eMusic try to recast themselves "irreverent" outsiders

How better to mark a massive skewing of your catalogue towards the major labels than launching a counter-intuitive campaign stressing how non-mainstream you are.

Sure, there's nothing in itself wrong with The Roadshow, which films some bands playing live.

It's just the way they're talking about it, as Hypebot records:

Today [eMusic] launched a major branding and ad campaign designed to differentiate itself from iTunes by (take a deep breath...) "delivering irreverent and engaging experiences that capture the essence of music discovery".

Developed by flavor of the moment creative agency Sarkissian Mason and hot media firm TargetcastTCM, the campaign uses "humor, passion and knowledge" to appeal to "serious music fans".

Filming Best Coast doing a gig isn't especially irreverent, nor humorous. And it's not really a "discovery", as surely all right-thinking people already are a little bit in love with Best Coast?

It's a solid-enough campaign. 'We've got some artists who are well-liked but still early enough in their career to appreciate a few quid from our marketing budget, and we hope people will like to come and look at them'. Why pretend that this is somehow cocking a snook at convention?