marketing: what are we really expecting?

[freddiebrph]

I see a lot of answers to threads with "where is the marketing?"  "this album cant come out in Nov, not enough time to market"  What are we really expecting, and what is really needed? AC/DC's albums comes out this monday as a wal-mart exlcusive.  PLEASE DONT TURN THIS THREAD INTO YOUR OWN FEELINGS OF AC DC!  They are a huge band and name, like the gnr name. How much marketing have you really seen? vh1 classic has been doing some acdc things, I see some advertisements on the music channels that is is coming. Then last night, one of the local rock stations had a sindicated show on that played almost every track, mixed in with the old songs, and band explanations of the song. What else do you really need? combine this, with all the hype already and I think that is all you need. They really have done nothing, and look at all the major news and rock mags that are reporting it? For all the things I think Axl messed up over the last 14 years, I really think he knows (along with mgt) what they are doing. They cant possibly let this thing get this big, if it really wansnt going to happen.

[GnR-NOW]

I think what is scaring most fans right now is if all of the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed, and can even with BB listing the date and track list can everything be taken down tomorrow ?  Until there is a definite YES the album is coming out, I think most fans are cautious about what to expect from marketing. 

[faldor]

I think you could say the marketing has already started with Shackler's being on RB2 and If The World being in Body of Lies.  I don't expect a full scale marketing assault, but first and foremost an official announcement from the band would help kick things into gear.  Some interviews would be nice.  A single released to radio, maybe a video.  And try to utilize VH1 Classic as well.  MTV is dead and pretty much irrelevant in the rock world these days, so I don't know if that would be an option.

[CheapJon]

the tiniest thing about this album always gets press, imagine when axl's press release is out there, shit will hit the fan and no one will worry about the marketing

[GnR-NOW]

I'm sure there will big instore marketing.  I could see GNR having their own stand with all of their material, kind of like they do when they release a movie.

[Fingers]

Print media, VH1-Rolling Stone seems to be begging for a Guns n Roses cover-Body Of Lies will really do nothing to make someone buy CD-I'm unsure of the impact Shackler's will have on CD-I'm not sure how younger people are reacting to it-a hit single might be nice-see Pink, who is putting out an album Oct. 25th, and the single has blown up-if you think a press release alone will do it, I think you're mistaken

[GnR-NOW]

The traditional way to promote is to have a single out.  Will GNR put a single out or is SR/ITW enough ?

[acompleteunknown]

Marketing has changed in the last 20 years...but GNR has kept up with the trends...

Since the MTV crowd of the 80s is now the Guitar Hero/Rock Band crowd of today...I think having a new song on RB2 was a huge chunk of publicity.  3 million copies of RB2 is now in the hands of record-buying kids.  Every single article about RB2 wrote a little chunk about the NEW GNR song in the game.  That's a ton of publicity

Dr. Pepper is promising the country free soda with the release of the album.  That has also been printed about in all sorts of media.  Just google "Dr. Pepper Guns N Roses" and you get hundreds of articles.

They had a second new song in the potential Oscar-worthy movie Body of Lies.  Of course the movie has underperformed...but don't be surprised to see GNR in Feb at the Academy Awards.

The Best Buy excluse has also found a huge marketing blitz.  Just announcing that the mythological Chinese Democracy finally has a release date has been news itself.

I'm sure there will be a single in the coming weeks...you'll hear it during sporting events...you'll hear it as outro music during news programs...mtv might show a clip the video inbetween Real world 22 and the hills.

The release is still 6 weeks away and this is already one of the most talked about albums in history.

[BatVin]

Marketing has changed in the last 20 years...but GNR has kept up with the trends...

