Doing It Wrong
Having worked within the great dark machine called “Major Labels” for a few years, I’m familiar with their endless layers of bureaucracy, red tape, out-of-touch-ness, and an overall bad attitude towards the people that support music. The great disdain, or the lack of care, for true mavens, those that podcast, write blogs, make mixtapes, run radio shows, etc. is astounding. And you wonder why people turned away from you, “Major Labels”.
My friend Rudy runs a successful and popular internet radio station was in talks with “Major Label X” about a twitter contest for one of their bands. Lets call the band “Skydivers”, and the label “Alerting Church”. Let it be known that it was “Major Label X” was the one reaching out to the station, asking for their help, not the other way around. Rudy agreed, she is a fan of the band, and is more than happy to get them exposure with her listeners. After Rudy gave the green light “Major Label X” turns right around and asks if Rudy, a college student, could please write up a legal document that would secure “Major Label X” ‘s rights and safeguard them from any wrongdoing. I have been to “Major Label X” ‘s offices, and I have seen entire floors of lawyers. Why they’d ask for the person doing them a favor, to also go through the extra work of drafting a legal document, I have no idea. At this point Rudy would’ve been well in her right to tell them go find some other idiot to do that, but out of loyalty to the band she actually did draft a short document.
Next up, “Major Label X” demanded that the contest prize would be a whopping ONE MP3 of the band, and only for the sole winner of the twitter campaign. They also demanded it was a “secure download”, whatever that mean these days. Expose many thousands of listeners to our band please, and you can give away ONE MP3! Woo!
Get the flub outta here “Major Label X”.
Doing It Right
“Major Label X” could’ve also done this another way. How about showing gratitude and respect for Rudy’s help, and using the tweet campaign to give away the song to ALL of her listeners, giving away a full album to the sole winner, and provide an option to sign up for the “Skydivers” mailing list for a chance to win the “Super Prize”, which could’ve been a t-shirt and a signed physical copy of the record. That would’ve set them back about $10. They would’ve also reached many more people, rallied the existing fan base to enter (they already have the download being given away), increased their reach, generated more leads for sales, increased the e-mail list, and established a more positive environment around this promotion. It’s not rocket science people.