Justin Bieber faces spray-can backlash

Just when Justin Bieber was in the throes of reinvention as a sort-of-sensitive artist, his past catches up with him.

Admittedly, it's only his past from the end of October, so it didn't have very far to travel to catch up with him.

Back then, his people sprayed teasers for his new album all over San Francisco. This sort of thing happens all the time, but unluckily for Biebs, this was the point where the people said that's enough:

The censure doesn't refer to the Nas song mural installed in NorCal, but rather to a slew of permanently stenciled sidewalk-graffiti ads that read "Justin Bieber Purpose #Nov 13." (The tags have survived rainstorms and persisted for nearly two months now, because they were applied with spray paint instead of sidewalk chalk.) "This prohibited marketing practice illegally exploits our City's walkable neighborhoods and robust tourism; intentionally creates visual distractions that pose risks to pedestrians on busy rights of way; and irresponsibly tells our youth that like-minded lawlessness and contempt for public property are condoned and encouraged by its beneficiaries," Dennis Herrera wrote, "including Mr. Bieber and the record labels that produce and promote him."

Bieber could be fined USD2500 for each stencilling, plus the cost of putting things right.

I wonder how far down the whiteboard of names they got for this

"Johnson, our campaign to encourage kids to jiggle about to keep fit - how are you getting on with finding a pop star to front it?"

"Good news, sir, we've got someone who will be a big hit with the kids."

"Wonderful! Did we get Jessie J?"

"No, she was busy, sir. We had to move slightly further on from our first choice. But the good news is that we've got a huge name."

"Who is it, Johnson?"

"Well, let me say, if I say 'singing' and 'Saturday night telly', who springs to mind first?"

"You don't mean...?"

"Yes. I... hang on, I've just got an email about this very subject... oh. It turns out Val Doonican might not longer be available any more."

"Dammit."

"I guess I can put in a call to Ricky Wilson's people. He's available."

Spotify assumes your mum is a confused old dear

Mothers, eh? You literally couldn't have lived without them. And if there's one thing that's true about mothers is that they're people.

Spotify, though, isn't aware that mothers come in different shapes and sizes. They seem to picture them as confused old people who might struggle with the very idea of music streaming:

@Spotify believes that moms are a bunch of old dummies! Happy #MothersDay! pic.twitter.com/e0542YFvuv

— Paul Van Slembrou... (@ptvan) May 9, 2015

To be fair, my Mum would take a lot of catching up if I had to explain streaming music to her - "right, here's what's happened since 1983; maybe we'll start with compact discs..." - but most mothers aren't going to be befuddled with the idea of digital products. Most grandmothers wouldn't be, either. And those that are (along with men who are) are probably not stupid, but just uninterested.

A bad move by Spotify. Unless 'insulting your customers' is a cunning business strategy.

Toyota: They're great at social media

Last month, Toyota launched a terrible crowd-sourced band idea that, mercifully, seems to have gone nowhere. I did a thing about it here, mainly because when I said something about Toyota recalls, the company responded by saying how they did all their recalls because they valued safety and how it was totally voluntary.

To which my response was 'what about that time when a guy ended up in prison because you hadn't recalled cars with a serious fault; you might remember having to pay a fine of over a billion dollars; what about that?'

And that was that.

Except, because it's automatic, that post also appeared on No Rock & Roll Fun's Google+ feed. (Yes, Google+ is still a thing.)

I was a bit surprised to discover that Toyota's US arm has added a comment to the post:

Hi, thanks for that link! We never heard about that campaign and hope to make more noise worldwide with #feelingthestreet! 

First of all, great news for Toyota UK's social marketing gurus that their expensive 'forming a band' campaign not only failed to make any impact amongst real people, but even the people who do the social media for the company in America apparently had no idea it happened.

More importantly, this was a post that really was about how the company had known their was an accelerator fault and not withdrawn the cars resulting in accidents and even death. Which they're thanking me for, almost as if they hadn't bothered to even click through to read the full story or something.

