Here Today... Gone To Hell!

 I think I get it...

---> We will get massive promotion at the very last minute... a couple of days prior to the album release. It will be short and intense. It will be fresh for everybody. fresh for the consumers we are.

For those who worry for the "no-promotion" strategy right now, don't, I'm pretty sure it will happen at some point. It makes people talk and worry, go through different emotions, up and downs, that's what they want. Emotional Marketing... ;)

---> This is the silence before the storm.

Maybe... I think it's more likely that they're setting themselves up to release the biggest flop in music history though. :no:

OUCH, I wouldn't go that far.  But, they are going to be in for a surprise - most people aren't going to be rushing out to buy this cd like a lot of board members would like to believe. 

If it's good, it will speak/sell for itself. 

yeah...when it's out the buzz will be huge...and there is always after the release to heavily promote it :yes:

I want a Guitar world article on every GnR Guitarist since 1995....should make for a nice sized issue :rofl:

@ redfield, well if it does flop then Geffen doesn't have to piss away the marketing money for it :hihi: it's doesn't have to be #1 on the first week for it to be a success :peace:

It won't flop. Impossible. Even without promotion it will sell. And what we need is new music from Axl and the guys. We need to see that we were right to trust them.

I like your idea nesquick :yes: A huge in your face promotion, non-stop for 2-3 days. Radio, TV, press, worlwide.


You're right Neemo.

AFD wasn't a success imediatly either. Look now.

Meh seriously.. as long as the album is great I'll be happy. If its great and doesn't sell well.. well, in 10 years people will talk about how it was ahead of its time.

The only reason I would want the album to sell extreamly well is so that Axl would play a majority new song setlist. And in hope that the second and third record would come out.

Anyways.. theres going to be promotion. Didn't Tommy say in 04 that there was going to be music videos for the album n stuff? I'm SURE theres going to be promo.

It's just like the tour, if you think about it...

I sure was irritated not knowing when the Chicago dates went on sale... ?but low and behold, I got my GA tickets, and I didn't have to get them on eBay.

Same thing with the Hammerstein tickets...

As frustrating as it is, I think it will benefit the true fans. ? :yes:

Now where is the damn album?! ? ;D

I think that they're considering the no promotion thing because promotion costs money and they figure that their hardcore fanbase will be there and do some street-free promotion..

just a thought...

To all the people worried about the promotion:

What's the question asked in every interview and article on the planet right now in relation to GnR.

There IS promotion going on.  It's subtle, but it looks like it's been pretty effective, all things considered.

How can we promote something if we keep getting censored?

If advertising for the album comes out in Sunday newpaper circular ads (with the cd coming out 2 days later) - the news of the release will be all over these boards by 12:00pm EST. ?Word will spread like wildfire, thanks to retailers just placing the advertisement on their circular print. ?

From there it would spread to media/news outlets. ?

Seems like a strategy that would work. ?: ok:

i agree, how can the fans promote when they know dick themselves!

I'd say 99.9% of us are in the dark, when one of us fans know - we will all know.

is the 0.1% a mod by any chance! :rant:

maybe, but I am not one to speculate  :rofl:

I would... $13 million bill to make the record. ?A quiet release without an announcement as has been suggested would result in word-of-mouth selling it. ?All word-of-mouth will ever do is generate a small cult following, which for something like Pretty Hate Machine by NIN was all that was needed to get the attention of people.
With this album, a small cult following won't be nearly enough to make a success... for the album to be successful in any sense of the word, it needs to be nothing less than a mega-hit.
I'm speaking from Geffen's viewpoint here... why risk losing so much?

I think it'd be a waste of money to start promoting it too early. ?Most people will disregard the early promotion because they won't believe the album is actually coming out. ?Most bands start promotion early so that people start thinking about the band again and know that they've got a new album out. ?Most people (I assume) know that there is a GNR and that an album "is coming", but they take any release date with a grain of salt.

What GNR needs to do is release the album and from the day beforehand until the week after just promote the shit out of it. ?If you're telling people "New Guns N Roses album in stores now", which is something people have never heard before, as opposed to "There's a new GNR album coming in 4 weeks", which they've been hearing for 10 years (from the media), they are going to pay alot more attention.

This will also create a shock factor because if people hear, it's coming out on Nov 21st, then when it actually does come out, they won't be too surprised because they knew the date in advance and they'll have heard about it. ?If it's all of a sudden out and they didn't see it coming, they'll be surprised because they almost wouldn't belive that it could come out without they knowing about it (given that it's considered a joke and we're always hearing about a date). ?This might encourage people to give it a listen and maybe buy it.

