How to Take a Musician to Market…

I absolutely hate trying to market or promote musicians.

Why?

Nothing against musicians – I love them. But I’d argue that as far as products go, a musician is the hardest to sell.

I’ve written for a few of them. Every time I begin I start to feel like a fraud. I default to the standard. I feel I have no where to go but to promote them as something ‘rare’ and ‘unique’ and ‘talented beyond their years or time’. But the fraudulent feeling starts (no matter how talented the artists) when the truth comes out that they have just had the same start and story as everyone else. They’ve all picked up instruments when they were young, all had natural talent, all had it nurtured by trials, tribulations and triumphs, and all have bared all as they sat up on stage and paired their experience to a few eloquently chosen chords.

It’s ironic really. A world of music, an endless arrangement of chords, no two voices alike, and yet every musician’s story stems from a handful of basic truths (as listed above).

Recently, I’ve been going out to musical venues more. From choral concerts to my old folk-based haunt, I’ve been listening with a different perspective to try to build an angle on the sounds, and see how to pitch on a high note.

After a recent night out, I jotted something down in my journal and I felt like I had had a lightbulb moment about the heart of what differentiates one musician from the next.  Here’s an exerpt:

Writer’s Log, Star Date TBD

There’s something surreal about this place. The old century home smells like a church mixed with a bar. The crowd that gathers is a mish-mash of twenty somethings in top hats, and old timers in baseball caps. The artsy and the true.

From where I sit, the music is pulling something out of me, making me feel nostalgic, making me feel the weight of a hardened heart for all the verses on soured love that ring true, and lifting me up when the notes fall on the lighter subject of being loved and loving freely.

In truth, no one really cares how the musician ‘broke through’ in their musical career other than the other musicians that are trying to do the same. No one cares as much about artist’s journey as much as where the song takes them, the listener. These days the artists are near irrelevant, it’s the music that’s taken the center stage. And the reason why we want the music is because we want to see ourselves. We want to transcend what we see as a daily grind, as a trial that happens to everyone, we want to feel special and recognized and romanticized and other-worldly. We want to feel eloquent and elevated, profound and epic. While I sat there listening, I felt all of those things about my tiny little ordinary life and it made me feel recognized, validated, and, in the magic of the flowing sound, special.

Now how to use that angle? How do you market that? How do you sell it? If music is a mirror, how do you get people to recognize themselves and be transported away?

Personally, it’s made me feel like press kits and bios are almost a waste of time. If fans are made by ear, then should all musicians simply shut up and sing until their heard?

These are the things I ponder.

 

 

Is 3M VAS a Marketing T800?

Tags

3M, 3M Visual Attention Services, Eye Tracking, marketing, Technology

Today my mind got blown. It wasn’t an A-bomb scale explosion, but it was, none-the-less, an interesting little grenade that I hadn’t seen coming…and it was branded by 3M.

I’ve seen many commercials and documentaries about idea engineering and the insidious ways that marketers get inside the minds of their consumers. But today I moved from being a voyeur of the marketers battle for consumers attention right into the cockpit of an ad clutter fighting machine.

3M, known for its innovation, decided to take a break from making interesting scotch tape dispensers to release 3M Visual Attention Services or 3M VAS.

In simplest terms, 3M VAS is a digital tool that will scan the visual landscape of your ad space and determine where a consumers eye is drawn first, in those crucial, initial 3-5 impression making seconds. The results that 3M VAS spits out look just like a thermographic image and bring a literal vision to the figurative ‘hot spots’ that a consumer’s eye is drawn to. You can scan any graphical landscape, from something as basic as an ad banner, to a website, to a large scale snapshot of Times Square.

Here’s are a few examples of the results VAS produces:

 

The technology has been described akin to eye tracking studies, but much more powerful and quicker to use (you can use 3M VAS from your iPhone…yes, there’s an app for that).

My initial thoughts on VAS were that it really brings the battle between advertisements for consumer attention from the figurative into the literal. It looks like war technology. VAS works with the understanding that people are drawn first to colour, edges, faces, shapes and contrast and puts this knowledge into a marketers hands like a competition killing machine gun. It’s just a little creepy, despite its obvious power.

