Download Unauthorized Verses - Journal of Integrated Marketing

Inventing the Future, Honoring the Past
Integrating Integrity into IMC
lynn upshaw
Generations of Consumers and the Consumer Generated
pradeep kumar, michelle hsiao & barry chiu
Unauthorized Verses
chris barrows
Using Events to Drive an Integrated Marketing Model
mary fehrnstrom & david m. rich
Adapting IMC to Emerging Markets:
Importance of Cultural Values in the Indian Context
s. ramesh kumar
Beyond the Last Click:
Measuring ROI and Consumer Engagement with Clickstream Analysis
megan halscheid, micheline sabatté & sejal sura
The Next Generation of the IMC Database:
Confessions of a Believer
chuck sharp
B2B and B2C Marketing:
Organizing to Maximize Brand Value
wendy c. wong
Heavy Buyers:
Are They Even More Important Than Generally Thought?
deb rapacz & martin reilly
2009
Journal of
integrated marketing communications
Unauthorized Verses
Unauthorized Verses
by Chris Barrows
Abstract
How can brands get consumers to virally swarm around them as loyal brand evangelists?
For a clue, it’s worth looking at what may be a surprising source, the hip-hop industry.
By utilizing online communication and content-sharing, hip-hop has capitalized on fans’
loyalty to fan the flames of brand, or rather band, loyalty. This article explores such efforts
to create truly original content that develops a connection between those that embrace it
and sets a benchmark for general marketers trying to engage audiences in a continually
evolving culture.
Sharing is not a new phenomenon; only the
infrastructure to facilitate sharing has changed.
Some marketers create content for social media
that encourages interaction. In practice, marketers must target an evolving audience with
their brands. The increasingly complex audience, coupled with converging media, work in
tandem to render traditional marketing strategies obsolete.
One purpose of a brand is to define and connect groups of people. Thus common interests
and characteristics help groups move in the
same general direction, through increased
interaction both off- and online. The group’s
direction, however, can change when a member gets new information that causes him to
alter his course. Often, the slightest change in
behavior by one person causes the entire group
to do the same. Chuck Brymer, CEO of DDB
Worldwide, calls this swarm theory. Swarm
theory suggests that communities swarm
around their brands of choice. It is the job of
marketers to introduce their brands to such
groups.
This thinking is a departure from the traditional marketing approaches, which bombarded
groups with messages, without considering
the audience’s social behavior. The new breed
of marketing is less about the message sent by
marketers, and more about how the audience
interprets and uses the message.
As technology evolved to allow easy communication, it also paved the way for contentsharing. Napster, a pioneering peer-to-peer
music sharing service, was one of the first
popular tools for content-sharing. Created by
Shawn Fanning, the application facilitated
uploading and downloading of free copyrightprotected tracks. Major players in the music
industry, like Metallica, famously fought the
application.
Others, like the Vermont band Dispatch,
embraced it and used the free service to develop a broad fan base (Nome, 2001). Dispatch
was relatively unknown when Napster first
became popular. They later went on to perform
a sell-out show at New York’s Madison Square
Garden: an enormous feat for a small, regional
group. Dispatch’s foresight demonstrates that
sharing and creating content online, with the
intent of sharing, can aid in the distribution of
their brand message
The hip-hop industry has expanded in spite
of a declining music industry. Hip-hop has
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Chris Barrows
survived by utilizing online communication
and content-sharing in a way that leverages
customer loyalty. Hip-hop’s ascendance amid
a downward industry is a result of its adaptability to changing consumer behavior. General
marketers may draw guidance from trends in
hip-hop as they reshape their communication strategies. A second arena that marketers
should consider emulating is the blogosphere.
Blogging began in online forums in which
people shared a similar interest. Blogging
evolved from town hall meetings where participants speak easily and freely. The creation
of Web sites rooted in consumer reviews, like
Yelp, Amazon and Epinions, allows feedback to
be transmitted instantaneously. Many bloggers profit from displaying the shortcomings
of companies and products. Consumers’ poor
experiences, represented through multiple blog
postings, can instantly deflate the most artful brand strategy. As Brymer’s white paper
observed, “today what a mother in Minneapolis
or a businessman in Bangladesh thinks of your
brand now carries equal weight with the best-
crafted marketing strategy. We are entering an
age of reference, not deference” (Brymer, 2008).
Most musicians make music for the enjoyment of their audience, hoping that they will
rave about it to their friends. The savvy musicians encourage fans to burn a copy of their
record if it means another fan will attend an
upcoming show, or purchase merchandise. In
the early 1970s, large record labels dominated
the music industry.
Hip-hop musicians of this era, like Grandmaster Flash, profited by selling recorded copies of live performances. The recordings, known
as mix tapes, ranged in price from $30 to $120.
A premium version, called a private mix tape,
included the DJ shouting the purchaser’s name
over a live set of beats. Alternatively, public
mix tapes targeted a larger audience and were
predominantly sold at live performances from
the trunk of the DJ’s car.
