Turning piracy into marketing

Clever record label exec's and marketers have realised that they can't fight the way the digital music industry is changing, and have picked up ways to turn what is considered piracy into great innovative marketing tactics.

Using peer to peer file sharing applications and downloading sites - they are slowly sneaking advertising into our free music we love so much. The best example i have seen (because it is viral) is the band Yellowcard - they place 'snippets' of their new tracks onto the net for free - and encourage people to download and share it - with the promise that once enough people have sent it around, the rest of the track will be 'unlocked'. Genius

For the Gin Blossom's campaign - when hopeful music seekers searched for the band and tried to download a song, they got a pop-up asking them to enter a comp to win an ipod full of the bands music. Through this you build a database of marketing details, of people who are actively seeking that specific artist.

Jay-z and Coke tied up to do a campaign that was hugely succesful in terms of p2p marketing, which proves this as a viable marketing channel. Things will change again, and advertisers will always find a way in - and it's interesting for us to see what they come up with