Thermographic images? Algorithms? Human behaviour boiled down and leveraged?

Any marketing tool that functions by taking advantage of what biology has hardwired as our most basic, animalistic behaviour make me feel like marketers are, on some level, quasi-evil masterminds… always walking that precarious line between good advertising and propaganda.

How much power do marketers need before leveraging brain function turns into mind control?

But on the note of power, I do think that as powerful as it is, VAS’s application is still limited. When we design advertisements, we do it in a way that allows one graphic to be used in many different applications – from print, to web, to billboards. To use VAS in an environment where we can control the competing elements (such as on a company website for instance), makes sense, but to take it to the external world where our ads are competing with other visuals that are out of our control, VAS simply isn’t as effective of a tool. In order for it to be most effective, we would have to be open to modifying our designs based on unique environments (e.g., one ad for the highway, another for the bus stop). It just doesn’t seem time or cost effective. Or at least that’s my initial thought.

Like any quasi-evil mastermind, learning about 3M VAS sent a tiny shiver down my spine simultaneously as I wondered how I could best use it.

Only time will tell how this tool develops or dies in the ever brutal techno-evolutionary landscape.

To learn more about VAS, click here.

Giving without Giving Anything Up

Tags

gifts, ideology, success, talent

In the last year of my science degree we were required to take a ‘philosophy of the environment’ course. Upon discovering this, most of us grumbled harder than when we found out statistics were mandatory.

The main reason for the grumbling was that the philosophy course was taught by professor Smith – a prof notorious for the way he consistently challenged what was taken to be environmental fact. In my four year degree he was the first and only to point out the holes in the global warming theory (the hockey stick curve is actually based on faulty analysis), and the first to describe recycling as just “organized garbage”.

He regularly made us gasp and recoil and before throwing his hands up in the air and asking us to prove him wrong. Hands folded over our chests, we sat in silence, most of the time, unable to refute. For whatever reason, rather than being horrified by his claims, I was enthralled by his guts. He quickly became one of my favourite profs and I had been excited for the philosophy course.

When we got the outline, it showed the class to be what most would call a “bird course” (you’ll fly through it no problems) with light assignments and light reading. It wasn’t enough to stop the grumbling though, because now the sense was that the course was a ‘waste of time’. Our required reading included the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and Who Stole My Cheese? There were books on organizing your time and workbooks on ‘defining success’. In class discussions, we talked about getting into the world of work after graduation. Most of us had started applying and were finding the job market to be very difficult. Smith suggested we start our own companies if no one would hire us and just figure things out as we went. The eye roll was audible.

As it turned out, the course proved invaluable to me. It changed my life. Not only had Smith caused me to question the validity of the environmental crusade that I had thought I was on (save the earth!), but he called me to define what it is that would make me feel like a success. I had never put it into conscious thought. I hadn’t had to. It used to be defined for me, blatantly obvious.

Up until that point I had been doing things as I thought they should be done and looking at success as something that came after I did everything I should do. In the success equation, the input of the outside world was weighted heavily. I had figured I’d get a job, work up the ranks, rake in the cash, relish the brass title on my desk and indulge in fancy things – one day, with my feet up, thinking “I’ve made it”.

Throughout the course, I realized that these things – the money, the title, the social status, are things that the outside world may or may not give you. Society holds the power and you dance their dance, to their beat, and change step as you’re directed, hoping for the payoff.

I hadn’t thought there was a different way. I hadn’t though about what I could give myself. Success of my own definition, my own reward. I started to think that maybe what I could do, with my given talents (and nuances) could be more powerful leverage in gaining “success”, than simply adhering to a formula based on what I thought I should do.

I tested out my theory on the last assignment of the course. We had been required to write about how we impact one another with attitudes – or something along those lines. It was specified to be an essay with sources (cite the books we read), but I wrote a story instead and cited myself. I illustrated through metaphor, I created characters, I had fun. I put my best talent forward and stepped outside the guidelines and did something gutsy. I submitted the assignment with my hand over my face as my one finger hit the send button…

Then I was sick for the next class.

When I wrote in to explain my absence I was surprised by the response – Smith told me that he had read my story in class that day – it was too bad I was sick. My mark was the highest granted.

I felt a little rush of risk return and affirmation.

