Queensbridge Digital

Case study: Hollywood Undead

This month, Californian based hip hop/rock band Hollywood Undead will release their long awaited debut album.

While on the surface this is just another record from just another band aiming for fame and fortune, from the digital relations point of view, it is an important event.

The Hollywood Undead were not born of a musical scene or years spent on the live circuit. They are children of Myspace.
The band were formed to release their music only on myspace, and used a variety of profile pics, bulletins, and a quickly rising count of hundreds of thousands of friends to build a purely digital fanbase.

Within one year, without playing a single concert, releasing a single CD, or even leaving their hometown, the Hollywood Undead were signed to a major label.
Even their music video was released only online.

They reached the number one position on Myspace (beating out major label stars like Rihanna) before their record deal and withouth professional representation. They had no funding, no massive marketing power, but they achieved greater exposure than Green Day.

If the Undead’s album can translate that digital success into real life, it will prove the power and effectiveness of digital promotion and the possibility of a digital music industry….

The tagline

How powerful is the tagline?

I personally recieve text messages, emails, messages, myspace bulletins, facebook messages, and digital presskits by the dozen, on a daily basis.

They pour in, as they do for everyone. I scan through the inbox, the news feed, etc, and I sort them according to worth by the words in the tagline;

If I’m interested in the subject line, the tagline, it gets read, if not it goes out the window.

So the effect of the traditional print media’s headline is holding true on the net.

While newsagents used to (and to some extent, still do) have large scale headlines printed by the side of the door, or on a billboard, we on the internet are now using these headlines in our digital messages.

However, in an effort to achieve greater exposure, these taglines are becoming more and more misleading. Myspace bulletins abound with lines about the cancellation of the free service or Green Day breaking up…clicking on these merely brings up another hum drum news bulletin.

I think this is admirably exemplified in a recent news article on the website Ninemsn. The headline was “Ricki Lee caught in Porn scandal”.

I shared the article with a number of different people, male and female, avid internet users and non users, and the reaction was the same:

All readers believed, from the headline, that Australian singer Ricki Lee had been exposed in a pornographic video or photo or something similar.

The actual article though, detailed a scandal involving an acquaintences involvement with porn several years prior to their close friendship.

If headlines and taglines are increasingly uninformative, the question arises of how will we now be able to sift through the chaff to find the good wheat?

Online Scrutiny

Here in Australia this week, a scandal has emerged after the coach of an Australian hockey team, the Hockyroos, posted this as her facebook status:

“Nikki thinks the running of the bulls should be changed & we should be chased by the spainish [sic] mens hockey team,”

“I would definately [sic] make sure I got caught and impaled!”

She apologised for her lewd remarks.

Why?

If the general public intend to snoop around the life of a sporting professional online, and take offence at something she said about herself, not a case of libel, surely they should be mature enough to deal with a mature woman’s choices?

That is her private life. Just because she coaches a well known team does not and should not mean her entire life is open to public scrutiny and censure.

Is this another example of privacy invasions afforded by the  internet, or is it a case of the public and the press not knowing their place and their responsibilities when it comes to an individual’s private life?

A Breeding Ground?

I have heard a myriad of complaints against the internet for providing a breeding ground for pseudoprofessionals. What is a pseudoprofessional? The easiest example would be this.

A friend of mine hired a graphic designer (web based) to design a new logo for him. The first warning note should have been the $50 quote….In my own design experience, a reputanle designer will charge at least double that.

The finished logo was a few letters with a photshop swoosh (seems to be a recurring complaint actually). A photoshop swoosh isnt worth even $50. The graphic design “Professional” was a 16 year old high school student with a few design programs and the school computer lab.

So the complaint is this, that the internet makes it far too easy for unprofessional service providers to market themselves as quality SSPs.

Is that the fault of the internet?
Frankly, I think not. I think its the fault of those who hire them.
A $50 fee should be a red flashing light saying STAY AWAY, not an opportunity to save money. The internet is about being smart enough to not take everything at it’s face value.

And while making that point (since this is a digital PR blog), I might also add that as PR professionals, it would ill become us to offer the same shonky approach to how we conduct ourselves in the digital world…….The net is not an excuse to conduct oneself in a casually unprofessional way, but rather a challenge to present ourselves at our best and BE at our best on our digital platform!

Jon Westenberg