But even without clicking through to read the piece, the extract shown on Google+ had the words "god this sounds terrible" in it. So even if you didn't make it to the bit where - admittedly confusingly on a music blog - there's something about how Toyota let people have accidents rather than fix their cars, you can still see that I'm basically saying crowdsourcing bands is a terrible, terrible idea for a marketing campaign.

Which Toyota are thanking me for.

One further point: Given your accelerator problem saw some people being catapulted from their cars onto the pavement, you might want to rethink the "feeling the street" hashtag.

What is Emeli Sande up to these days?

In 2013 Emeli Sande would appear singing as soon as three or more people gathered, like a Magic FM version of the riot act.

This year, she's been quieter.

So, what's she up to these days?

Erm... she appears to have become the Arthur Daley of music, flogging cars down by the Thames:

Emeli Sandé performed at a secret location on the River Thames tonight (September 8), helping to unveil the [new car].

The singer played a 45-minute set, including a song titled 'Feels Like' which she created especially for the launch of the new vehicle.

But I know what you're wondering now - was there some sort of half-arsed social media campaign to launch the new car?

Using #FEELXE, the public shared words, pictures, sounds and films through Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Actually, it looks like mostly "the public" here means 'car dealerships, motoring journalists and PR people', but even DigitalSpy is struggling to find anything to say about it. That line is just 'there was a hashtag', isn't it?

The car is expensive. Part of what you're paying for is the cost of the sing-song by the Thames. But there was a hashtag.

Beyonce springs a Christmas surprise

'Releasing records without prior announcement' is the new 'putting a record onto the torrents, pretending it's leaked, making a fuss, and then "bringing forward" the "original release date" in line with the marketing plan'.

Beyonce has just blitzreleased a new album, just in time for Christmas - although, you'll note, way too late for Hanukkah.

Sorry, did I say album? I forgot that this release come pre-wrapped with some old bollocks:

Beyonce Unexpectedly Releases New Self-Titled 'Visual Album' on iTunes

Yes, this is a 'visual album' which you might want to see as an astonishing new development in music, or else something that Thomas Dolby did in 1994 with The Gate To The Minds Eye.

It's fair to say that while the world is thrilled to have a new Beyonce album, and impressed at the idea of lobbing the thing out when it's ready, rather than running a long build-up campaign, the "visual album" aspect is going down like a high concept in a low crowd.

Here's how Beyonce describes it:

"I see music," Beyonce said in a video announcing the album on her Facebook page, dubbed "Self-Titled, Part 1." “It’s more than just what I hear. When I’m connected to something, I immediately see a visual or a series of images that are tied to a feeling or an emotion, a memory from my childhood, thoughts about life, my dreams or my fantasies. And they’re all connected to the music.”

CMU's Andy Malt was unimpressed:

In the PR, Beyoncé talks about the experience of listening to music triggering images in her mind tied to memories, emotions and dreams.

— Andy Malt (@andymalt) December 13, 2013

They missed off the end of the quote where she says "Because I am the only person this happens to, I made videos for ever song on the album"

— Andy Malt (@andymalt) December 13, 2013

There is a possibility that Beyonce has rushed this one out because she was feeling uncomfortable at the prospect of six months of marketing meeetings where everyone else in the room tried not to snicker as she outlined her vision.

Tourism campaign makes poor choice of singer

There's no shortage of poorly-chosen music-related advertising and marketing campaigns, but the people attempting to turn Ebril into a tourist hotspot have managed to bounce themselves to the top of the list. This constitutes some sort of clanger being dropped:

One of the most recent triumphs for authorities in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, had was getting their metropolis named Capital of Arab Tourism for 2014. A schedule of events to draw more attention to the city and to attract visitors has been launched, as has a promotional campaign. But the latter has already run into some controversy.

Local officials have brought in Moroccan-born singer, Samira Said, to perform a song called “Erbil”, in which the musical star, who’s well known throughout the Arab world, praises the locale for its beauty.

Apparently Said was chosen, in part, because she is one of the nominees in the Monte Carlo-based World Music Awards, where best selling artists in each region and in various categories are given prizes. Said has been nominated for her single, “Mazal” and she’s also up for the Best Female Artist prize.