Later, when I went to prof Smith’s office to pick up my assignment I met up with him and his wife in the hallway. He introduced me by name and her face lit up “OH! The writer!”

At that moment, the $40K price tag that my education had come with moved from short term to long term investment (I knew I wasn’t done yet).. I re-classed it in my mind, at the exact same moment realizing that I’d just spent the past four years placing a thousand useless facts on a pedestal they didn’t deserve.

It sounds very frou frou even to me, but I don’t know how else to describe it. After that course, I imagined a different world of success – where we give of ourselves – our talents, our knowledge and our gifts – without losing our energy, our patience, and our minds – because we’re not getting back what we think we should as per societal guidelines. We simply just “do” – we give by playing to our talents, by allowing ourselves to be ourselves, living our best life, and create a success beyond outside measure.

I titled this blog “Giving without Giving Anything Up” but maybe that’s not accurate, because I did have to give up my old ideas of what I should be doing with myself. However, I feel that that even that loss was a true gain.

 

 

 

In Case of PR Emergency..Adjust Level of Transparency?

Tags

corporate transparency, crisis PR, marketing, reactionary PR

Something happened at work today. Previously, I had only seen and worked on in it in class, but this morning it became three dimensional, pulled out a seat in the meeting room, and rudely rested it’s elbows too close to mine: the dreaded “reactionary PR”.

No matter how great your company is, sometimes damage control is still necessary. Unforeseen things can and will happen to ruin your carefully crafted plans. It’s Murphy’s law.

This was a given, but what surprised me most was my reaction. In the classroom you’re beat you over the head with the message that transparency is always best. If you’re not open and honest when something goes wrong, then you have no way of controlling your reputation. The pillar of lies  you rest on, can and will crumble. It’s the BP Oil clause in Murphy’s law.

But despite these well known laws, I still didn’t want to let the whole cat out of the bag today. I really struggled with whether or not to publicly address an issue, or to allow the public to use other avenues to complain & address those complaints quietly.

I’ll never discuss my work’s personal business, but I would like to illustrate the dilemma with a completely hypothetical and weak example.

Imagine you’re a new coffee shop owner, and you’ve got a great launch plan. You’re hosting a grand opening event that will conclude with a draw for great prizes (cups, coffee, gift cards, etc). On the ballots, you’ll collect valuable email addresses and demographic info & get an audience for your weekly coffee newsletter.

On launch day you’ve got the press out, your shop is full, business is bustling, people are happy, everything seems great. At end of day, you host the draws and announce the winners (who are ecstatic). But when you’re about to close up and the shop is slowly emptying of people, you overhear something troubling between some customers as they’re leaving. They’re upset they didn’t win and think the draw was rigged because the box you pulled the winning names from looks different from the one that they entered their names into. After everyone is gone, you bring it up the troubling comments with your staff, and learn that there was a mistake. Staff had placed an extra entry box out and about half of the people who came through the store had placed their name inside the extra box. You find the box and see that it’s still full of names. These customers had no chance of winning.

As you sit at home with all of your collected email addresses and prepare to send out the first coffee newsletter you wonder “Should I say something about the ballot mixup?”

It seems somewhat harmless to leave it be, but if you don’t address it, some members of the public may think that you’re a shady business owner who hosts fake contests in order to collect marketing material (names & emails). These customers may never come back, and they’re likely to tell their friends.

In the newsletter you have included a special email address for customers to contact you with their feedback, concerns or suggestions.

Is the feedback option enough? Or do you acknowledge that you heard some customer complaints, the issue was identified, and that it wouldn’t happen again?

My office unanimously agreed with the latter. The majority of me did too, but I was surprised to feel the internal struggle to stay mum… to adjust the level of transparency, so to speak.

How would you feel?

An A to B Epiphany

Tags

blog writing, epiphany, inner reflection, readership, sociology

I spend a lot of time thinking and writing about people. Rarely can I look at someone and just see the surface or listen and only hear the words they say. I’m always searching for meaning and waiting for something revealing that goes a little deeper than the naked eye can see or ear can hear.