Personally I think it's coming out on the 7th of November. ?Jarmo is coming to N/A and is following the tour from the 5th onwards. ?He's gotta know the date of the release and it makes sense that he'd want to see the transition from BCD to ACD (Before Chinese Democracy to After Chinese Democracy), which is why he's going to the show on the 5th of Nov. ?

If I'm wrong, then my other thought is that they'll have a single and a video out by the start of the tour so that they can at least start playing a new song that fans will be able to sing along to.

redfield, Geffen made their money back alread tenfold on the GH album and the videos being released to dvd.  There is no "$13 million bill anymore". 

The start of the tour's in 5 days time. ?They better get moving quick if they're gonna have a single out by then. ;)

Not to beat a dead horse (pun intended), but the '13 Million Dollar' number is more of a myth or rumor than anything else ? :-\

I would guess the name 'Guns N Roses' should move several hundred thousand copies of the cd alone. ?It probably won't debut at #1 on the Billboard Chart, but if the music is good, there's no reason that would prevent it from becomming a commercial success. ?

They made a bit of it back... but there's no way they made it all back.

Wrong, I've stated this before, just because they sell 1 million records at $13 bucks each, doesn't mean they made back $13million profit.

This album WILL BE PROMOTED!!!

I'm sure you know that good music doesn't guarantee good sales.  There are plenty of great albums out there considered commercial failures.

I dont think its a coincidence that the Eddie Trunk Interview is re airing this weekend.....


and also this album DID NOT cost 13 million.....3 ALBUMS, studios,band members,muscisians,engineers,producers, etc ALL  cost $13million


so if all goes well the band will make up that money and then some with 3 album releases and touring....


the ball is not gonna roll its gonna fly

Very true, but go back to the name here. ?You aren't talking about a good indie-on-a-major label release here, regardless of the players this is still Guns N Roses. ?Many casual fans have the 2002 VMA's carved into their memory as "new" GnR. ?With a new album, with good music out there, that can easily erase the bad or undecided memories of these casual fans.

Let's see, if GH sold 3 million copies, and profit on said album was like $4 (Since there was no recording cost nor marketing, the profit was probably higher) ?Let's assume the DVDs sold 300,000 copies combined (Conservative estimate?) ?Profit on a DVD with no promotion ranges anwhere from $2.50 to $10.00. ?Now to be sure, Geffen doesn't reap all the profits from the DVD sale, but I'd guess it's a good chunk. ?It's not hard to see where they made their money. ?

For the record, I think they will spend a ton of cash to promote this record. ?

Nine Inch Nails were one of the biggest names in music when they released The Downward Spiral.  Just 5 years passed between that and The Fragile, and the name didn't stop that being a commercial failure.

they made no CD money back on GH because a GH was also a record that was on their contract...they won't start making money back until CD is released...think about the way a company thinks...they coulda released GH without dumping money into Chinese Democracy

If GnR are going to have CD in the Sunday circular ads prior to the Tuesday release date, I'll know about it at least 3 weeks before. That's the very last final cut off point for changing art and copy, before sending it to the printers. All the circulars for November and early December are in various stages right now, and I have yet to see any hint of GnR. But hopefully that will change.

I agree with The Fragile comment & comparisson (by the way - I liked that album). ?Not to take away from Trent Reznor, but Axl is Axl. ?There has been more hype and mystique put into him and this album over the last decade than some legendary folk stories.

Either way, mark me down for two copies  : ok: ?We should have all of our answers within the next 2 months *crosses fingers* and we can all quit speculating and arguing about the same shit (we will have new things to bitch about)  :hihi:

Now, correct me if I'm wrong lefty, but I would think the record companies might have to pay to be advertised in a 'Target' or 'Best Buy' Sunday circular, is that correct?  Which is considered marketing/promotional costs.

Co-sign on The Fragile. ?Brilliant album. ?Definitely one of the most under-rated ever.

Here's the breakdown I was able to find on CD revenue distribution. ?It's on a 15.99 CD.

$0.17 Musicians? unions
 ? ?$0.80 Packaging/manufacturing
 ? ?$0.82 Publishing royalties
 ? ?$0.80 Retail profit
 ? ?$0.90 Distribution
 ? ?$1.60 Artists? royalties
 ? ?$1.70 Label profit
 ? ?$2.40 Marketing/promotion
 ? ?$2.91 Label overhead
 ? ?$3.89 Retail overhead

I'm not going to extrapolate down to 12.99 because, honestly, GH CD's are bigger money makers for a label, anyway, because much of the production and overhead is already paid for. ?So, assuming they make about $1.70 per CD, on 3.5 million units, they've made back about 6 million back, of the reported 13 million they gave as an advance. ?I'd actually venture that number is a bit higher, since marketing and promotion and label overhead were actually probably about 1/2 of what they would be on a new CD. ?I, too, doubt they've made all the 13 million back, but would bet the GH has made them somewhere between 6 and 10 million, though the min/max range is between 5.5 and 15.5 million.

