Static Live Magazine November 2018

“Guerilla Marketing”
We’re going to take a slight detour from the road to DIY
booking and veer off into the realm of guerilla-style marketing.
Many years ago, my bandmates and I used to literally
dumpster dive and come up with the weirdest most asinine
ways to promote our shows in town, turning any large scale
object we could find into the canvas for a “show poster” for
an upcoming gig. This would be anything from a 1970’s hotair
balloon printed twin mattress to a plywood painted cutout
of a “chef” holding up a menu board. We would print out the
details of our shows and tape or staple them to the objects
and “deliver” them all over town as a means to advertise our
upcoming shows. Granted, this may be an eyesore to local
businesses or an inconvenience for the local garbage pick
up company (sorry), but we were all about that punk rock
guerilla marketing. So, did it make you look twice and catch
your eye? You betcha. Did it make you want to come check
out our next show and see what the weirdness is all about?
Oh yeah.
But on a larger scale, let’s check out a few examples of the
most epic, punk rock marketing campaigns that were so asinine
that they actually worked. Punk rock is a state of mind,
not a genre of music, and it pumps through the veins of all
great artists, pushes the limits of traditional promoting, and
opens the floodgates to the masses. So buckle up, and take
notes, kids.
Cryptic Symbolism Coming to a City Near
You-ARCADE FIRE
In August of 2013, Indie Rockers, Arcade Fire, secretly released
a series of cryptic symbols of a circle with a diamond
in the middle and the word ‘reflektor’ in several cities worldwide.
This was the beginning of a large scale artistic announcement
of a new record to be released after several
years of silence. On August 26th, there was an announce-
26
ment made via a large mural in downtown Manhattan that
alerted fans to be on the lookout for something coming in
September. A few days later, the group finally announced
the details of the record that would be released officially in
October. Arcade Fire’s guerrilla-marketing style of worldwide
graffiti drew a lot of attention and praise from fans, yet also
received criticism for inciting vandalism despite efforts to use
materials that were easily removable. Either way, this enigmatic
campaign caught the attention of fans and bystanders
alike. Art? Vandalism? Vandalism in the name of art? You be
the judge.
DIGITAL TIP JAR - RADIOHEAD
In 2000, Radiohead’s lead singer Thom Yorke was on the
verge of a total breakdown due to the pressure of full time
touring and promotion that the group decided it was time to
take a different approach to the release of their next album
“Ok Computer”. This album was the first of its kind to be
released entirely digitally including a special fan-based website
for previewing and pre-ordering of the album. Following
this release 7 years later, “In Rainbows” was famously
released as the first ‘pay what you wish’ album where fans
determined the amount they would pay for the album from
free to whatever they thought it was worth. This “digital tip
jar” format literally rocked the world of traditional album purchases
and was an interesting transition from the physical
world of album sales to the digital world that rules today.
THE PREDECESSORS OF POKEMON - CUT
COPY
Australian Indietronica group Cut Copy spearheaded the location-based
media phenomenon back in 2013 to promote
the release of their fourth album “Free Your Mind” They
constructed billboards in countries worldwide and instructed
fans to visit these locations and open the band website
which actually allowed them to preview their latest single
from the album once they were on location.