When I started this blog I decided to make it about life, people and marketing. At first it seemed like a really convoluted way of going about things. I’ve always heard that a blog should be specialized and focused to gain readership. So I kept thinking – perhaps I should take myself out, take out reflections on people and society, and keep it to marketing.

But the more I think about it, the more I realize that the awkward equation that I originally threw into the blogosphere (you, me and marketing) makes the most sense. You can’t have marketing without society, you can’t have perspective without yourself.

This realization was one of those times that I did the jig in the light of my validation while simultaneously rolling my eyes. Duh, another obvious fact pulled out like an epiphany..

But sometimes, these things happen. Forgoing what you ‘think’ might be the right approach and going for what you ‘feel’ is right can often feel wrong, but only until you take the time to stop, think, and see what you’re doing. How many times have you been driving and realized you weren’t sure how you got from point A to point B? We’re always capable of seeing but not always capable of realizing how we are reacting to what we see.

Anyways, I could ramble on forever about analyzing myself, analyzing people, and analyzing why we value what we value and how that plays into the minds and hands of marketers, but already I’m rambling too much!

Originally I had wanted this post to be about the very fundamental 4 P’s of marketing. That post will have to wait till tomorrow because I just needed to take this break and share my obvious “ah-ha” moment with you (how very Oprah-esque).

Goodnight people

 

Day 1 of Adult Elementary

Tags

careers, fear, first day, fresh start, interviewing, marketing, professional development

Today was day 1 of a new job. School was in session. Life felt refreshed. New me, new cube.

Like all first days it began with an inordinate amount of preparation, a highly scrutinized wardrobe, and me arriving much too early just out of sheer anticipation.

As I was getting ready to leave our apartment this morning, I thought about asking my boyfriend to take a picture of me, a la 4 year old, lunchbox in hand, posing by the doorway. We could later caption it “Her first day”. I giggled to myself. Why do all first days feel the same?

It was months ago that I was sitting around a table with my boyfriend’s mother when she said “You know, I heard that people are more afraid of succeeding than of failing. Even though we always think it’s the other way around.”

It made me pause and think. I’ve always been much more afraid of failure so I tried to understand why a fear of success would exist. All I could come up with is this:

If we discover what we are truly capable of, we can no longer do any less.

So much for blaming the world for our problems. So much for blaming genetics and IQ test results, geography, sociology, the economy and the kid that teased us in 2nd grade. If we discover that we are truly brilliant – If we find that when we put ourselves to task that we can succeed or even excel, the comfort of excuses goes out the window and we’re left in the cold reality of what our naked hands were born (or have grown) capable of. We are suddenly accountable and in control and hence much more likely to blame ourselves (ugh!) when we perform below our standards.

I have come to think that this “fear of success” is part of the anxiety involved in a “first day” of anything. We’re setting expectations and making first impressions. It makes me wonder if, when we feel that need to tread carefully, we are also subconsciously setting the bar mid-way too. Leaving room for success but not yet revealing what we are fully capable of. Leaving room to blame the external world if we fall short.

It’s a thought. I’d love to hear some other theories. Even if there’s some truth behind my hypothesis, it doesn’t mean that a fear of succeeding is necessarily wrong. Maybe it’s just human nature. Protectionist, per say.

As I sit and tent my fingers and I wonder, something tells me that maybe I just made  case against succeeding ..and that the truth is actually elementary, dear Watson. Elementary.

Digital Marketing and A&R for Curious Musicians and Everyone Else

Tags

and music, linus entertainment, media tv radio, sales pitches, tim fraser

For anyone who’s ever wondered what a Digital Marketing Specialist does, or how to get one’s attention at a record label, then this post is for you.

Welcome to part 2 of our interview with Tim Fraser, Digital Marketing Specialist at True North Records and Linus Entertainment: Canada’s oldest independent Canadian record label and home to Lynn Miles, Catherine McLellan, and the Waillin Jennys (take a free listen here).

Part 2: Pushing product and selling voices

GPYL: If I look-up the wikipedia definition, I see that digital marketing encompasses all forms of media: tv, radio, internet, etc. Can you explain a bit more about how digital media is used specifically in the record industry?

TF: Most anyone that we are attempting to pitch or market to will be asking for material to accompany the pitch and the formats are 100% digital these days: from EPK’s and label E-Blasts to social media (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter) stats and numbers of followers.

