Self-consistent? I think not.
Dec. 20th, 2004 07:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hirez(This was going to be a comment elsewhere, but it quickly turned into an inflammatory rant that would have led to Stropping.)
Guardian discovers Street Teams. Film at 11.
I read the thing. It's the Guardian in hand-wringing mode and Something Must Be Done to save the children from Evil Commerce.
Oh, piss off.
Y'see, the thing is that I genuinely dislike the concept of 'street teams'; It's a cynical marketing ploy dreamed up by the same coke-addled arseholes who invented 'viral marketing'. They're taking the natural enthusiasm of yer Early Adopters or yer Connectors (Or however people are codified in 'The tipping point') and trying to get 'normal' people to do it in return for notional 'Brownie Points'. As if the more rabid Macistas were rewarded with a personal phonecall from Il Presidente Jobs ("Cheers for all your money, sucker. Sorry about the missing functionality in the last release but we'll have it fixed soon. Just keep making the payments.") or rabid slashdotters given a personal visit from ESR ("This here's my M-16. D'you feel lucky, punk?") or RMS (Oh fuck no).
Street Teamsters get a badge or access to a 'special' area of the band website. Jesus.
I won't have anything to do with bands that think like that.
The marketroids have read 'The tipping point' too. They've seen the way that email forwards work. They want to harness the power of early adopters with big address books so they don't have to bother with expensive R&D or proper advertising. What's the point when we just buy what the 'cool' people are waving about?
Basically, you fucking gadget freaks are supporting an entire ecosystem of moneysucking leeches who base their lifecycle around bullshitting people into buying Shiny! New! Toys! That all the cool kids have! Do I want an ipod? No. Do I need a phone that makes films? Hell no. Do I want a wee plastic box that goes scree! scree! scree! and emulates shit blob-chasing games from shit home computers? Get to fuck.
Bill Hicks came up with the only workable solution for those marketroids.
... Yet the thing is that most of school is about ugly tribal behaviour. There's something wrong with teenagers who haven't scrawled band-names on books or clothing. I don't see how 'doing a project' on your favourite band is any different (cringeworthy though it may feel from the distance of several years later) from the slack sixth-form bastards who'd play Led Zeppelin when it was their turn to take a school assembly and tell us to 'Listen to the lyrics, because they're, like, really meaningful.' Zep? Meaningful? Yer 'avin' a right larf, pal. There's more meaning in Girls Aloud. Still, at least it wasn't The Cure...
Guardian discovers Street Teams. Film at 11.
I read the thing. It's the Guardian in hand-wringing mode and Something Must Be Done to save the children from Evil Commerce.
Oh, piss off.
Y'see, the thing is that I genuinely dislike the concept of 'street teams'; It's a cynical marketing ploy dreamed up by the same coke-addled arseholes who invented 'viral marketing'. They're taking the natural enthusiasm of yer Early Adopters or yer Connectors (Or however people are codified in 'The tipping point') and trying to get 'normal' people to do it in return for notional 'Brownie Points'. As if the more rabid Macistas were rewarded with a personal phonecall from Il Presidente Jobs ("Cheers for all your money, sucker. Sorry about the missing functionality in the last release but we'll have it fixed soon. Just keep making the payments.") or rabid slashdotters given a personal visit from ESR ("This here's my M-16. D'you feel lucky, punk?") or RMS (Oh fuck no).
Street Teamsters get a badge or access to a 'special' area of the band website. Jesus.
I won't have anything to do with bands that think like that.
The marketroids have read 'The tipping point' too. They've seen the way that email forwards work. They want to harness the power of early adopters with big address books so they don't have to bother with expensive R&D or proper advertising. What's the point when we just buy what the 'cool' people are waving about?
Basically, you fucking gadget freaks are supporting an entire ecosystem of moneysucking leeches who base their lifecycle around bullshitting people into buying Shiny! New! Toys! That all the cool kids have! Do I want an ipod? No. Do I need a phone that makes films? Hell no. Do I want a wee plastic box that goes scree! scree! scree! and emulates shit blob-chasing games from shit home computers? Get to fuck.
Bill Hicks came up with the only workable solution for those marketroids.
... Yet the thing is that most of school is about ugly tribal behaviour. There's something wrong with teenagers who haven't scrawled band-names on books or clothing. I don't see how 'doing a project' on your favourite band is any different (cringeworthy though it may feel from the distance of several years later) from the slack sixth-form bastards who'd play Led Zeppelin when it was their turn to take a school assembly and tell us to 'Listen to the lyrics, because they're, like, really meaningful.' Zep? Meaningful? Yer 'avin' a right larf, pal. There's more meaning in Girls Aloud. Still, at least it wasn't The Cure...
