Artists marketing outside of the entertainment machine

By Chris Millichap

When I was 13 years old I had a dial-up modem, a Compaq desktop, and a copy of Napster. In the eyes of the record labels, I was public enemy #1. Labels hated me for making fewer trips to Best Buy, and major artists like Dr Dre and Metallica hated me for taking money out of their pockets.

That was 1999. Fast forward to 2011. Download speeds are faster, technology is better, and the 25-year-old version of me can now access an entire band’s discography on my cell phone while waiting for a bus in the same amount of time it took me in ‘99 to download the mp3 for Smashmouth’s “All Star” (a track I am not necessarily proud of owning).

More than a decade later and the record labels and movie studios still feel their worst enemy is the pirating consumer. But they may have a bigger issue on their hands: content producers jumping ship.

When it comes down to it, record labels and movie studios are nothing more than a means for distribution and marketing. But in the age of digital downloads and Facebook friends, the entertainment marketing techniques of old have been proven obsolete.

In 2000, while Metallica and those sub-par rockers from the Great North, Nickelback, were complaining about losing money on illegal downloads, other bands who never dreamed of a record contract were seeing unparalleled success. Dispatch, an independent jam band from Vermont, had failed to find much of an audience outside of Northeast college campuses. But thanks to Napster, word-of-mouth peer-to-peer downloads spread their music and opened up doors for nationwide tours. The band broke up in 2002, but held a reunion show in 2007 that managed to sell out Madison Square Garden… three nights in a row. All of this without a single track on Top 40 radio. They announced a tour this June that has already sold-out shows at Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Boston’s TD Garden, and Chicago’s Millennium Park. All from fans who received a presale code when they spread the word about the show on their Twitter feeds and Facebook updates. In addition to the presale code, they were also given free access to the band’s entire discography.

While a small band finding success on the Internet doesn’t turn many heads at the labels, the story is different when a major established act follows suit. In October of 2007, Radiohead ended their relationship with record giant EMI to release their new album In Rainbows independently online, allowing fans to pay whatever price they wanted for the material. Their reasoning: the record label was no longer necessary. While labels felt the distribution would prove a massive disaster, the album actually came out as number one in both UK and US Billboard charts upon release.

Much the same is beginning to be seen in movies. Director Kevin Smith (best known for his cult classics Mallrats, Clerks, and Dogma) made waves at Sundance Film Festival last week when he announced he would not be selling distribution rites for his newest release, Red State, to a movie studio. His rationale: he has more Twitter fans, podcast listeners, and social network friends than any studio in Hollywood – why would he pay someone else for marketing when he can do it better himself? Instead of a wide-release, Smith is taking his movie on a road show this March, hitting venues across the country. The event kicks off at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall March 5.

So while EMI and 20th Century Fox hire copyright lawyers to chase down every kid with a computer and WiFi, they may be missing the bigger threat to their future revenues. As social media influence increases, the strength of entertainment giants as an integral part of the process is subsiding quickly. In the near future we may see the end of labels and studios, not from lost profits on illegal pirating, but the departure of artists altogether. Because it does not matter how big your company is, you can’t market what you don’t own.

Chris Millichap is a student in the Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications program at Northwestern University’s Medill School and can be reached via Twitter @ChrisMillichap.