Pretty much every aspect of the music industry has some sort of digital marketing component attached to it: licensing/royalties, Canadian Music Fund Grant applications, sales pitches to retailers to pick up and distribute product, music placement in a variety of places (movies, video games, live sporting events, ad campaigns etc). Everyone wants evidence of artist/label involvement in the digital world (e.g., social media involvement and website traffic, digital sales and placements on websites like gooveshark, spotify,lastFM, MOG, etc). It’s my job to assist with securing these placements and raising these stats.

GPYL: What aspect of digital marketing do you think that people underestimate?

TF: The amount of “selling/pitching” involved, or the need to be constantly thinking outside the box and coming up with new/better ways of marketing your product. The music industry is one that is incredibly reliant on changing technology. You really need to stay ahead of the curve and anticipate where things are going, or what’s going to be the next BIG thing and be there before it hits the general public.

GPYL: When people talk to you about your job – what are you most excited to share with them? What are they most curious to know?

TF: As cliche as it sounds, I’m most excited to try and introduce them to new music that they may not know about.  As someone who is always looking to discover new music, I think I just assume that most other people want to hear my sales pitch about artists i’m currently working with that, in my opinion they “need to know”.

As soon as people find out you work for a record label, all of a sudden they start telling you about how they wrote a song once, or are one of the best guitar players in existence, or they start to tell you about their experience with famous people “in the industry” .

I couldn’t possibly count the amount self proclaimed “best friends” of artists like Murray MchLauchlan, Bruce Cockburn, even Bono that I have met, or the number of people who feel they should have MADE it in the industry, but blame pop music, or the major labels not knowing what real music is….

GPYL: Ooo, and on that note (ba-da-dum-ching!), what can you recommend for musicians who are trying to “make it” and get signed?

TF: I would have to say the biggest mistake that people make when they submit material to labels is not doing your research to find out what kind of label you are submitting to. A lot of people tend to  think that “carpet bombing” the industry with your demo is the way to go, but make sure that you are sending your demo to a label that works with similar artists.

As far as timing goes, Q4 tends to be a really busy season for most labels. We’re gearing up for the holiday season and making a big push on the product we have released in order to finish the year as strong as possible. During this time there may be less time that is devoted to listening to demos. Summer months tend to be a bit slower on the “release” side and might serve you a bit better in getting attention.

For the most part, there really isn’t much of a difference between EPK’s or physical CD’s and press kits. There isn’t one that is listened to more than the other, or taken more seriously.

I would say that the most effective demo submissions I have ever seen are NOT the ones that send in a copy of their fully produced, double album with 20 tracks showing off the artist’s “musical diversity”…The best approach is the time tested K.I.S.S method (Keep It Simple Stupid) 3-5 songs is more than enough, and make sure that you are leading off with your BEST song.  The sheer amount of press kits that come in to labels is staggering, and most of the time your submission will have 1 chance to impress.  And by one chance, I mean about 60 seconds (if you’re lucky). If your song hasn’t gotten to the chorus and hit really HARD by then…it will get a big PASS.

GPYL: And that concludes our 2 part blog on music and digital marketing. Hope you enjoyed! A big thank you to Tim Fraser for offering up his time and expertise.

Tim Fraser is a Music Industry Arts graduate, recording engineer and digital marketing specialist. He’s dazzled crowds with his sax playing prowess as part of the band Angry Agency, recorded bands from across Southwestern Ontario as co-owner of Trackfire Records and written and released his own full-length self-titled album (available on iTunes).

Saving the Music Industry from the Fossil Record

Tags

artist, band, concert, marketing, music, musician, performance, record labels

While some say it’s in trouble, others have already posted its eulogy, but either way, the record industry has seen better days. Falling sales, bankruptcies, departmental sell offs, artists dropping representation and law suits against music piracy all add up to major label meltdown.

While the dust continues to settle on the impact of the new digital age on the majors, a new dawn is shining light on a free for all explosion of unknowns, YouTube sensations, self-publishing artists, and an uprising of mini-indies, all snubbing their noses at major label representation.

So the question becomes whether or not there will be room left in this new world for the majors of yore? They know they’re in the fight for their life and must adapt, but how will they do it?

