Initial Reflections on Bum Rush the Charts

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BRTC is winding down on the East Coast as a lot of folks pack off to bed. Overall, the results of the campaign were good, especially for a first effort of its class. Could they have been better? Absolutely. Could they have been worse? Absolutely. Here’s some thoughts and initial lessons learned.

First, I would have liked to have had more transparency from the beginning. As I say often, transparency is the currency of trust. While Black Lab was a fine choice for the campaign, I would have liked to have seen more community involvement from the beginning in the selection of the band. However, that’s what I get for coming late to the party. That said, Black Lab was a good choice, and the band was certainly more than generous in their scholarship fund commitment.

Lesson: transparency pays off. The more transparent you are upfront, the less suspicion can be cast.

Second, I have the distinct sensation that podcasting is still inside of an echo chamber of sorts. When you look at the traffic stats from BRTC, you can see that there was a massive push at 9 AM ET, peaking at 10 AM ET, and then declining throughout the day. I had thought there’d be a second spike after work, when people got home, but traffic remained on the decline throughout the day. We got a lot of people to make a great push initially, but we tapped out our reach relatively early on. That tells me that we did a great job of reaching our audience, but our audience may be ourselves – the movement didn’t exhibit any exponential characteristics, as you’d normally see from a chain reaction of word of mouth. I think we would have been more successful by also sharing techniques for building audience.

Lesson: allot more lead time for a campaign like this and share more tools with the community for growing the reach of individual podcaster audiences prior to the campaign. Make the campaign benefit everyone who participates.

Third, time shifting can work against us for a small window. Podcasting and blogging are founded on RSS and the ability to consume content when you, the audience member, wants to consume it, not on the schedule of the content creator. While this is a good thing, it also makes coordinating the reaction of an audience much more difficult in a short period of time. Podcasts and blogs lack the immediacy of email, IM, and Twitter.

Lesson: build a mailing list early and emphasize it throughout the campaign to deliver better results on the day, OR expand the window of time in which action can be taken from a day to a week to better allow people to act on their schedule.

Fourth, we did not anticipate the strength of the global market. BRTC performed the best in countries that frankly, we didn’t expect it to. Looking at the initial returns, BRTC outperformed expectations in the Netherlands, Canada, and Germany, dominating the charts in those countries. It’s all too easy to forget that the Internet truly is global, and our reach might not be as great as we would like right now, but no one can deny its ability to cross borders.

Lesson: plan for the international community to participate and encourage them to do so.

Fifth, I think we had too many incongruent messages. There were essentially three main messages of BRTC – “stick it to the man/RIAA/record labels”, “raise money for charity”, and “show the power of new media”. While I think we did a decent job of tying them all together, in the beginning it was fragmented, and that may have hurt initial acceptance and uptake of the campaign.

Lesson: plan campaigns from the outset. Define a message or even multiple, congruent messages, but agree on what needs to be communicated.

Sixth, one of the things that I think hurt uptake in the more conservative parts of the country was the edgier aspect of the campaign. While the song was quite pleasant, the album art was decidedly not family friendly, and some of the initial language on the Bum Rush the Charts blog was also unquestionably not family friendly and not work safe. Also, the initial message of “kicking old media where it hurts” (albeit in much less friendly language) may have restricted traditional media coverage of the event.

Lesson: to ensure maximum audience participation, plan for family friendly/safe for work from the outset. No need to dive full-on into political correctness, but at least strive to reach the broadest audience possible, old and new media alike.

Now, after reading this, you’re probably thinking, wow, Chris, you must have thought Bum Rush the Charts was a complete failure, a complete disaster. Not so, not so at all. In fact, I think for an effort like this, it was a fantastic success. Consider this. How much does a record label spend to get a new single on the charts in one country? How much would it cost to launch a worldwide campaign to do the same? New media may not have achieved as much reach as I would have liked, but there’s no question that the campaign “moved the needle” and achieved very impressive results across the world.

More importantly, the campaign raised some money. While I’ve said before that you can’t shop your way to a better world, this was clearly a case of piggybacking for a greater good. Mark Nemcoff and Mike Yusi were going to run with Bum Rush the Charts (they are the founders) no matter what, and the fact that they were generous enough to let me piggyback on their event to raise some money for college scholarships speaks volumes to their characters. Even if only one person bought the track, that’d be 45 cents that someone wouldn’t need to take out of their own pockets to pay for college, and for that, whoever we draw for the scholarship will owe a debt of gratitude to Mark and Mike.

Finally, look at the incredible amount of press about the event despite an effective budget of 800 (for two press releases) plus the time and labor of those involved. Worldwide top 100 charts in Rock? Worldwide top 100 charts overall in select countries? For800 plus labor? You can’t beat that return on investment. No, Bum Rush the Charts was a great first experiment to test the reach of new media, and with the lessons learned from our first collective efforts, it’s only going to get better from here on out.

Thank you to everyone who joined in.


