Tonight I’m going to Norman, to what will no doubt be an awesome live show. Guster and The Format have teamed up together on The Campus Consciousness Tour, to raise awareness of environmental issues.
The bands are aiming “to educate, inspire, and activate students, and above all leave a positive impact on each community and college/university that the tour reaches.” I’m excited to see both of the bands tonight, no matter what their reasons are for going on tour. Guster has been on my music radar for about 5 years now, and I am a huge fan of The Format, as many of you know from an earlier embarrassing post.
Within the last year however I’ve been impressed by The Format, not only because they released Dog Problems, a stellar follow up to Interventions + Lullabies, but because they have created a model for how a band can survive and market itself, and without the support of a major record label.
In 2005, The Format was dropped from Atlantic Records. They formed their own label for the release of Dog Problems, sarcastically named Vanity Label, and are using a company called Nettwerk for the distribution of their albums. This has given them the push of a major music label, in getting their albums into all of the major outlets, such as the Best Buy’s, Wal-Mart’s around the world, without getting pushed around themselves.
They also get a much larger percentage of royalties. This may seem like a dream scenario that every band should wish for, but one important part of the equation appears to be missing. Who is left to do the publicity and marketing for band? The answer is, The Format, and they do it very well. They may not have BA’s in marketing and public relations, but the band is resourceful. They exhibit some of the best examples of how relationship marketing and networking should be done. A true connection with fans goes along way.
If a band is loyal to its fans, the fans loyalty will extend twice as far. The same is true for businesses and customers. If a business is loyal to its customers, the customer’s loyalty will extend twice as far. Format, thanks for the lesson.
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