Graciously weighing in and filling in the blanks in a 2 part interview is Tim Fraser, Digital Marketing Specialist at True North Records and Linus Entertainment: Canada’s oldest independent Canadian label and home to artists such as Bruce Cockburn, Murry McLaughlin and Gordon Lightfoot.

Part 1: An industry insider’s view on dusting off and moving on as an old label in a new world

GPYL. Be honest, can the music industry be saved?

TF: Yes I think the music industry can be saved. Music is something that is important to the a vast majority of people. Live music hasn’t suffered in any way, even with the slumped economy, big shows are still selling out across the continent. The main thing to remember is that most of all the creative industries go through peaks and valleys, but no matter how hard people try and bring us down, people will always continue to make and listen to GOOD music for years to come.

GPYL: In today’s day and age where many artists are choosing to forgo label representation (or create their own mini-indie-labels), what benefits and advantages would you say that major labels still offer artists that they’re not likely to obtain on their own?

TF: It’s true that more and more people are going it alone these days, and although the internet/youtube/iTunes has made it easier for artists to keep everything in house, there are still areas in which labels still help artists.

GPYL: Such as?

TF: Licensing music out to film/television/advertising companies is one that can be very hard for a completely independant artist to accomplish. The Music industry is very much a “who you know” business, and labels give an edge on everything from music placement to being able to get on bigger tours with larger artists. Having a well respected label promote and vouch for your band will certainly help you out more than just having a lot of Youtube views.

GPYL: Ouch.. But YouTube views have launched a lot of people into the limelight, including getting attention from labels. You think there’s a disadvantage for riding the YouTube fame train?

TF: One trap that artists have been falling into more and more these days with Youtube is the cover song….More and more people are strictly doing cover versions of their favorite song. While this can get you very popular and a lot of facebook followers and views (e.g., Boyce Avenue and Tyler Ward…both of whom have well over a million views), ask yourself how many of these Youtube stars have been able to make the transition from cover artists to mainstream music fame? Chances are you’re not going to come up with many, if any at all. Even when these cover stars have released original material on Youtube, they tend to have less views and a larger number of “dislikes” than their cover counterparts.

GPYL: Some believe that what has crippled the record industry is it’s inability to adapt to the large amount of free exchange between artists and the public (or, unfortunately, music piracy at large). Do you think that there’s a way to leverage giving music away as a “gift” and still keeping the industry alive?

TF: Absolutely, I truly believe that in the next few years you will see more and more smaller, indie bands taking the Radiohead/Nine Inch Nails model of “Pay what you can” for their material.

I do not believe that there will ever be a time when people are not pirating/stealing music…that’s just a hard fact that can’t be ignored.

The one aspect that hasn’t slowed down over the years is the Live show…it seems like no matter how high ticket prices are being driven up with ever increasing “convenience fees” people are paying for the live experience.  This is something that musicians and artists need to realize, and embrace.

Having been involved in concerts from pretty much every aspect, from performer, to band manager, to festival sponsor selling artist merchandise…the one place people are willing to shell out money for your music is right after you put on a killer show. People tend to be so entranced by the EXPERIENCE you just gave them, that they forget about how they can download every song your band has ever recorded in 5 minutes, and break out their wallets to take that experience home with them to relive again and again.

GPYL: Thanks Tim Join us tomorrow for part 2, when we explore what goes on in digital marketing at a large label and how to be a smart-submitter & get your music heard.

Tim Fraser is a Music Industry Arts graduate, recording engineer and digital marketing specialist. He’s dazzled crowds with his sax playing prowess as part of the band Angry Agency, recorded bands from across Southwestern Ontario as co-owner of Trackfire Records and written and released his own full-length self-titled album (available on iTunes).

The Genuis Between the Black and White

Tags

Black Swan, careers, creativity, emotional intelligence, genius, learning

It’s day 4 or 5 of the unshakeable ache. The pressure in my head has brought me to near delirium.. (right now I’m typing with my eyes shut). So what more appropriate to indulge the urge to jump off the edge of my sanity, than an evening, just me, myself and the twisted and dark film: Black Swan starring Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman.

