I woke up this morning and checked my personal blog. Overnight, my blogging partner had posted a fan-made video he found for a clever song ("Code Monkey") by an independent musician whose name and work I had never heard of. After viewing it, I went to Jonathan Coulton's site, thanks to the Web address on the screen at the end of the video. The site had a ton of content, including a blog. Moreover, I could listen to all of his songs for free there. If I had wanted to download any, they were a buck apiece, with "albums" available for a discount. I subscribed to Mr. Coulton's podcast, which includes a new song every week, reminiscent of They Might Be Giants' longstanding "Dial-A-Song" service. Many of Mr. Coulton's songs were downloadable at no charge at all; one of these was titled "Podsafe Christmas Song."
Stay with me here.
Digging deeper into the site, I saw that Mr. Coulton is currently touring with Daily Show regular John Hodgman. Mr. Hodgman also plays the PC in the Apple "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" ads. Reading Mr. Coulton's bio revealed that Mr. Hodgman is a friend, but I didn't know that until reading the blog. I bought a ticket to a show that Mr. Coulton will be playing in December. If I had wanted it, a T-shirt that appeared in the video was available for sale, along with the typical extended range of gear available via CafePress: mugs, mouse pads, baby bibs and on and on. I did not buy a "Code Monkey" thong.
Within the course of 15 minutes, I had seen the video, heard the song, been to the site, read the blog, bought a concert ticket, subscribed to a podcast and made plans to buy the T-shirt. I did not go to iTunes (although Mr. Coulton's work is there, too), MTV, Google, Amazon, Virgin Records or Wal-Mart. I did not listen to the radio. I did not go to MySpace. I did not even go directly to YouTube, since the video was embedded in the blog.
Online video was the hook for the transaction, but saying that this is an online video success story misses a larger point. Granted, music video watchers accounted for the most streams in June 2006, according to a recent Ipsos Insight study. That study found more than twice as many people streamed music videos as watched movie trailers online, and longer-format content like TV shows and movies were still further behind.
Mr. Coulton's marketing savvy may be misconstrued as driven by the popularity of YouTube and iTunes, both of which carry his content. There is no doubt that iTunes and YouTube are success stories in their own right; both were among the top five music and video downloading Websites among US Internet users ranked by visitors during June and July 2006, according to market research firm BIGresearch.
The problem with chalking the ticket sale up to YouTube or iTunes is that tastes differ, and anyone with standards would say that, according to them, there are millions of bad songs and videos on every site. More bluntly, if a video sucks, it does not matter how tightly integrated the other parts of your strategy are. The idea is not just to aim a shotgun filled with online marketing pellets of every size and shape and see what hits. The reasons why Mr. Coulton's approach works also are not easily reduced to a formula whereby x dollars in = y ROI. In this case, total marketing campaign costs were approximately zero: No online ads were placed, he did not make the video, CafePress gear requires no upfront costs, etc. It is the combination of a large amount of free entertainment content, spread virally by trusted sources (in this case my blogging partner), and the promise of new material that got me to sign up and shell out for the show.
I only hope I haven't de-cooled my favorite new artist by writing about him for marketers. ;)