Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Music to Market (and Live) By

While reading the Life's A Pitch blog (http://www.artsjournal.com/lifesapitch/) this morning, I discovered the website for Wrigley's 5Gum - http://www.5gum.com/. If you click on the imeem link, you'll find that each flavor has its own playlist. Yup, a playlist for each flavor of gum! How cool is that? I've seen 5Gum in the grocery checkout aisles before but never bought it. Tonight, when I hit Krogers, I can tell you I'm planning to get two packs, Elixir and Lush, based solely on the fact that I liked both of those playlists.

I was a disc jockey throughout the 90s. I have made mixed CDs for guests at our various parties. I've suffered late into the early morning hours constructing mix-tapes to woo my better-half(yes, I'm dating myself here as they were actual cassette tapes but they worked). Most of the Facebook notes I've "copied and pasted" into my homepage have been music related. I even used song lyrics to write my "Life Philosophy" thesis during my senior year in high school. This concept totally works for me. I think I know what kind of experience I'll have when that first stick of Elixir hits my mouth. And I'm pretty darn sure I'll like it!

Which brings me to the question, why don't more arts and culture organizations market this way? Cincinnati Museum Center is currently showing the Dinosaur exhibit (on display through September 7th). Why not offer a downloadable playlist with Was (Not Was)' Walk The Dinosaur, some of John Williams' classic Jurassic Park score, and The Flinstones theme song (or even better, to get those folks around my age without kids to plunk down the dough for it, I Wanna Be A Flintstone by The Screaming Blue Messiahs)? Cheeky, but it would certainly make me consider going.

Or, if Ensemble Theatre were to bring back Hedwig and the Angry Inch for a third go-round (I'm there, regardless of this suggestion, consider this my official lobbying effort), offer us a playlist with one piece from the original soundtrack (The Origin of Love would be my pick) but also include some early Bowie, The Scissor Sisters, Blur and/or RuPaul and others? I think that gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect when you hit the theater.

If pictures speak louder words, then wouldn't a 10-song playlist with some kick-ass tunes speak louder than any static pictures ever could? Especially if you crank it to 11!

1 comment:

  1. I would think that because Wrigley is a big corporation, they have a much easier time (financially speaking) dealing with whatever digital copyright fees and payments that are necessary for such a marketing ploy.

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