Everyone becomes their own best marketer
photo by Karen MoskowitzThere's a really good band called Maktub ('It is written,' in, I believe, Arabic.). I get emails from them once in a while so I know when they'll be in town; even if I listened to the radio, they wouldn't exactly get a lot of press there.
They started offering what they're calling MARC7 memberships: for $50 you get your "name in the liner notes, a signed CD, and a few other perks..." Pretty cool if you're a fan - I'd likely do it if I had 50 extra bucks and one of the perks was Reggie shaving off his hair, making it into an afrotastic wig, and giving it to me.
I haven't heard of other bands doing this, but I'm pretty out of the loop anymore music-wise, so I wouldn't be surprised to see this increased level of personalization coming out of bands looking to increase both their revenue and their ties to their biggest fans, and is only one of many possible strategies that will be coming out of a music industry forced to reinvent itself. This is similar to Bowie's attempt to offer an IPO on himself a few years back, which I've always thought would be a cool idea. Why shouldn't we be able to invest directly in our favorite writers, musicians, artists, athletes, comedians, MBAs, whatever? If you could invest in someone, you'd be giving them some income through the hard times, you wouldn't have to buy another tshirt for the pile at home, and you'd be taking a vested interest in their future monetary success if they ever struck it rich. Can you imagine the return if you'd gone to www.owenandlukewilson.com/ipo and picked up a few shares after seeing Bottle Rocket in the mid 90s?
hmmm... some savvy developers could come up with a system to make it easier to meet legal requirements of filing earnings and loss statements, etc., and I could buy stock in their company as well as their clients, thereby avoiding any real work other than coming up with the cool idea.
Maktub's got a new album coming out soon - add it to the list of things you'll be buying me for my birthday, and then stop by badjuju.com/IPO and invest in our future.
UPDATE: The new album, Start It Over, should be coming out early October.
posted by jim at 4/17/2007 10:21:00 AM
4 Comments:
I also get the emails, and for a brief second I even contemplated shelling out the $50. Then I decided that the tickets + CDs + t-shirts I buy are enough, given my level of enthusiasm for this particular group. It's a great idea though. Now if The Shins were to offer something similar...
I hope Maktub comes back to Ferndale again soon.
FYI, Rob emailed the keyboardist a while back to find out what they were up to, if they were working on a new album (before the most recent emails). Turns out the band was on hiatus after the guitarist was in a really bad car accident. He was in physical therapy for a while, and his girlfriend died in the crash.
Jesus, that's terrible.
I'm sure they'll be back - both shows have been successful.
Marillion does the same.
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