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-20 07:51 pm (UTC)I've got one of those. It's on my desk in the office. It's called a Bloomberg terminal.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-20 07:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-20 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-20 08:11 pm (UTC)Because they *have* to be divided - that's just human nature. We all want to know we made a good choice. When there's no fundamental difference, that pressure to divide makes unherded people into an unstable system, waiting to tip one way or the other, into mods or rockers, Burberry or Adidas.
The Executive just needs to nudge the crystallisation his way, and he's made.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-20 09:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-20 10:55 pm (UTC)I think what I'm getting at is the difference between the likes of me flyering for Mr Tails and writing reviews of Things What I Like (http://real-reviews.blogspot.com) because I like the people involved or because I really like the band and think other people might too - which is what happens when normal people talk about things to friends; and the monetization of that trope by a bunch of marketing-bastards in a meeting room somewhere.
But that's just me - I tend to feel offended if anyone offers me more than a beer for services rendered. (However, if I start to charge, that means I'd like you to sod off and never cross my path again.)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-20 11:22 pm (UTC)I don't know. Do you feel like bad people?
Date: 2004-12-21 09:38 am (UTC)For CP our "Street Team" tends to be fans/people who like the music who want to do more than buy the music. We get regular offers for people to do everything from flyer, to run some kind of fan club or take photo's. It all helps and I figure we should be able to give something back, even if it is the occasional beer or freebie.
I'm not sure I'd go as far as a special part of the bands website but I might send the guys who put us up when we travel the country a little something special once in a while. PR photos normally saved for the press, signed stuff, free pin badges (which hell we were the first band to bring back in, in the late 90's).
The marketing side for a small band is more complex (IMO) than for a large band and that would probably be best done over an Xmas beer or seven. Not that the conversation would last that long but several beers and staggering home are required by default of a visit at this time of year.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-20 09:42 pm (UTC)It's what always amuses me about the jibes from people running 15lb, virus soaked laptops with 45 minute batteries, as they install another critical update to Internet Explorer.
Who *really* has an RDF?
no subject
Date: 2004-12-20 10:59 pm (UTC)I don't meet happy-clappy Winders users. While I really do covet an OSX machine, Groucho Marxist rules apply in spades.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-20 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-20 11:12 pm (UTC)(later, deep in the hollowed-out Building 3...)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-20 11:45 pm (UTC)That i to say I agree with everything except the bit about the cure.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-21 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-21 12:53 am (UTC)I've not got the inkling for any bands popular enough to have people doing weird stuff to sell their soul for a special badge. Got way too much of that with White Wolf, and was totally sick of it within say...ten minutes of working the booth.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-21 08:44 am (UTC)I love 'phones that make films! There's much snigger potential when the owners complain that they can't make a phone call because either they can't work out how to or because the thing just crashes. Just buy a fecking phone!
no subject
Date: 2004-12-21 09:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-21 10:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-21 11:04 am (UTC)I'm sure that somewhere out there is a "Boardroom Team", who float around squash clubs in Armani suits, espousing the joys of employing Street Teams, and other such nonsense to do with leverage, segmentation, lifecycles and the like, to young and impressionable marketroids...
no subject
Date: 2004-12-21 02:54 pm (UTC)http://www.altterrain.com/street_team_marketing.htm
http://www.altterrain.com/online_street_teams.htm
http://www.starpolish.com/advice/article.asp?id=31&segment=1
http://www.starpolish.com/advice/article.asp?id=48&segment=3
http://www.onpoint-marketing.com/street-teams.htm
Of course, market-speak has saturated our lives. I more than likely promote the 'hirez brand' by 'aligning' myself with 'tastemakers' who are 'on the street', but perform this 'below the radar' so as to 'keep it real'.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-21 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-21 05:54 pm (UTC)And good at what we do.
I wish we had a street team....I'd fully endorse it!
Sadly, nobody loves us and thus no street team...no publicity at all.
Just word of mouth really.
That might make us good people...
...but it does us people no good.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-21 07:19 pm (UTC)You know, you've a real talent for writing. The rhythmic build in that paragraph (one to two to three syllables in the 'responses': No...Hell no...Get to fuck) is masterely.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-21 11:05 pm (UTC)