Since the MTV crowd of the 80s is now the Guitar Hero/Rock Band crowd of today...I think having a new song on RB2 was a huge chunk of publicity.  3 million copies of RB2 is now in the hands of record-buying kids.  Every single article about RB2 wrote a little chunk about the NEW GNR song in the game.  That's a ton of publicity

Dr. Pepper is promising the country free soda with the release of the album.  That has also been printed about in all sorts of media.  Just google "Dr. Pepper Guns N Roses" and you get hundreds of articles.

They had a second new song in the potential Oscar-worthy movie Body of Lies.  Of course the movie has underperformed...but don't be surprised to see GNR in Feb at the Academy Awards.

I think you are totally wrong. You can see this news everywhere only becouse you are really big GNR fan.But If only fans buy CD, it wiil sell maybe 30 000 copies? That would be really poor.
Try it! Just ask ten random guys you meet on street. I'm pretty sure that most of them won't have any idea about Chinese Democracy coming out.

[russtcb]

It goes without saying that it'll be in Best Buy's paper ads. I'm hoping for TV commercials too like Best Buy has done for the Stones & Elton John.

I would assume that they'll have a bunch of stuff all over their stores too (signs, posters and stuff). Outside of Best Buy, I'd love it if there was a single on the radio soon.

[TheRaven]

Marketing has changed in the last 20 years...but GNR has kept up with the trends...

Since the MTV crowd of the 80s is now the Guitar Hero/Rock Band crowd of today...I think having a new song on RB2 was a huge chunk of publicity.  3 million copies of RB2 is now in the hands of record-buying kids.  Every single article about RB2 wrote a little chunk about the NEW GNR song in the game.  That's a ton of publicity

Dr. Pepper is promising the country free soda with the release of the album.  That has also been printed about in all sorts of media.  Just google "Dr. Pepper Guns N Roses" and you get hundreds of articles.

They had a second new song in the potential Oscar-worthy movie Body of Lies.  Of course the movie has underperformed...but don't be surprised to see GNR in Feb at the Academy Awards.

I think you are totally wrong. You can see this news everywhere only becouse you are really big GNR fan.But If only fans buy CD, it wiil sell maybe 30 000 copies? That would be really poor.
Try it! Just ask ten random guys you meet on street. I'm pretty sure that most of them won't have any idea about Chinese Democracy coming out.

Heck, I asked someone that works at Best Buy about it (just to gage if there was any hype outside the GN'R fandom) and he had no idea about it. I told him that I had read on MSN.com or something that Best Buy was going to get an exclusive GN'R CD and asked him if it was true. He went to the computer and checked online and said, "yeah, here it is."

I then mentioned that the article also mentioned something about getting free Dr. Pepper because of this, which seemed to pique his interest more. He went to Yahoo and searched for an article about the Dr. Pepper challenge and as a couple other Best Buy employees came over he told them "Guess what, we're all getting free Dr. Pepper." After he told one of his co-workers that Best Buy was going to release the CD, the co-worker responded doubtingly "Yeah, but how many release dates have they had in the past?"

Long story short, this guy will probably tell 5-7 people about the CD at least just because of the Dr. Pepper challenge. Other than that, most people I've talked to (co-workers, friends, etc.) would have no idea about GN'R having a new CD if I hadn't told them.

[Layne Staley's Sunglasses]

I think you could say the marketing has already started with Shackler's being on RB2 and If The World being in Body of Lies.  I don't expect a full scale marketing assault, but first and foremost an official announcement from the band would help kick things into gear.  Some interviews would be nice.  A single released to radio, maybe a video.  And try to utilize VH1 Classic as well.  MTV is dead and pretty much irrelevant in the rock world these days, so I don't know if that would be an option.

They have those "weekends' On VH1 Classic.

We are in the midst of an AC/DC weekend.  They play AC/DC videos, concerts etc...

I think once the release date is announced, EVERYONE will pick up on it.

They will use new songs during sports promotions, all the tabloid shows, CNN will do something on it.  This baby is a marketing dream.

[Jim Bob]

I think we as fans ought to leave marketing to the professionals who do this for a living.