Comments

29 responses to “Initial Reflections on Bum Rush the Charts”

  1. Chris, thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with us. The lessons learned can be applied much more widely than just BRTC, that’s for sure.

    I pored over the comments on digg, and while I won’t reflect on how stupid the general population seems to be (everything is a conspiracy theory???), a common complaint was the use of iTunes.

    It seems like a lose/lose situation, obviously you can’t please everyone. BUT – I talked to more than a few people who would have BOUGHT THE TRACK even if they couldn’t listen to it. . .

    Would eMusic have been a better choice? No, because iTunes is the benchmark of digital music sales…I’m sure it was a tough choice to make. You guys kicked major butt though, really a victory.

    I’d love to be more involved in BRTC #2.

    Cheers;
    jason @ IR

  2. Chris, thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with us. The lessons learned can be applied much more widely than just BRTC, that’s for sure.

    I pored over the comments on digg, and while I won’t reflect on how stupid the general population seems to be (everything is a conspiracy theory???), a common complaint was the use of iTunes.

    It seems like a lose/lose situation, obviously you can’t please everyone. BUT – I talked to more than a few people who would have BOUGHT THE TRACK even if they couldn’t listen to it. . .

    Would eMusic have been a better choice? No, because iTunes is the benchmark of digital music sales…I’m sure it was a tough choice to make. You guys kicked major butt though, really a victory.

    I’d love to be more involved in BRTC #2.

    Cheers;
    jason @ IR

  3. Many thanks, Jason. I’ve been giving thought to the whole thing, and I think I might have a formula that could do some interesting stuff next time around. We’ll see if there is a next time, and if I’m invited to be on the organizing team.

  4. Many thanks, Jason. I’ve been giving thought to the whole thing, and I think I might have a formula that could do some interesting stuff next time around. We’ll see if there is a next time, and if I’m invited to be on the organizing team.

  5. Ben Downing Avatar
    Ben Downing

    the song peformed well in australia imho – the aussie music market is localised.. somthing like 70% off all music sold here is australian so to get to no 35 on the rock chart is a great effort

  6. Ben Downing Avatar
    Ben Downing

    the song peformed well in australia imho – the aussie music market is localised.. somthing like 70% off all music sold here is australian so to get to no 35 on the rock chart is a great effort

  7. […] posted an important blog about the lessons he learned from this grassroots campaign.  What I learned from viewing the many […]

  8. We needed to get traction on campus radio throughout Ireland because the strongest uptake for the campaign in Ireland came from a tight circle of podcasters and active listeners. More indie media (pirate radio and campus radio) would have boosted the results.

  9. We needed to get traction on campus radio throughout Ireland because the strongest uptake for the campaign in Ireland came from a tight circle of podcasters and active listeners. More indie media (pirate radio and campus radio) would have boosted the results.

  10. Well it certainly sounds like a win win sorta thing to me.. to be a part of this, to have the experience of it.. what it adds to your brand.. Not to mention what it adds to the social media space… It’s pretty clear to me that amazing things are possible, amazing things that people don’t really recognize as possible.. to see this truth, and to act on it.. Well that’s how the big boys play ball..

    as we used to say in little league

    good game

    matt

  11. Well it certainly sounds like a win win sorta thing to me.. to be a part of this, to have the experience of it.. what it adds to your brand.. Not to mention what it adds to the social media space… It’s pretty clear to me that amazing things are possible, amazing things that people don’t really recognize as possible.. to see this truth, and to act on it.. Well that’s how the big boys play ball..

    as we used to say in little league

    good game

    matt

  12. Chris

    Thank you for the positive summary I think the points you make are on the money.

    I would like to emphasis the importance of language use in such endevours in the future. As an example when I mentioned “Bum Rush” to my students in UK, most were very confused, thinking it was some kind of dodgy back-street practise, we simply so not use that phrase over here in UK.

    So there needs to be transparency in the semantics used also I would say.

    Yes I also think building a mailing list is essential, sure subscriptions to an RSS inform a user when a new episode is ready, but still, as you say, e-mail is immediate, it contacts the client personally, it sells the idea on the day right when you need it. I imagine massive numbers were lost right there.

    Cheers

    Chris Hambly
    http://twitter/audio

  13. Chris

    Thank you for the positive summary I think the points you make are on the money.

    I would like to emphasis the importance of language use in such endevours in the future. As an example when I mentioned “Bum Rush” to my students in UK, most were very confused, thinking it was some kind of dodgy back-street practise, we simply so not use that phrase over here in UK.

    So there needs to be transparency in the semantics used also I would say.

    Yes I also think building a mailing list is essential, sure subscriptions to an RSS inform a user when a new episode is ready, but still, as you say, e-mail is immediate, it contacts the client personally, it sells the idea on the day right when you need it. I imagine massive numbers were lost right there.

