Macys, American Rag and Fake Bands
There is no business more maligned right now than the music business so it’s always a surprise to me to find that brands and their agencies haven’t been following the story. Where once every college students dream was to graduate and land that much-sought-after job in the mail room at Warner Bros Records, I would argue today that they are far more interested in joining Google or one of the myriad of new media start-ups rather than getting a job at, or being signed to, the now unsexy music business. In fact one of them is no doubt creating a new, new, new media company as I write.
And then along comes Macys’ American Rag brand campaign - from AdWeek under news, non-traditional - a series of documentary Webisodes will follow the lives of five young people who want to break into the music business. The series, “Ragged Road,” launches in the fall. WPP Group-owned MEC Entertainment developed the show, which will play on YouTube. Nancy Slavin, svp of marketing at Macy’s merchandising group, said this marks a first for the brand in “doing something wholly dedicated to a communications strategy on the Web.”
So Macys’ merchandising group has plunged head first into a web-only strategy. Brave. The clothing brand targets 18-24 year-old males and females and they have deduced that music is one of the passions of this demos primary targets - true, but - music is just one of the passions not the primary passion.
“There’s a lot of people who want to get into the music industry, but don’t know how to go about it. So, we said, let’s find five people who have a passion for the business and want to see what the career opportunities are and what different paths there are to get into the music industry,” said Chet Fenster, managing partner at MEC. - I believe that statement is rather insulting to kids today, it sounds like a justification for making the webisodes rather than reinforcing a need that came out of a focus group session with young people.