My favourite comedian/social commentator/savant, Bill Hicks, used to have a riff on advertising and marketing, which resonated with me particularly well as a person who by and large resents the invasion into public space, discretionary time, and mental bandwidth posed by advertising (can you imagine the existential conundrum I get into when I find myself thoroughly lost in the indulgence of Mad Men ?)
If your workplace (quick, someone’s coming – Alt-Tab, Alt-Tab!) is like mine and blocks YouTube footage, the gist of the Hicks riff – and apologies in advance, it’s going to get a little dark – is that Advertisers and Marketers ” … are Satan’s little helpers. Okay – kill yourself – seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you’re going, ‘there’s going to be a joke coming,’ there’s no fucking joke coming. You are Satan’s spawn filling the world with bile and garbage … ” and text just doesn’t do justice to the conviction and brilliance of his delivery, like a long black-coated sermon on the mount.
Now Hicks might be right and right-on – if there’s anything the world could do without, it’s more billboards, million-dollar-budget ads, and magazines that are basically unsolicited catalogues – but the question remains, “If you want someone to know about something, the message has to get out somehow.”
Artists in general, or the ones I’ve met anyway, seem very much aligned to Hicks’ perspective when it comes to marketing themselves – self promotion is equal to self-aggrandisement is equal to selling out. Just a breath away from this thought is the thought that there are so many artists that they, we, OK fcuk it – *I* see who seem to have attained their status through marketing and not merit – or rather, marketing on some massive financial steroids.
Financial steroids and million dollar video budgets notwithstanding, there is one bitter pill to swallow in the hype machine that is the popular music industry – that the artists have found and connected with their audience, who know what to expect from the brand, and will therefore buy their stuff. (And as heinous and unjust as this may seem to some, and whilst some massive selling stuff is just annoying crap, it is worth at least bearing in mind something Irving Berlin said to Cole Porter – “Listen kid, take my advice, never hate a song that has sold a half million copies!”)
But really, that’s what it comes down to – find and connect with your audience, and let them know what to expect from you. Hopefully, if they like you, they’ll buy your stuff … or at least download it and tell someone who’s not techno savvy enough or restricted enough by a quaint old-fashioned moral sensibility to buy it.
So in alla this – How does one market ones self, and stay true to ones self?
To me, Marketing, Self Promotion, and The Big Pitch begins and ends with telling the truth.
The truth in self marketing, as Ariel Hyatt of CyberPR says, is the 15 Second Pitch, the Brand Identity Statement (the phrase which makes my “artist” hackles raise – it sounds so corporate and “market-y” – but you’ll be able to sum up most every one of your favourite bands as such if you think about it; you should be able to do the same for you.)
It’s a little 15 second statement about the band, that feels comfortable to say – because it’s the truth.
One more thing – it helps to have a point of reference, so people, yes, know what to expect from you, as the truth can be subjective sometimes, and a little objective comparison can make it easier for everyone else to appreciate your truth.
What is mine?
“Lush, beautiful epics for the three minute attention span. Sounds like John Mayer with a Frayed Script.”
So now you know my truth, and hopefully, you know what to expect from my band.
And, lastly, I apologise; much as I’ve been told the pun is the lowest form of wit, it’s rare for me to meet one I didn’t like.
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