PS: That 3 1/2 million number is US only, so....I guess you could look at it that it's entirely possible that GH covered the entire advance based on world wide sales.  The entire advance and then some.....7 million copies (assuming that number is correct) x 1.70 is 11.9 million so even at the bottom range it's almost covered it.

Redfield, Greatest Hits has probably sold 7-8 million, maybe more, worldwide. They have more than made their money back for Chinese. In the end, we have know idea what the financial wranglings are and who is paying what. Why do you care anyway? If the first disc is moderately successful, you will get a second album from these sessions-no doubt. Factor that in to the equation as well. Geffen/Interscope will recoup at some point just from Chinese. Not to mention the millions upon millions upon millions thay have made off the Gnr brand over the years. Geffen can stick their 13 million in their ass as far as I'm concerned. Mr Rose has brought them alot more money than they have brought him.

That's the point... if it's moderately successful.  If they do what has been suggested, there's no hope of moderate success.  Just a small cult following.

The advance would likely have been against the entire contract, too...not just CD. ?I suppose it COULD have just been CD, but given Axl has always said he's working on all three albums at the same time...and given the large number thrown around (13 million) I don't think that's too likely.

thanks for that breakdown pilferk...I've always wondered what it would look like :beer:

You mean if they do things like they did with Appetite.....

Because that's essentially what everyone seems to be suggesting. ?Appetite dropped with little to no fan fair. ?It was word of mouth and awesome reviews by the press that sold the album, initially. ?The label didn't really get behind it til the grass roots had already driven sales pretty well.

I'm just saying.....

How about it's released on Nov. 7th?  An album titled "Chinese Democracy" is released on Election Day in the US?  Makes perfect sense.   :hihi:

As other people have said... when Appetite was released, they had nothing to prove. ?It wasn't potentially the label's biggest release of the year, and it certainly didn't cost them as much.

No problem.

I'm looking at the breakdown and trying to get a feel for what would be different for GH. ?Here's what my "vibe" is:

 ? ?$0.17 Musicians? unions (fixed)
 ? ?$0.80 Packaging/manufacturing (Given it was a digipak, you can probably take packaging and cut .10 off)
 ? ?$0.82 Publishing royalties (fixed)
 ? ?$0.80 Retail profit (fixed)
 ? ?$0.90 Distribution (fixed)
 ? ?$1.60 Artists? royalties (relatively fixed but given the number of covers...it might drop a bit..say .20)
 ? ?$1.70 Label profit (well, it will increase by whatever we remove from the list)
 ? ?$2.40 Marketing/promotion (reduced by 25%)
 ? ?$2.91 Label overhead (Halved)
 ? ?$3.89 Retail overhead (Fixed)

So, what I come out with as a guesstimate is you can add approx .60 + 1.45 + .10 + .20 to the retail profit of 1.70. ?That brings the profit to almost 4.05 using a pretty logical and conservative estimation (feel free to poke holes and I'll adjust accordingly) for GH.

If that's even close, on US sales alone, you're talking 14 million.

Edit: Adjusted Marketing to be not halved but reduced by 25%.

All of which has nothing to do with whether the strategy worked, or would work, this time.

And CD is likely NOT being pegged, by the Universal brass, as their biggest release of the year.  It's an unknown quantity, to them, I'll bet.

As for "costing as much"..I think we've given a pretty good indication over the past few threads that Universal has likely recouped a good portion of the "cost" of CD already.  It looks like it can only really MAKE money for them.

that is crazy so if AFD went 15 times platinum, lies 5 times, uyi 1 & 2 7 times each, tsi once, live era gold and GH 3 time platinum it looks like all those guys are fucking rich :hihi:

Thanks for researching and posting Pilferk, but I'll have to disagree with a few "adjustments" you made. Mostly the Artists Royalties. Granted the covers may not need to goto GnR, but they do need to goto who owns the rights to the original (Bob Dylan & Paul McCartney), so really you shouldn't decrease that, possibly it will increase for borrowing the song.

Second Label overhead , they have employees and staff's salaries to pay, and they need to generate revenue to pay them. This would be included in Label Overhead. Don't think that it'll be halved just because it's a GH

Third, I think halving Mrkt'g/Promo may be a bit drastic. Because it has no NEW songs on it and no supporting tour, I would think it may need to be promoted heavier (ads in Magazines, in store promotions, etc). Even if a GH is less, I don't think it's 50% less. Just my oopinion.

