Music Marketing Strategies and Innovative ways of advertising

Nine Inch Nails - 'Punk' group

There are many innovative ways of advertising in order to gain more publicity and appeal to a wider audience.
Viral ads on the internet are a very effective method of advertising because the advertisers done have to buy space in order to show their product/music/film etc. It is a free method for the advertiser to gain the most out of to promote themself. This links to 'Word-of-mouth' where the target market would find the advert and not vice versa as it is recommended by friends and friends of friends etc. Word of mouth is effective because we are more likely to trust our friends opinion on a product or a first person opinion because we know that they would have tried the product already. Therefore if the product is successful, this will make more people want to buy it, or listen to it (if its music).
Another innovative form of advertising is by the artist arranging free gigs to perform, so that audiences can come along and listen without paying, because if someone has never heard of an artist, they would be less inclined to go to a gig if they had to pay. Buzz marketing is used to promote/advertise a product also. This is started off by a 'buzz' being created by the advertiser who may use fake actors who claim the new product is exciting and works in order to get a wide reception. Again this works by word of mouth because you are believing your social networks as they are your friends or real people infront of you who are recommending the product.
Interactivity has been proven to advertise new products well as this allows the audience to gain a more personalised experience with the new product. For example the band Arcade Fire who released a single which the audience could make based in their hometown via the internet. This made the experience more enjoyable for the audiences who would be likely to recommend it to their friend to try it which in the end, promotes the artist to a wider audience.

'Word Of Mouth' advertising

Nine Inch Nails is a band who released an album called 'Year Zero' and went through several stages of advertising in a very unique way to become noticed by a wide audience. N.I.N sent out clues on the back of tour t-shirts which was hard to spot but when one person did, it caused millions of people to want to get involved. They started by highlighting letters of words on the tour shirt which spelt out 'I am trying to believe' which made hundreds of fans type this into their browser and eventually came to the site www.iamtryingtobelieve.com. Further clues were spread around on other t-shirts that contained highlighted numbers which formed a Los Angeles phone number which fans called leading them to more and more clues as if it was a game. This all involved interactivity which is why so many N.I.N fans got involved and get to the end of the 'task' to find out what it was all about. Some of these innovative ways of advertising included the fans coming across new N.I.N tracks at the same time which links to Buzz marketing and word of mouth - If lots of people are talking about what they are uncovering as a N.I.N's fan, others who may not even be a fan would want to know about it and get involved because of the buzz created. At the end of N.I.N advertising campaign, the last fans remaining were driven to a secret location where N.I.N hit the stage and halfway through riot police stormed the stage trying to cause as much hype and excitement as possible for the fans. In conclusion, 2.5 million people had visited atleast one of the 30 sites of the campaign, N.I.N made top 10 albums in the US, UK, Australia and 3 other countries. From this it is evident that the most innovative ways of advertising can lead to a huge succession however it takes a very smart person to point out a clue as small as N.I.N's in order to start a buzz. This whole campaign engaged people to get involved and follow the narrative and ideas on the album which the fans were rewarded after for their dedication to the band and decoding the clues. These fans now feel special and feel they belonged to a secret society that no one else knew about or could involve themself with.
This case study links to Media and collective identity because the whole campaign reinforced the fans loyalty to the band showing they are a true fan by staying dedicated all the way through to the end, and they belong to the small fan group of Nine Inch Nails.