    Cheers

    Chris Hambly
    http://twitter/audio

  14. Chris,

    Great insights and congratulations on the successes! I think you are bang on when you say that the podcasting/blogging culture still exists in a bit of a bubble. I work in high tech/new media and I bet that if I polled everyone in the office, very few would know anything about things like RSS, Twitter, Google Reader, etc., or the issues that surround independent artists and “big media”.

    Events like this serve to create awareness, and this event did just that. The more we can get the word out and educate the average consumer about the power of new media, the more people will start to understand it and use it themselves.

    Keep up the good work, everyone!

    Susan Murphy
    http://wordpress.suzemuse.com

  15. Chris,

    Great insights and congratulations on the successes! I think you are bang on when you say that the podcasting/blogging culture still exists in a bit of a bubble. I work in high tech/new media and I bet that if I polled everyone in the office, very few would know anything about things like RSS, Twitter, Google Reader, etc., or the issues that surround independent artists and “big media”.

    Events like this serve to create awareness, and this event did just that. The more we can get the word out and educate the average consumer about the power of new media, the more people will start to understand it and use it themselves.

    Keep up the good work, everyone!

    Susan Murphy
    http://wordpress.suzemuse.com

  16. […] the day after we all Bum Rushed the Charts and Christopher Penn has some great reflections on it. Right now I’m going to hold off on my thoughts because I have many and I think it’ll […]

  17. I predict that by noon eastern it will crack the top 20 in rock. I’ll also give it a 50/50 shot of making the top 100 overall.

  18. I predict that by noon eastern it will crack the top 20 in rock. I’ll also give it a 50/50 shot of making the top 100 overall.

  19. I have to say that this was really interesting to witness and read up on all the information. I read as many articles I could find about iTunes, music gatekeepers, and tried to count up all the tactics used to get the word out about the event. Aside from the fact that I liked the song, I was really curious to see what would happen and I guess we have yet to see if iTunes will reveal any unknown success.

  20. I have to say that this was really interesting to witness and read up on all the information. I read as many articles I could find about iTunes, music gatekeepers, and tried to count up all the tactics used to get the word out about the event. Aside from the fact that I liked the song, I was really curious to see what would happen and I guess we have yet to see if iTunes will reveal any unknown success.

  21. Chris, I just wanted to THANK YOU for being one of the most visable faces of BRTC and completely kicking ass in the process. Thanks for believing in bloggers, podcasters, and indie music. Thanks for being such a strong role model for people in this biz and thanks for everything you do to better both podcasting and the podsafe music scene. You are very appreciated. – Lyn

  22. […] If the measure of success for this campaign was to achieve the goal of boosting a music artist to the top of Itunes, then the campaign was not successful.  If the goal was to use the power of social media in order to increase awareness and get people to buy records, I think it was pretty successful. There are lessons to be learned with this campaign, which Christopher S. Penn writes about. […]

  23. Chris, I just wanted to THANK YOU for being one of the most visable faces of BRTC and completely kicking ass in the process. Thanks for believing in bloggers, podcasters, and indie music. Thanks for being such a strong role model for people in this biz and thanks for everything you do to better both podcasting and the podsafe music scene. You are very appreciated. – Lyn

  24. Chris, fantastic lessons here. Thanks for summing them up because I can apply them almost immediately to projects in my own life.

    “That tells me that we did a great job of reaching our audience, but our audience may be ourselves – the movement didn’t exhibit any exponential characteristics, as you’d normally see from a chain reaction of word of mouth.”

    That may be the problem with being at the end of the long tail, so to speak. When the producers and the consumers are the same people, you have to work extra hard to generate new growth. A challenge of new media is that we don’t just need new consumers we need a constant stream of new producers in order to grow.

  25. Chris, fantastic lessons here. Thanks for summing them up because I can apply them almost immediately to projects in my own life.

    “That tells me that we did a great job of reaching our audience, but our audience may be ourselves – the movement didn’t exhibit any exponential characteristics, as you’d normally see from a chain reaction of word of mouth.”

    That may be the problem with being at the end of the long tail, so to speak. When the producers and the consumers are the same people, you have to work extra hard to generate new growth. A challenge of new media is that we don’t just need new consumers we need a constant stream of new producers in order to grow.

  26. Chris:

    If I had some commentary to offer, it would be that there should be a more direct path to take users to the song (through the affiliate link).

    For example, if you directed someone to BumRushTheCharts.com, that re-directed to the Blogspot page. The user then needed to click on the link to go to your FAP.com/BumRush page, and then click another link there to get into iTunes. Cut down those steps next time, and I think it will help.

    So pleased to see this campaign did well!

  27. BryanPerson Avatar
    BryanPerson

    Chris:

    If I had some commentary to offer, it would be that there should be a more direct path to take users to the song (through the affiliate link).

    For example, if you directed someone to BumRushTheCharts.com, that re-directed to the Blogspot page. The user then needed to click on the link to go to your FAP.com/BumRush page, and then click another link there to get into iTunes. Cut down those steps next time, and I think it will help.

    So pleased to see this campaign did well!

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