Well, the last isn't a huge deal, only $.20 but I'm not sure what you meant by a "digipak" (I never bought the album, never needed to)

A digipack is a cardboard case, as opposed to the clear plastic ones.

Actually, I saw some GH TV ads here in Brasil (wich is REALLY rare and I remember there was nothing like this with Live Era). So, I think they did some promotion...

There were a couple of TV ads here, too.  And some full page magazine ads.

I've seen both digipak and standard packaging for GH...bit odd.

all it takes is one killer single...  then CD will take off.

we have no idea what they have up there sleeve.

All the songs we have heard most are good but not like killer. Im sure they got like 2-3 badass unreal songs. time will tell I guess.

im just sick of waiting... sick of all the bs on the forums its so old.


GNR and Management are assholes!

Artist royalties are fixed on cover versions, rather than variable for first publication, according to US law and RIAA regulations (the statutory royalty rate...and it's about .10 for a 5 min song per unit). And there is no negotiation with the original songwriter, so long as you don't change anything about the original composition, due to compulsory licensing laws.? All they have to do is notify the original songwriter that they're using their work and provide quaterly royalty statements.? ??I'm not sure if that pertains to the GnR/Universal tunes, because of contract issues, etc, etc, on their own GH album. ?But, for sure, using another artists song IS less expensive than new, first run material (which is what this break down covers). ?.20 is actually relatively conservative given the number of covers.

Label overhead would decrease drastically because, on first run material, you're covering overhead during production of the album as well. ?That includes A&R stuff, some band expenses, as well as the executive side of things, AND production costs (mixing, mastering, etc). ?For a GH album you're covering a lot less of that over a much shorter period of time. ?I think half is a good estimate, though it may be less than that, even.

I'll agree the marketing and promotion figure might be a bit drastic. ?But I will say compared to a new album from an established artist...there was a LOT less promotion for GH. ?But I'll give you, maybe not HALF as much. ?I'd be willing to change that to a 25% cut.

On the digipak, it's a soft cardboard flimsy sleeve thing.....much less expensive to produce. ?I think .20 a piece is pretty close to the difference.

I think "Better" is absolutley killer, and "IRS" is almost killer, but I'll agree, when looking at the sum total, the majority are not.  They're just very good.

You guys wanna know the strategy... It's actually pretty simple ready, here we go: October 1, 2006 Management, Universal and GN'R got together and put 13 Tuesdays in a hat... (mind you this is hush, hush...) anyway, they randomly selected one and that is the release date then they burned the hat and all the Tuesdays slips and nobody really knows which one it was... Some say that as a joke Izzy came to the meeting and tossed in a Dec. 23, 2008 date. Which made everyone laugh but, they thought wait a minute we could do that... yeah that would work. For those that are i dunno... how to put this ignorant, slow... i dunno... it's a joke... What does it matter... we got like 10 Tuesdays... I am gonna go to live at BestBuy so I'll see you guys later... I have enough food for two and a half months... and will have plenty of electronics to play with... you can find me either in  the video games or television areas tonight later...

It seems to me that the fans on this board created the whole "no promotion" strategy and then ripped it to shreads. ?What gives everyone the idea that there won't be any promotion? ?Merck commented on announcing a release date... but that's a seperate issue.

Just keep clear on the 17th and 19th of November.  Those PS3 and WII customers might be brutal if they think you're trying to score one of their consoles.

I now... I am gonna set up "An Alliance"... I will point to people and start fights cause I really don't even care about getting those... those will be a few days of fun... I will just insite a riot maybe... lol... those day I am even gonna wear a nintendo shirt and PS hat... and have those dumb mario wristbands...

"An Alliance" refers to The Office... love that show...

Ever seen Governor Arnold's (aka The Terminator's) little gem "Jingle all the Way", with the god awful "Young Anakin" Jake Lloyd?

"He's GOT TWO!!!!"

(Riot ensues).

I'll be there on the 19th for my Wii.  (And that comment, right there, is exactly why Nintendo picked the worst name in history for this console....so wrong...)

Yeah I loved that line... lol... I used to work overnights as a manager at a Wal-Mart... me and my friend Tim were laughing when I said that once... haha. Should be a good day... Looking for people to join "The Alliance" I plan on having a meeting around 7 EST in the Soundtracks Aisle... I will be there at 5...

Well, if you're anywhere near Connecticut.....just name the best buy!

LOL... fuck it I'll catch the next plain... to Conn. you call the city and store... on my way I'll visit WWE Headquarters... sounds kinda like a fun trip... I'll just have to stay with you til after the New Years... it will be like National Lampoon's Conn. Vacation...