The Wellington Papers Headline Mercury Lounge 3/25/2011
2011 started off with a bang for The Wellington Papers with a near sold out show at Mercury Lounge in January. Continuing the momentum each month with more shows, an URB Magazine interview and new music on the way, the group has been invited back to headline Mercury Lounge on Friday March 25, 2011. Doors open at 10:30 PM and the guys hit the stage at midnight. Make sure to head over to Ticketmaster to get your pre sale tickets today, as the last show at Music Hall of Williamsburg sold out before doors even opened.
Charlie Sheen & Social Media Responsibility
The recent and intense media focus on Charlie Sheen and his manic breakdown has begged the typically cliché media questions:
“Should we be glorifying rich celebrities with drug problems?”
Or, “Why do we continue to enable the obviously misplaced white male privilege?”
Sheen broke all records on Twitter last week, gaining 1.78 million followers in less than a week. No one else, not even Oprah or Obama or Beiber, has gotten so many so fast. Behind the scenes though is Ad.ly, the Los Angeles-based startup that helped Sheen open his account and gave him some advice on how to keep fans engaged. Ad.ly isn’t the only company involved with this, Twitter itself rushed to give @CharlieSheen a verified account within 24 hours of the account going live (Twitter no longer verifies accounts, but they made a special case for this).
The question comes down to Social Responsibility. Do the parties involved with this matter have a big pay-day? Absolutely. But when does it stop? Sheen is an adult, and he hasn’t, for instance, been involuntarily committed. So there’s an argument to be made that nothing unethical is going on here. But the truth is how far can this go before we all want to turn our heads away?
As social-media experts, we all have the ability, knowledge and expertise to do what Ad.ly did. But is this how we really want to use our talents? At the end of the day there is an unlimited amount of clients and pay-checks out there, but only one chance to lose (or keep) our integrity.
Ian’s Pizza Revolution: The Value of Free
The value of “free” in today’s economy is continually overlooked when it comes to marketing and branding, however was an essential part to how some of the biggest brands built their business. From giving away a DVR to sell cable service to offering Flickr for free while selling the superior FlickrPro to serious users. Ian’s Pizza, a local Madison, Wisconsin chain, is a perfect example of this – a perfect pairing of marketing and business ethics.
Ian’s outpost on Madison’s famed State Street is just a block or so from the capitol square, where for the last two weeks hundreds of thousands of protesters have demonstrated against proposed measures in the new governor’s budget bill. Last Tuesday, Feb. 22, near 2 am when Ian’s closed, protesters asked if the shop wasn’t doing anything with its leftover pizzas — and might it send them over to those camped out in the capitol in protest? After the donation, calls started coming in and one of the customers told Ian’s that she had a lot of Twitter followers and could she encourage her followers to donate to Ian’s Pizza to help feed the protesters. A pizza revolution was born.
Anyone watching the #wiunion Twitter tag, the hashtag for the protests, saw Ian’s name and phone number tweeted and retreated many times. Fritz guesstimates that Ian’s had delivered upwards of 35,000 slices of pizzas in the last week, all paid for by donations.
Goodwill goes a long way in brand equity, and Fritz’s company is now not only the buzz in Madison, but also has had national press coverage from The New York Times to the Huffington Post to CBS News to The Onion. But this press isn’t just about his good will, but also on solid business practices. Fritz cuts off donations once they hit critical mass on the production & delivery of pizzas each day, his goal isn’t to become rich off of this (which would be easy in his situation) but to help feed the hungry protesters. And internally all of its full-time employees receive health care, and 401k benefits. And the brand “franchises” but only from within. Employees of Ian’s grow to propose their own stores and then, if things are right, supported in the endeavor.
As Chris Anderson states in his book “Free, The Future of Radical Price”
“In the digital marketplace, the most effective price is no price at all.”
The Wellington Papers URB Magazine Interview
A few weeks back we had The Wellington Papers sit down with Alex Chapman of URB Magazine to discuss the groups history, music inspiration and direction the guys are heading. It is always great to see things like this turn out amazing, make sure to check out the interview here.
BANKSY AT THE OSCARS – ORGANIC MARKETING 101
Banksy’s movie “Exit Through the Gift Shop” didn’t win the Academy Award for Best Documentary at the Oscars, putting to rest the wild speculation of what the famously anonymous British street artist would have done where he to accept the award. Aside from the 200+ individuals that tried to get into the Oscars claiming they were Banksy, the bigger concept at hand is the organic marketing campaign Banksy set out on that did not include Publicists, Press Releases and media done in the typical way, but just a wall and buzz.