As technology has evolved, so has mix tape
delivery. Artists distribute mix tapes online,
generally free of charge. Combining social
interaction with free content on blogs and
Picture of the completed “green art” at San Francisco’s Broadway Tunnel. Photo by Laura Morton.
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Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications 2009
Unauthorized Verses
message boards provides artists with instant
feedback. Artists can record a mix and offer it
as free content online within days, since they
generally forgo the expensive and time-consuming process of getting their music samples
cleared.
Current legislation upholds that such recordings are for promotional use only. The right
combination of positive feedback, along with
wide distribution, enables artists to achieve
rapid brand awareness. This awareness is of
minimal cost to the artist and has the additional benefit of securing long-term success by
building a loyal, enthusiastic fan base.
In early 2008, a relatively unknown Wash-
ington, D.C.-based MC named Wale released
“The Mixtape About Nothing.” The mix tape
utilized scenarios and quotes from the 1990s
sitcom Seinfeld to launch a commentary on the
hip-hop industry. Wale and DJ Nick Catchdubs recorded the mixtape in approximately
four weeks utilizing verses from high-profile
artists like Bun B and Lil Wayne. Bun B is
a southern rap legend, one-half of the now
defunct group, UGK; Lil Wayne’s album “Tha
Carter III” spent multiple weeks at the top
of the Billboard Album charts in June 2008.
Wale’s strategy of featuring high-profile artists
is the equivalent of forging brand-partnerships
to promote cognitive associations between the
Album cover for
“Mixtape About
Nothing”
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Chris Barrows
artist and mainstream rappers.
Wale and Catchdubs seeded tracks to the
industry blog TheFader, which previewed the
mix tape weeks before its release. Certain hiphop blogs are highly influential. An endorsement from TheFader often leads to recognition
in mainstream music publications. Upon its
release “The Mixtape About Nothing” received
reviews from the blog of Village Voice music
critic Tom Breihan, a primary authority on
hip-hop music. Breihan’s recognition of the mix
tape legitimized its existence. The endorsement
of Wale’s free, downloadable album furthered
its mainstream reach.
Cleveland-based DJ Mick Boogie says that
the benefit of giving content away free is that
“everyone hears you. I get booked all over the
world from the fame my [mix tapes] have given
me(E-mail interview, 2008). Boogie has created mix tapes of music from artists like Jay-Z,
Kanye West and Talib Kweli, all of which are
downloadable, free of charge on his Web site.
The buzz from releasing mix tapes has resulted
in Boogie appearing as the Cleveland Cavaliers’
official DJ as well as frequent performances at
some of the world’s highest profile clubs.
For general marketers, one solution is to create a mix tape equivalent, which promotes consumer sharing and interaction. In April 2008,
DDB San Francisco commissioned reverse
graffiti artist Moose to use one of its clients’
brands, Green Works™, in a local art project.
Reverse graffiti is a process during which a
dirty area is cleaned in a way that leaves the remaining dirt as art. In conjunction with DDB
San Francisco, Moose utilized Green Works
to clean an area next to San Francisco’s highly
visible Broadway tunnel. The resulting 140-foot
mural generated positive local press.
An award-winning documentarian, Doug
Pray, captured the project on film. A condensed
version of the documentary posted on YouTube
received more than 400,000 views in less than
a week. Users ultimately posted their tours of
the mural online as well. The documentary even
received honors at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Most importantly, the project emboldened
Green Works’™ brand strategy to promote
natural cleaning in an entertaining way that is
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Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications 2009
accessible to swarms of people who are passionate about green living.
Mix tapes provide free content to audiences
in exchange for the audience’s reciprocal contribution to the artists’ long-term brand development. As artists continue to tour and diversify
business ventures, through clothing lines and
other merchandise, free mix tapes that generate
word-of-mouth marketing directly enhance the
artists’ more profitable ventures.
Many general marketers are learning how
small investments in shareable content can
achieve long-term goals similar to those traditionally achieved through TV and print executions. Some refer to this type of marketing as a
niche “viral” campaign, but like a record, if the
audience will not pass it along, the campaign
carries no weight.
References
1. Boogie, Mick DJ. E-mail interview. 23 May
2008.
2. Brymer, C. (2008). Swarm Marketing.
White paper. Page 4.
3. Chang, J. & DJ Kool Herc. Can’t Stop Won’t
Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. New
York: Picador, 2005.
4. Nome, V. “Napster forum praises founder.”
USA Today. 4 Apr. 2001.
5. Wang, O. “Tales of the Tape.” Village Voice.
22 July 2003.
6. Wortham, J. “After 10 Years of Blogs, the
Future’s Brighter Than Ever.” WIRED: Weblog.
17 Dec. 2007.
Chris Barrows works in business development
at a Seattle-based natural language processing start-up, Evri.com. He previously worked
at advertising and public relations agencies on
brands like Sony PlayStation 3, HP Consumer
PCs and Microsoft Games for Windows. He
has a bachelor’s degree in communication from
the University of Washington.