[divoz]

Print media, VH1-Rolling Stone seems to be begging for a Guns n Roses cover-Body Of Lies will really do nothing to make someone buy CD-I'm unsure of the impact Shackler's will have on CD-I'm not sure how younger people are reacting to it-a hit single might be nice-see Pink, who is putting out an album Oct. 25th, and the single has blown up-if you think a press release alone will do it, I think you're mistaken

Yeah, alot of ppl on here think that just because they love GN'R and will be blown away once Axl makes a statement, the whole world will be in awe. It's not going to be like that. They will get some press coverage, some hype, but for you people that come on here and think that its going to cause this big aftershock, you're sadly mistaken.
That being said, hurry up November 25th, i truly believe Chinese Democracy will be in my top 3 GN'R albums. That usually wouldn't be a big accomplishment seeing the band only has a handful of albums, but it is a statement when all of those albums are flawless.

[Jim]

Just a reminder... We're still not allowing links to any of the leaked songs... Regardless of what form they come in... Cheers.

[D]

I guess the only thing I am still scratching my head over is why we can't buy Shackler's or If The World yet?

I mean they were released on major projects...


GNR have to promote this thing. Word of mouth and some articles on the internet alone won't do it.

[D]

I see a lot of answers to threads with "where is the marketing?"  "this album cant come out in Nov, not enough time to market"  What are we really expecting, and what is really needed? AC/DC's albums comes out this monday as a wal-mart exlcusive.  PLEASE DONT TURN THIS THREAD INTO YOUR OWN FEELINGS OF AC DC!  They are a huge band and name, like the gnr name. How much marketing have you really seen? vh1 classic has been doing some acdc things, I see some advertisements on the music channels that is is coming. Then last night, one of the local rock stations had a sindicated show on that played almost every track, mixed in with the old songs, and band explanations of the song. What else do you really need? combine this, with all the hype already and I think that is all you need. They really have done nothing, and look at all the major news and rock mags that are reporting it? For all the things I think Axl messed up over the last 14 years, I really think he knows (along with mgt) what they are doing. They cant possibly let this thing get this big, if it really wansnt going to happen.

Yeah and the AC/DC album I guarantee won't sell over 200k copies first week.

watch and see.

[Howard2k]

Think about it logically...

From what we're hearing, there was the BB internal announcement, and we were told that the deal was very likely but not set in stone.  
* should GNR launch a huge marketing campaign saying "Chi Dem coming soon"?  Of course not.  

We had Shackler's in RB2 and ITW in BOL, but neither of those are indicative of the deal being done either.  Neither of them justify a huge marketing campaign.  
* should GNR be launching their "Chi Dem arrives..." following either of these two?  Of course not.  The release of Shackler's does not mean that the BB deal is done.   So no.

We're hearing that Axl is working on his press release, which I would ASSUME means that the BB deal is done and he is ready to break the news.  But the press release might say "Due to unforeseen circumstances, Chi Dem is delayed once more...".  
* Should GNR be launching their marketing campaign now?   Perhaps.  But perhaps Axl wants his press release to be done first.  

It's pretty simple stuff.  As a fan it's WAY to easy to get caught up in the hype and rumours and use that to justify some huge marketing campaign.  But in reality, it simple does not make sense.

[hitmanhart408]

I think what a lot of people are missing in terms of marketing for this album is Myspace. Myspace is such a HUGE market these days. Guns need to cut a deal to get on the homepage with Chinese Democracy Nov 23 flashing or something like that. Metallica did it and many bands do it. Their are MILLIONS of people that go to myspace very day and HAVE to see the homepage. In this day and age I say thats even more important than a music video.
I also think they need to make a youtube page and do something special with it.

[ben9785]

Maybe we'll see some printed advertisements, a tv commercial, a video clip for a single, Best Buy promotion of course both in their printed ads and instore.. I think Axl will just keep it pretty low key though