Times Have Changed For Weird Al
As a long time fan of Weird Al, hes stuck around through the ages. From records, to tapes, to cds, to mp3’s and beyond. For being around as long as he has you have to adapt to the current climate in order to survive.
When Weird Al first started out, he was able to parody a song, put out his single months later and the media moved so slowly it could still be relevant. Best of all he wouldn’t have any competitors. However, in today’s fast paced, technologically advanced and most of all highly competitive world it’s not so easy to stay relevant. That’s why Weird Al took to internet marketing to promote his newest and last album Mandatory Fun!
Weird Al’s Internet Marketing Strategy
Recently, Weird Al’s 32 year long contract with Sony ended, causing him to find other means to promote his album. Of course, MTV is no longer actually about music television to that was out of the picture. This caused Weird Al to partner up with popular video content sites such as Funny or Die, Nerdist, Yahoo and College Humor. It turned out to be a win-win situation for both parties, as Weird Al’s content appeals to the viewers of such funny video websites and in return he got his music videos produced and promoted for free!
Weird Al produced 8 music videos for 8 songs from his new cd and released them all one day after another. This ended up working perfectly because in today’s fast paced world, videos and viral content have a short shelf life. All of his videos gathered millions of views and ended up creating tons of buzz for his latest cd, propelling it to the top of the Billboard 200 chart for the week!
An In Depth Video Explaining The Weird Al Internet Marketing Phenomenon
The Future For Weird Al
When Weird Al first started off, he was the first majorly successful person to parody popular music videos. Now he has tons of competition from amateurs that get just as much publicity. Social video websites such as YouTube, level the playing field when it comes to viral content and publicity. No doubt, Weird Al has been doing this for quite a while and he mentioned that Mandatory Fun would be his last full album.
Sadly, Weird Al stated that he would only be doing singles from here on out. However, this should be a great strategy as doing singles will allow for more focused parodies than having to create an entire album.
In today’s society it’s amazing that not only does such a legendary parody musician have such competition from ordinary people with cameras and internet access. But also, to be able to harness the power of the internet to create such a buzz for almost anything, is equally amazing. As long as you have a genius marketing strategy of course!
That’s it for this article, thank you for reading and make sure to drop your comments, questions and concerns down below!