I know it’s an older release; I’m notoriously late on watching movies, so bear with me if I’m stating the obvious.

I had thought that this story was all about jealousy (stolen leading parts and betrayal). What it actually is, is an inside journey through the cognitive dissonance struck when Natalie Portman, ballerina, lands the leading role in the classic “Swan Lake” and finds herself having to split herself in two in order to play both the romantic, pure and tragic “white swan” and her seductive and cunning twin “black swan”, who steals the white swans true love and thus traps the white swan forever in her swan form…

I don’t mean to stray into the realm of the spiritual here, but I’ve heard before that if there’s a lesson or ‘message’ you’re supposed to learn in your lifetime, you hear it many times over from many sources as the Universe’s way of slapping you upside the head.. “Listen here..”

What I ultimately took from this movie, and what I’ve been hearing a lot of lately, is that genius is found in between perfection and failure.

Natalie was a great technical dancer, a perfect white swan, but when it came to letting go, to becoming the dark and seductive alter ego, she tried to do it by the book and failed every time.

I watched her and thought about how this relates to the human struggle. When we’re young, we’re taught that certain actions, “technical dances”, are what leads to perfection, genius, success and happiness. This is especially in school and in jobs that require no creative action (e.g., read the script to every customer, say the catch phrase, test the auto part like this, mark it and move on)..

We’re so bombarded by this way of doing things, that when we lose that structure, when we’re unleashed from school and graduate to real life, we start to feel like we’re losing our mind and our way.

When the parameters of achievement are not all defined, we try to “seduce” when we don’t know how. We tell the boss what we think he/she wants to hear. We show up every day on time, complete work to deadline, close up our computers at five o’clock and pray for a raise when our scheduled review comes up. There’s a fear (that I feel too) that if we let go of the persona and become ourselves, throw out odd ideas or try to do our jobs a little differently, that we’ll ‘lose’. We’ll be mocked (“that’s a stupid idea..”) or worse, fired.

I wish I could talk about how to let go of the structure, but I’m still learning that imperfect, flawless dance. The one in which you “let go” and let the world see you, in all of your strength and vulnerability.Plus, I’d assume that everyone goes about finding that genius their own way. There’ can’t be rules on the path to outside the box thinking.

The one thing that I do know is I’ve met a lot of people that I didn’t like but still respected because I could see that they weren’t meaning anything personal by unleashing their personality.. they were just being themselves..Most of the time, hearing their outspoken ideas have made me clench my fist and think “I was just thinking that!” and wishing I had spoke up..  If this sort of respect is true for how I see others, maybe that can be true for how others see me.

Perhaps with enough knocks over the head, the Universe will win a round with my psyche. Until then, I’ll keep treading lightly, taking leaps and even failing, till I’m dancing.

 

 

When Inanimate Objects Dress-Up

Tags

ad campaigns, creativity, guerrilla marketing, public relations, publicity, social networking

It’s Halloween. Outside the window of my dimmed out apartment, little ghouls and goblins, super hero’s, princesses, and tired parents are out trick-or-treating.

But the only scary thing about me right now is my sweatpants. I’ve got a monstrous headache that’s been lingering for the past few days.  In the spirit of a Halloween cure – I just crushed a few bowls of treats. I’m not sure if it’s the fat, sugar, salt, OR the extra strength pain killers I’ve been also eating like candy, but I’m feeling somewhat better… so what do I do? I blog of course..

I sparked up ol’wordpress and fired up the search engines to bring you a gallery of photos of things dressed up as other things… a masquerade of great marketing campaigns.

If you’re interested, most of these pics are taken from www.creativeguerrillamarketing.com, www.topdesignmag.com (check’em out for more examples!)…. yes.. I am somewhat of a pirate this Halloween (muah-ha ha!).

Vijay Sales BBQ

Anti-Graffiti Campaign

Quit Smoking Campaign

BC Highland Games

Campaign to Stop Child Hunger

Frontline Flea and Tick Spray

Volkswagen Golf GTI

KitKat Take a Break Bench

McDonalds Coffee

Nivea Good-Bye Cellulite

Playstation PSP

HBO’s True Blood

ESPN

So that’s all she wrote for tonight folks. Hope you have yourself a safe & happy & creative Halloween.