Unwittingly, that user gave birth to Internet hype.
Fast forward to the 21st century when such talk is not merely a casual suggestion between friends, but labels manufacture it to drive up sales.
Viral marketing, as it’s called, is not a new concept, nor is the Internet as a hype machine.
One example is Jimmy Eat World’s recent announcement that, along with the release of its forthcoming album, Invented (right), the band would launch a location-based social-networking service named Unlock.
The Mesa, Ariz., pop punk band is best known for “The Middle,” a short, inspirational ode to a friend which topped Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks chart nearly a decade ago.
Unlock will reward Jimmy Eat World fans who pump up the record on their Facebook and Twitter accounts with access to bonus tracks and other content from Invented.
It’s a win-win for the band’s record label, Interscope. It gives fans who were already excited about the release of Invented a reason to boost it to others on the ’net, raising the exposure of the record as well as the tech savvy members of the band’s audience.
From Interscope’s perspective, if the members of Jimmy Eat World need to hold back a song from the record to dangle that carrot, so be it.
But something about this digital quid pro quo doesn’t compute.
Sure, their fans are getting something in return, but who is helping who? The label is using the band’s fans to sell more records.
Jimmy Eat World is hardly unique with this sort of strategy. But it’s predatory. An artist’s fans help it by buying records or stopping at the merch stand at the show. Instead, this brand of marketing turns them from buyers into advertisers, as if wearing a band T-shirt and slapping a bumper sticker on your car is some sort of passe demonstration of fandom.
There are more intentionally devious examples of viral marketing than this. A friend of mine was once paid to lurk onto the IMDB.com message boards and post positive comments about movies that were given otherwise negative reviews.
I imagine this practice is done on iTunes, too, when I see comments for much-hated records with praise of the “OMGzz best record EVAR!” caliber.
There’s a balancing act to the viral marketing game. While Unlock strikes me as devious, the “Why So Serious?” effort with “The Dark Knight” or the alternate-reality games launched to promote the TV show “Lost” or Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero (right) album are just fine by me.
What’s the difference? The purpose of those is fun and asks the participant’s time. If a bump in sales comes along with it, that’s a nice corollary incentive.
There’s some thought and some effort behind them. Comparatively, Jimmy Eat World’s ploy is cheap and obvious, wearing its purpose on its smirking face.
Trent Reznor, the mastermind of Nine Inch Nails, resisted calling the Year Zero game a form of marketing, telling users on a NIN site, “it’s not some kind of gimmick to get you to buy a record.”
But, as the Bard wrote, therein lies the rub.
Whether that’s the intention or not, the ultimate outcome for Year Zero, “Dark Knight,” Invented or any of these examples is the same.
It raises awareness for the piece in the public conscience. In the long run, there’s the chance that could drive up sales.
Jimmy Eat World fans might get a song or two out of the Unlock deal, but they’re lining the label’s pockets doing it.
And, at the end of the day, that’s really what the labels want.