The music industry is in a state of flux. Let’s be honest, the way by which record labels were able to monetize via album sales has flown the coop. Enter Tom DeLonge of Blink 182 fame. He has said that Blink 182 was a band that had no voice whatsoever. But with his new band Angels & Airwaves he believes it carries a massive message about being optimistic in the future and plans to use that message as the vehicle to change the way music is marketed and delivered. An ambitious goal considering the music industry is ripe and in need of fresh ideas.
So how is Tom going about doing it? Well the first three albums of Angels & Airwaves are supplying the soundtrack to a movie called Love. Here is the 3rd album and movie teaser here:
Both the album and the movie are coming out on Valentines Day, 2010. Here is the movie trailer itself:
Pretty impressive right? To this point Tom has successfully created a huge buzz using:
- 1. Twitter (84,858 followers)
- 2. Facebook (91,373 fans)
- 3. Modlife (well over 100 podcasts)
- 4. Social Bookmarking (Stumbleupon, Digg, etc for link juice & exposure)
- 5. Traditional Mailing List
- 6. Youtube (1760 AvA videos), Hulu, Vimeo
- 7. Press Releases
A solid blend of traditional marketing with social Media! Tom has successfully built a massive buzz that he can market directly to. One problem, he isn’t following 1 person on Twitter! I am going to hedge my bets that this will be a success and an amazing case study when it is done. I can’t deny thinking though, how much more productive would the project be if Tom was a bit more open to suggestion?
One other observation! This is not a full-fledged Social Media project. If it were, there would be collaborative components. However it is using Social Media effectively to generate buzz and be viral. Look no further then the inspired fans creating videos of their own and chatting up the movie and 3rd album in virtually every social channel. How many man hours it has taken for it to get to this point? I wouldn’t care to know! Something to think about when your business engages- you need to go all in-resource allocation and all! Tom DeLonge understood that and burned many night hours of his own time to get here. Let’s see how his vision plays out!