Now, so far, that doesn't sound so bad - Samira Said, with something of a global profile - coming over to sing a song about the joys of Iraqi Kurdistan.

What could possibly be wrong about that?

The same singer, Samira Said, was employed by Saddam Hussein to sing hymns to his regime, the same regime that tried to exterminate Iraq’s Kurds.

Yeah. That's taking "ill-judged" to a new level.

Terrible marketing stunt turned into terrible marketing press release

There was a thing earlier in the week about how Durex were supposedly marketing Daft Punk themed Get Lucky condoms.

It turns out they're not, but like a drunk man hopefully filling his pockets from the Johnny machine in the bogs, Durex are hoping they can capitalise on a promise. Can you spot the moment when their email to MTV News turns from factual correction into jolly-marketing message?

We are aware of reports that Durex has launched Daft Punk branded condoms following their hit single 'Get Lucky,' " he said. "There is no Durex promotion or partnership with Daft Punk in the U.S. or any other markets and Durex is not posting free packs to the world's top DJs as suggested. However, we do hope that by using Durex condoms, music-lovers will continue to make sweet music together and have great sex!"

They might have just got away with it if they'd stopped after "make sweet music together", but you can just picture the room when that statement was hammered together...

- Do you think people will understand what we mean by 'make sweet music'?
- Yeah, Dave, I think they will
- Are you sure? It might be a bit subtle.
- It's not subtle, Dave. It'll be fine
- But what if people don't know what condoms are for?
- Look, Dave, you might have spent the first six weeks on this account thinking we were selling tiny sandwich bags, but most people will get it
- I think we really need to make it clear we want people to have sex with our condoms on
- Dave...
- No, seriously. We don't want to get sued if people take it literally, and put our condoms on their flutes and whistles and the lubricant destroys their instruments. Let's just add 'by doing sex into the condoms peniswise' to make it clear
- Dave, this is like the time you wanted us to rebrand as Durex Penis Covers. It's not necessary
- I'm not going to sign this off until you amend it
- Okay, Dave...

Katy Perry settles her bad hair deal

Katy Perry has come to an agreement with GHD after she was convinced they'd "verbally extended" her contract as face of their hair products (spokescalp?), and they were equally convinced they hadn't.

Perry had been looking for two million dollars; it's not clear if she's getting any cash, but GHD would probably view that anything they have to pay out is worth the ability to issue perhaps the cattiest statement in legal history:

But the company disputed the agreement ever took place and insisted it wanted to cut ties with Perry as soon as its original deal expired because its research suggested she is no longer as popular in Europe as she once was.

Don't you think she looks tired

Of course they are

This is, sadly, not satire.

Lady GaGa follows Madonna into the bottled water industry

Of course Lady GaGa is going to start squeezing her fans dry by flogging water to them.

Madonna, you'll recall, was part of the scam flogging supposed magicky-god-flavoured Kabbalah water. At least GaGa is only going to be making made-up science claims:

[New York Daily News] Confidenti@l has learned the pop superstar is on the verge of launching a “healthy drinking water brand” that will be floated out through a multimillion-dollar global advertising campaign.

Thank God GaGa will spare us from all that unhealthy water sloshing around the shop shelves - brands like Evian Crawling With Staphylococci, Perrier Avec Matière Fécale and Tesco Everyday Value Sparkling Toilet Water.

The NY Daily News tries to link the launch of Expensive Water with that stupidity a few weeks back when people started to suggest that Lady GaGa had "gotten a bit chunky" or whatever it was supposed to be:

"Gaga has been at the center of a lot of attention over her weight increase,” a spy tells us. “Losing her weight in such a short time and launching a healthy water drink may be part of a plan.”

Given that launching a international FMCG brand like a water isn't something you can do on a whim, that would imply that GaGa's "fat" period was actually part of the plan.

But why would you launch water if you were engineering a "look, I've been on a crash diet" marketing scheme? Wouldn't some sort of, you know, diet product?

More importantly, if you were going to try and sell water at a massive mark-up by being fat and then losing weight suddenly, wouldn't you have actually had to have put on some weight visible to anyone other than the succubus who writes the Daily Mail website?

