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Bands, brands and normal people

By Iain MacMillan on September 7, 2006


Stoney needs you

I was recently listening to the Dermot O’Leary Show on Radio 2 (I’m at an age when I think it’s perfectly acceptable to listen to Radio 2). His studio guest was a new folky singer songwriter by the name of Stoney. Part of their conversation revolved around MySpace and the role it was playing in helping Stoney get his music to ‘the people’. Stoney commented on how strange it was when people approached him at gigs insisting they were his ‘friends’.

Although he would have been perfectly within his rights to simply run away, he eventually worked out that these people were his ‘MySpace’ friends. It was clear that both Dermot and Stoney felt they were far too long in the tooth to understand this new phenomenon. However, the clever people at Stoney’s record company are clearly a big quicker on the uptake – and use MySpace to stream the audio tracks on Stoney’s website, thus saving themselves some cash and helping to grow his network.

I’ve always thought it quite interesting that bands on MySpace inhabit a very similar space as an individual. And as it becomes de rigeur for established bands to have pages as well as unsigned and new artists, it becomes even stranger. The new reality TV supergroup, Damnocracy, made a big thing of launching their music on MySpace, only for their page not to work for the first few days…. In the meantime, I’m sure fans of this ‘supergroup’ simply pottered off to their nearest peer-to-peer client to download the tracks for free. Rock and Roll.

For my sins, when I was a young lad, I was a big fan of Led Zeppelin. However, I really wasn’t looking to be a ‘friend’ of Jimmy Page’s. And frankly, I imagine the feeling is pretty mutual.

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Iain MacMillan

Iain founded RMM in 2006, with the objective of providing good, strategic advice across all areas of digital and social media. Nowadays, the focus is entirely social and involves the provision of more than just advice – insight, inspiration and expertise in social media. Iain leads the strategy development and training teams on most client projects.

He specialises in leading client strategy projects in a number of sectors, including finance and gambling, where RMM has conducted studies into social behaviour in highly regulated environments. He also leads projects for travel sector clients, a sector in which RMM works in partnership with eCRM sector specialist, Spike Marketing. They work together across a number of clients, most recently including Neilson Holidays, Thomas Cook’s ski and active holidays division.

Prior to RMM, Iain spent five years helping to run the web design business, Tonic, winning and managing accounts such as Vodafone, GE, GAP, MTV and Barclaycard. Before that he worked at Tribal DDB London, working on Volkswagen before heading up the Victor Chandler, Sony Europe and Guardian accounts. And before that he had a colourful career in music promotions, running the annual Soho Jazz Festival in 1997.

Iain spends quite a large amount of time trying and failing to explain to his long-suffering wife why he really loves golf, seventies hard rock and eighties pop. She remains none the wiser.

2 responses to “Bands, brands and normal people”

  1. Mat Morrison
    Mat Morrison
    September 7, 2006 at 17:13 | | Reply

    I’m not sure I can remember how I felt about bands I listened to. I was never the type of person to spend a Sunday afternoon carefully inscribing the logo from The Cult – Electric onto everything I owned. I didn’t spend lessons writing “Clapton/Hendrix/Osbourne is God” in my text books.

    But people did, of course. It worried me slightly when I first saw MySpace, this apparent blurring of boundaries between artist and audience. It struck me that there was an obvious tiering system in place:

    1. Struggling artists – people who contact me, pestering me to be their MySpace friends, possibly by hand, but more likely using a bot to do it for them
    2. Almost there – someone in much the same position, but employing someone to do their PR. Their PR person has a bot that sends friend requests.
    3. Already there – artists whose label looks after them. Don’t need to know about MySpace. Don’t need to know anything about anything. Have a bot in place, but only for auto-accepting requests.

    At no point am I talking to a real person. Not even one of their people’s people. Kids know this, Stoney doesn’t. Doesn’t matter.

    But it does mean that MySpace is already losing its “authenticity” kick. Its “anyone can become an word-of-mouth success overnight, just look at the Arctic Monkeys, and Sandi Thom.” Which was probably a myth in the first place.

    Some people collect friends on MySpace just to have them on their account – to say something about themselves. A bit like having the artwork from The Cult – Electric on your schoolbag. Or having a band-related tattoo. It’s a mark of affiliation.

    At another level, it’s just Panini stickers.

    Our error is to think that people can’t distinguish between friends and stickers.

  2. Mat Morrison
    Mat Morrison
    September 12, 2006 at 14:47 | | Reply

    In response to last month’s Facebook rebellion, Dana Boyd notes:

    Not all “friends” are friends. Sometimes, you say yes to save face but you count on those people not actually being stalkers. They don’t really watch your page with any focus so most of what you put up goes by unnoticed. But not if all of your “friends” are notified of your every move.

    So – from the users’ POV, my list of potential “friends” should be amended:

    • People who are my friends in RL
    • People who are my friends online
    • People whom I know in RL
    • People whom I don’t know, but my friends do
    • People who are in the public eye
    • People who I don’t know, and aren’t in the public eye

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