| Of Montreal and T-Mobile and the Long Tail |
Last year, Of Montreal became the subject of scrutiny when they re-recorded their song “Wraith Pinned to the Mist (And Other Games)” with cheesy corporate jingle lyrics for an Outback Steakhouse ad. It was a benign, silly affair, that caused many a scoff, but was mostly forgotten by the release of their widely-praised and chart-registering new album, Hissing Fuana, Are You the Destroyer? Now, the band has taken a starring role in a new T-Mobile spot, (video below), and sparked up a fresh debate over the meaning of independent music, selling out, and the relevance of the old school punk rock ethos. Lead singer Kevin Barnes penned a though-provoking essay about the whole fiasco for the music blog Stereogum, entitled “Selling Out Isn’t Possible“. Definitely give it a read, and check out the comments on the post too, for some interesting counterpoints. But rather than add my opinion to the debate, let’s focus instead on T-Mobile’s perspective. Why did they make this commercial in the first place? Pretty blah, huh? Marginally embarrassing, but mostly boring. It doesn’t even attempt to grab the attention of anyone unfamiliar with the band. The ad’s purpose isn’t, as it would half-heartedly have you believe, to present a humorous vignette starring a popular music group, underlining the function of the Sidekick as a tool for “the superconnected to stay connected”. No, that more explicit function of the ad is a distant second to the simple effort to draw a link, however tenuous and superficial, between T-Mobile and Of Montreal. Everything else is a thinly veiled distraction from the melding of band and machine.  Fans of the band can be “slim” and “vibrant,” just like their heroes, by simply purchasing a T-Mobile Sidekick. “I think it gave us an edge,” says a band member in the context-less first line of dialogue. Not only can the Sidekick impart upon you Of Montreal’s slimness and vibrancy, it’s a microcomputer cell phone that gives even them– a band that you thought couldn’t get any edgier– a previously unattainable “edge”. None of this is new, it’s the way celebrity endorsements have worked since the dawn of advertising– but the unusual part here is that a national commercial is catering to fans of a band like Of Montreal (an indie band) whose greatest commercial success to date is an album that peaked at #72 on the Billboard charts.  Five years ago, this commercial would never have been made. Because this ad isn’t really for television, it’s for the Internet. Pay a few bucks to air it once or twice, and in no time it’ll be uploaded to YouTube and plastered on every blog the target audience reads. It’s the Long Tail effect starting to reach Madison Avenue. Ad firms are figuring out that if you throw scraps to a niche audience, they’ll do the rest of the promoting themselves without even realizing it. T-Mobile must be thrilled with the amount of discussion their commercial has sparked… maybe bloggers should go on a strike until they get their residuals, too. |