You'd have to suspect that there's no connection to the non-story of GaGa putting on weight; like everything else she's done for the last couple of years, there's only one sort of pound that motivates her.

Aerosmith really like football, or cola, or something

It's not just that you can picture the marketing meeting where this idea was choke-dropped onto the table; it's the way you can see the pie-chart of "intersecting communities" being drawn on the interactive whiteboard, and hear the whooping:

Pepsi and the National Football League (NFL) announced the expansion of the Pepsi NFL Anthems program, a national campaign that brings to life originally created anthems for seven NFL teams around the league. The latest world-renowned artists to be featured in the program include one of the generation's most influential artists, Lenny Kravitz, who penned "Like a Jet" for the team he grew up cheering for in New York, and America's Greatest Rock Band AEROSMITH, staunch supporters of the New England Patriots, who have released an anthem titled "Legendary Child - Patriots Anthem".

If you're telling people it's an anthem, it probably isn't. If you're having to stick the word "anthem" in the title, what you've probably written is a jingle.

If you can stand the violent interpolation of a can of fizzy drink and a bunch of dinosaurs into enthusiasm for people playing sports, there's much more joyless clunk to be discovered in the promotion.

In an ongoing effort to amplify the intersection between sports and music, we are thrilled to add AEROSMITH and Lenny Kravitz as the newest Anthems artists," said Pepsi Director of Sports Marketing Todd Kaplan. "On top of that, the Jets and Patriots have a notorious rivalry, and we couldn't have picked a better matchup to debut our new songs and advertising campaign."

Let's not doubt for a moment that there is an intersection between sports and music, albeit one whose value sits somewhere between the Hoddle and Waddell single and that comedy record by the bloke pretending to be John McEnroe.

But why and how would one "amplify" it? To what end? And if it's such a vibrant cross-section that you think it should be shouted about, why would you have to pay people to write songs that fit it?

Joe Perry explains why Aerosmith got involved:

"This is a program the band and I were excited to get behind as it is a true representation of our allegiance to the New England Patriots and the city of Boston," said AEROSMITH frontman Steven Tyler. "There's something about the word legendary and the words New England Patriots that have an amazing ring to them. We're excited and proud to be part of that," added AEROSMITH guitarist Joe Perry.

That sentence. That one right there: "There's something about the word legendary and the words New England Patriots that have an amazing ring to them." That is the marketing project equivalent of finding dead fish washed up on the beach, a warning sign that there's absolutely nothing able to breathe in the environment.

There's something about the words 'marketing' and 'patronising bullshit' that taste a little of Pepsi, isn't there?

Gordon in the morning: Consumed by a Jaguar

Lan Del Ray is being paid to promote the new Jaguar F-Class (I think that must clear up any lingering confusion about what market segment she's been targeted at). It's not clear what Gordon is getting out of handing over a swathe of space for marketing blurb:

IF you had to choose a singer to be the face of a fancy new sports car, Lana Del Rey would definitely be up there.

The gorgeous, pouting star has signed a six-figure deal with Jaguar to launch their amazing new F-Type. At the very least she’s getting one for her garage too.
[...]
Adrian Hallmark, Jaguar’s global brand director, said: “Jaguar’s allure is in large part due to its unique blend of authenticity and modernity, two values we believe are shared with Lana in her professional achievements.”

Whatever you might think about Del Ray, would you really think of her as the go-to guy for authenticity? Did Jaguar do a quick google before drawing up the contract?

Zune uses Winehouse death as a marketing opportunity

Presumbly, now there's a post mortem scheduled, Microsoft thought the official mourning period was over and it was okay to try and sell few downloads off the corpse. The Wall reports:

The @tweetbox360 Twitter account, which is run by the Microsoft UK PR team, tweeted this morning: “Remember Amy Winehouse by downloading the ground-breaking ‘Back to Black’ over at Zune”.

The account has since been inundated with complaints accusing it of being opportunistic, of feeding on Amy Winehouse’s corpse, of appalling taste, being a “scumbag” and of shocking marketing.

