“They certainly seem to be writing my lyrics for me; if I’m ever stuck for an idea I go and read them.”- Thom Yorke
Thom Yorke said this about unofficial Radiohead sites, but he took the idea one step further. He got the fans, other artists and the media to do all his advertising for him for free. The entire promotion for “In rainbows” consisted of a hastily typed entry on the band’s website from Johnny Greenwood.
Four lines on a website and Time Magazine writes about you. Four lines on your own website and MTV wants an interview. Four lines on your website and New Music Express wants to write about you. Four lines on your website and everyone who is anyone wants to interview you.
This type of marketing is nothing new, and while it’s true the interest is a consequence of their work and the profile of the band built up over many years, it can be repeated.
It’s called Guerilla marketing- low budget, high impact marketing. While Radiohead certainly doesn’t want for funding would they have achieved the same impact with posters on bus shelters?
Impact on marketing has to be measured not just from the number of potential buyers you reach, but the cost and lasting effect. So when Lily Allen shifts the plum in her mouth across to the other side and gabs at Radiohead as being “Arrogant,” Thom Yorke must be wryly smiling and saying to himself, “Keep on selling those Downloads for me Lily, I’ll be here long after you OD on heroin,” because that’s what she is in fact doing- selling more albums, getting more press for Radiohead.
Guerilla marketing is effective even if you don’t have a profile. Here, in Adelaide, a quarter of the way through the year the city was inundated with Fliers, like news paper banners asking, “Who shot Paris?” with a date and address written at the bottom.
These were cheap, photocopied fliers wallpaper pasted to anything that was vertical and a few things that weren’t (famously, a passed out punk woke up with one glued on his leather jacket). The consequence of this marketing campaign was a sold out first show. I later learned from a reliable source that the whole marketing campaign cost AU$20.
The initial campaign for Radiohead cost the sum total of 0; nothing; nada; zilch.
Many would argue that Radiohead have crafted a model that is a capitalists wet dream and this is the case, but not the motivation; by working the way they have Radiohead have forced a change on the industry, avoided the unnecessary purely capital orientated mechanisms of art (such as labels, promoters, marketing companies) and offered themselves up to the mercy of their fans- and a tender mercy it has been.
The other face of the coin is that while the result is assumed to be a capitalists dream, the mechanism itself is their worst nightmare- it relies on people having a choice, not being required to think or act in a certain way and is very difficult to model. In a nation like Australia where tipping is rare, how could you ever believe you’d make money, would Simon Daly, the “Falls Festival” organizer have the confidence to ask people who come to the New years festival, “How much will you pay?”
To make money the Radiohead way you have to plan for the worst and hope for the best- the worst being you don’t make a single cent. How do You?
