos with fans, sometimes as part of a VIP backstage package, have licensed drinks, offer exclusives to fan club or registered website members (often charging a subscription fee).

...Maiden are a great example of a long-running act who skilfully use traditional and social media, and diverse merchandising, to successfully monetise their art and brand. Here's another example from them...the thankyou to fans, a natural example of direct address made possible by online media.

...

[recent update:]

I mention beer as a great example of merch - you can buy both Slayer and Iron Maiden beer in Luxembourg (Auchan), and Motorhead, plus some other branded wine/spirits if I recall correctly. That this is now a common strategy, especially in heavy metal, can be seen from a simple google ('heavy metal beer'). See this Pinterest for a gallery (pic, right comes from it):

Using INSTAGRAM to promote promos! (Britney, Rhianna etc)

Blogging, FB and Twitter are social/new media frequently mentioned here as tools used by artists/labels to boost acts'/videos profile and distribution.
Another useful site, heavily used by many artists, from the smallest Indie acts to global names, is Instagram...

On August 9, 2012, English musician Ellie Goulding came out with a new music video for her song "Anything Could Happen". The video only contained fan submitted Instagram photographs that used various Instagram filters to represent words or lyrics from the song^[63] and over 1200 different photographs were submitted. [Wiki]

Video Teasers: Love+Death (horror style)

I've mentioned this repeatedly: just as with films, bands increasingly seek to use social media, blogs and ezines to build anticipation and buzz around new releases not just with the full release of the vid, but with teaser clips too, as with this eg from http://loudwire.com/love-and-death-chemicals-video-teaser/:

Love and Death Release Teaser for ‘Chemicals’ Video

by: Amy Sciarretto 2 weeks ago

Love and Death will drop the video for the title track from their ‘Chemicals’ EP on May 7, but to stoke the fires of fan excitement, the band has issued a 32-second teaser. It’s short but chilling snippet. It’s also horror movie creepy, featuring masked marauders and more.
Love and Death, featuring former Korn guitarist Brian ‘Head’ Welch, have crafted quite a cinematic, dark and downright scary vid and we feel that way based only on the half-minute of footage the band has chosen to share. One can only imagine how terrifying the complete clip will be.
Welch has a mask attached to his face early on by an ominous person and that’s when weird stuff starts happening. Not too much is revealed in this super short clip, but it’ll get your mind curious to see more. If you like horror flicks, then this teaser, which is shot in black and white and in color, is right up your dark, deserted and desolate alley.
The band also performs in a claustrophobic room, which certainly ups the tension. In other scenes, Welch’s dreads are flailing about as he rocks out.
Watch the clip below and then take a listen to the EP stream, which Loudwire recently hosted!

Teaser vids

Its not just the film industry that uses the concept of teaser (trailers), but also the music biz. These are used to build up interest/excitement/anticipation - and attention; press reportage - in advance of a release. They also present an opportunity to give different websites 'exclusives' - one the teaser exclusive, another the full vid, or a making-of (and so forth).
I've noticed quite a few of these, and here's one example (a horror-themed metal vid): http://loudwire.com/love-and-death-chemicals-video-teaser/

Teaser videos + YouTube channels: Caliban

Good example here of how the very concept of music video is evolving in the face of the challenges and opportunites thrown up by digitisation and new media.

The band Caliban (described as 'deathcore'), signed to US label Roadrunner Records (former Indie, now a subsidiary of WMG [Warner Music Group], one of the music industry monopolist leviathans], have made good use of YouTube and social media, using 'teaser videos' and TV-style vodcasts, trailed through mainstream media but also MySpace, Facebook etc, to publicise their tours as much as their album releases - which neatly sums up the shift in focus away from pushing record sales to flogging tickets (in the expectation that will also then generate merchandise and some back catalogue sales) for concerts.
Metal Hammer featured the band's 'teaser video' for their upcoming tour thus:

Caliban To Cover Rammstein And More

terrybezer / News, Uncategorized / 01/04/2011 14:58pm

Find out what German metalcore bruisers, Caliban, will be covering on their upcoming ‘Coverfield EP’ and get a teaser video inside.

Caliban will be releasing a cover EP titled ‘Coverfield’ that will feature the following tracks:

01 – “My Girlfriend’s Girlfriend” (Type O Negative cover)

...

[The vid was embedded on the page; interestingly, the band - or their management - disabled embedding, compelling viewers to watch it on YouTube and be exposed to the suggested links featuring more of their YouTube uploads. Watch the teaser vid here]

They also created a trailer for their previous tour:


Here's CALIBAN TV - Episode 11 Part 3 - Summer Festivals - much of the footage is simple enough handheld material BUT there are slick, professional production values, even down to the cliched but appropriate for the target audience use of a curvaceous, leather-clad blonde female presenter. Episodes aren't brief affairs either - episode 11, taken in combination, would exceed half an hour. This points the way to the music vid being just 1 part of a multimedia mix, including blogs, using social media for viral marketing, behind-the-scenes footage, and TV-style vodcasts or webisodes creating motivation to subscribe to a channel ... which in turn acts as advertising for that channel to generate more hits.

The 1st part, noticeably, has been blocked by WMG/EMI - the music monopolists are so vast in scale they don't even trouble themselves to support their own acts!!!

Here's the band's YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Calibanofficial

Vids for older tracks: Beatles

The Beatles have provided the perfect example of how record companies are looking to wring sales out of their back catalogue (cf. the long tail theory). They timed the week the X Factor had a Beatles theme to coincide with their finally allowing iTunes to release their back catalogue - but only at a higher price than anyone else. They've released a series of teaser vids for many of these, one eg below:



See also http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/mojo/14873/beatles-not-for-sale/

Teaser clips on web

The web is ever more important for bands marketing; in this case releasing a preview clip of a single: "Arcade Fire post teaser of new single" - 'Yesterday, the band posted teasers from both sides of the 12-inch vinyl single to their website.'