It should be pointed out that iTunes also pulled a similar stunt, and much more quickly, when it splashed Winehouse all over the store front on Saturday night. Arguably, acknowledging people would have been searching the store for her music anyway and making it easier to find is slightly less ghoulish than using her death to try and market your entire store as a way of "memorialising" Winehouse, but it's a slim distinction and neither Microsoft or Apple have come out of this with their dignity intact.

Coca Cola to use music to target teens, destroy teeth, ultimately ruin music

High sugar sticky water Coca Cola has outlined plans to make music a little worse in order to flog bottles of drink to young people. AdAge explains:

"There's a strategic clarity of growth objectives driven by the 2020 Vision," said Shay Drohan, senior VP-sparkling brands. "We can't afford not to talk to teens. You can't think, 'Teens already know us,' and skip a couple of years. Every six years there's a new population of teens in the world."

"... and the ones we'd been talking to six years ago are probably already too busy with type-two diabetes and dental visits to care about us."

So, the plan is to spume out the Coca Cola Music project. Coke and music go together like Ross and Rachel, in that it's a relationship that nobody really quite believes works, but they keep returning to it because the people in charge don't really have any other ideas and hope we all join in pretending it's a good thing and a plausible pairing.

Coke's previous run outs in music included The Moment When Everyone Realised Jack White Was Just A Hack For Hire; that Robin Beck single; the expensive flop of MyCokeMusic and setting Michael Jackson's hair on fire.

I know, technically that was Pepsi but, substantially, they're both the same thing and really any attempt to make people drink fizzy pop might as well work as well for one brand as the other, don't you think?

So, how are Coke going to impose themselves in teenagers' lives? Is it by getting to know them as individuals, taking care to tailor their advertising messages to them as close to personally as possible?

Given the rapid growth of the teen market globally, Coca-Cola plans to take the campaign to more than 100 markets. Six markets, China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and the U.S., will house half of the teen population by 2020.

Coca-Cola has been focused on making its efforts more global in nature, something it's done for its Olympics and World Cup efforts.

"Now there's a degree of global consistency, so everyone is [targeting teens] at the same time," Mr. Drohan said. Before, one country would focus on teens one year and then another year, another country."

The company views teens broadly as 13- to 19-year-olds, which requires the marketer to "look for the highest common denominator," Mr. Drohan said. "As we go around the world looking for insights and understanding, we say, 'Is this something local that we want to tap into or is this something more universal?'"

Well done to the top-paid marketing boffin Shay Drohan for backing the hitherto never-suspect idea that teens are, broadly, 13 to 19 year-olds. You wonder how many focus groups burned up time spotting that 12 is not pronounced twoteen.

But what a wonderful idea - why not conclude that a thirteen year-old boy in Swindon, once he hides the sticky magazines under his duvet and sprays some Lynx around to hide the smell, is substantially no different to a nineteen year-old woman in Lahore. And - hey - if teens around the world aren't actually a single blob of indistinguishable marketing types, at the very least Coke's advertising department will do its best to push them a little closer in that direction.

This is partly about that thing where "fans" will "work" with Maroon 5 to write a song, none of the royalties from which will flow back to the fans. To be fair, getting British fourteen year-olds to make entertainment products that they can't relate to, and won't share in the profits of, does bring their life experiences a little closer to that of Chinese 14 year-olds working to make ipods, so let's not dismiss Coke's ideas totally.

But Coke has other ideas, too:

Coca-Cola has partnered with One Night Only, an emerging band in the U.K., and Taio Cruz, a British singer and songwriter. One Night Only has written and recorded a new track called "Can You Feel It," which features Coca-Cola's signature five-note melody. It will be the soundtrack for a new global spot from Wieden & Kennedy, Amsterdam. Mr. Cruz will be working with artists selected by teens in various markets on a track he has created.

I'm sure One Night Only's track based around an advertising jingle is precisely the song they would have written anyway, and not the actions of an already dismal band cashing in the last of whatever integrity they might have had left to pass all editorial control to Atlanta.

