Paradise City is Filled With Dr. Pepper

A few months back I ripped Dr. Pepper for running one of the most contrived music tie-in promotions I've ever seen.

This week the brand revealed a new music promotion that is so patently absurd it might be genius. 

Just about any music fan or industry employee knows that the world has been waiting for 17 years for the massive rock band Guns N' Roses to release their $13 million+ new recording "Chinese Democracy."  Whether or not GNR will actually ever release this money pit of a record has been an industry parlor game for years.  The band has launched intermittent, controversial tours, and even performed on the MTV Music Video Awards show - all leading to speculation about album release dates and final album track listings.

Dr. Pepper decided to take that parlor game to new heights by pledging to give everyone in America a free Dr. Pepper if GNR releases "Chinese Democracy" in 2008.  I find the effort to be laugh out loud funny.  It's a promotion run solely to give the brand some free PR - and it's working incredibly well.  The effort got coverage in the NY Post and W. Axl Rose himself has responded to the "Dr. Pepper challenge."

Here's the Dr. Pepper/GNR blog link.  I give Dr. Pepper kudos for having the cojones to actually execute this effort when so many brands are plain timid.  While every brand measures results based on ROI it's nice to see a fun idea with very little "I" just be allowed to have its own life

When you can even get a recluse like Axl to play along with the gag, then you know the brand struck the right tone.

Comments

[Peryer]

>>When you can even get a recluse like Axl to play along with the gag, then you know the brand struck the right tone.

Or wrote a big check to Azoff

[Stuart Sullivan]

Your style of rant is very Lefsetzian (or perhaps, the reverse is true). He condemns the Wal-Mart exclusive model, while you embrace it, at least partially.

I agree with whatever a band wants to do to make its money. It's a free country and they have the right as much as anyone else. So there, Bob Lefsetz.

And to you, Peter Kohan, I say that Wal Mart has the muscle to make this happen and makes a few $$ on each CD sold if not making it a loss leader. There are so many stores that simply don't benefit from selling a pre-recorded CD anymore. Unless you're Wal-Mart or Target, a sensible P&L is getting pretty hard to imagine.

[Peter Kohan]

Stuart - First off, not sure why you're making a comment about my Wal-Mart post on my Dr. Pepper post, but I'll respond nonetheless.

I didn't think I was giving a rant at all. I thought I was making a pro-forma business case for retail brands to consider using music exclusives in a similar manner to Wal-Mart's to help achieve particular sales, marketing, and branding goals. I think the benefits in doing this will be different for each brand that adopts this particular tactic, depending on the brand goals and the artistic/commercial success of the particular album it chooses to focus on.

If a brand is trying to increase traffic at a particular time of year, if a brand needs to develop a better PR profile, or an attractive impulse item at checkout: these are three particular goals which can be achieved by doing a CD exclusive.

If you check out some of my other posts I argue that most artists on labels do some degree of "selling out" to corporate giants every day, first and foremost the record company they are signed to and the radio, video, PR, and Internet outlets those artists need to rely on every day to expose their music to the masses.

What I admire about the Wal-Mart exclusives is that here is a company that always uses its muscle to achieve cost savings, and one that is always rumored to be exiting the music category altogether... yet here they are garnering exclusive after exclusive, remaining committed to driving customers into their stores and proving to them they can provide shopping solutions well beyond an entertainment exclusive.

As I stated in my post today - I think artists are much less concerned with the consumer's music shopping experience than that customer's experience shopping for JUST their album or catalog.

I will certainly drop a rant here and there, but I thought of the post more as a wake-up call to retail brands who have dropped music off their radar screens as a strategic tactic to reach multiple corporate goals.

Talk to you soon.

Peter