Of course, you can't run a dead-eyed, heartless carnival like this without having the experts in that sort of destroyed dream on board. The big question is which of the RIAA Big Four are trying to hide the stench.

Step forward, Universal:

"We are working hard at Universal to bring our artists closer to their fans through unique experiences, and we believe that Coca-Cola Music is the perfect, innovative platform to continue this," Andrew Kronfeld, exec VP-international marketing, Universal Music Group International, said in a statement.

Yes. What better way to bring your artists closer to their fans than interpolating the presence of a multinational softs drink company to sell them fizzy drinks before they get to hear a song, eh?

"The artists taking part in the program are all excited to be part of opening up the creative process to teens around the world, and allowing their fans an exclusive chance to get involved with making great new music."

He continued: "You know, the fans could be out there making their own great new music, and indeed, most of the truly talented ones will be. After all, the real revolution of the internet has been to take the controls which used to make it hard for people to make and share and distribute music, which is why we're in this right old pickle having to team up with Mountain Dew or whatever to try and shore up our collapsing share of listening... oh, shit, I've gone off message again, haven't I?"

Indeed, Coca-Cola execs across the board, including CEO Muhtar Kent, have been trumpeting the importance of teens recently. "Our success in growing our sparkling category today depends on our ability to grow and connect with teens, the generation of tomorrow," Mr. Kent said at the Consumer Analyst Group of New York conference last month.

"Our sparkling category" - that's how they talk about their product, differentiating it from the Dansai and Glaceau, which I suspect they call the "tap water we've put into bottles" category.

To put Kent's comments into less mealy-mouthed words: if Coca Cola can't hook the kids before puberty does, we're sunk.

I can't help feeling that music probably deserves better than being used to sucker kids into that.

If you really love Britney, she might give you a track

It's not unusual for pop stars to ask fans to jump through hoops in return for a freebie. This, though, is something different: Show Britney you still love her, and, erm, she'll let you buy a record:

On Monday, January 10th Britney fans worldwide will be encouraged to share a message on Facebook 2 million times.

Once this is accomplished, her new single, “Hold It Against Me” is unlocked for radio & for immediate sale on i-Tunes.

Sony Music Canada is offering the opportunity to Canadian stations to have their listeners participate through a customized Facebook widget that listeners can then forward.

In a similar move, our local butchers will put sausages on sale if we applaud loud enough when he walks down the street.

[Thanks again to Michael M]

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?

Rihanna goes for a salt and shake

I can see that in these difficult times for the music industry, you might need to explore every avenue to make a few extra quid.

But did nobody at team Rihanna think through the message this sends out?

She's already got the red-hot hair - and now Rihanna has revealed her sizzling figure in her latest racy video.

The 22-year-old Bajan beauty donned shocking pink PVC stockings and an electric blue frilled body for her new collaboration with David Guetta.

There's a spicy twist to the song too - only people who munch Doritos get to feast their eyes on the promo.

"My biggest fans will have gorged themselves on snacks." Hmmm.

Is it a good idea to get your fans to gobble packet after packet of fatty food and then writhe around in skintight PVC? There's going to be lawsuits.

Lady GaGa: For all your self-consciously wacky needs

What is the point when an artist slips from 'having a unique style' to 'being a bit of a self-parody'?

It's when they stop dressing to impress, and start punting themselves as a Halloween costume.

Lady GaGa has turned herself into a brand for Party City. It took Kiss years to reach this stage.

Iron Maiden: Marketing the skies

I know that Bruce Dickinson is a trained pilot, and has flown commercial flights, but does that really make him an obvious choice to be an airline marketing director?

He's been appointed in the role for charter company Astraeus. The Guardian reports how they explain their thinking:

"Bruce is a great communicator," explained Astraeus's chief commercial officer, Shaun Monnery. "[And] he knows the aviation industry inside out."

"In a demanding industry he is a man who can cope with pressure," Monnery said, "whether as a 757 captain or in front of 50,000 Iron Maiden fans, or senior airline and aviation managers."

Perhaps. Or, much more likely, the decision to appoint a heavy metal guy to a marketing job is, in itself, a wonderful act of marketing.