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slopesandsam
06-23-2013, 01:50 AM
Is anyone else disappointed with the way Hesitation Marks is being promoted?

I have very fond memories of the way The Fragile was promoted, back in '99. The one.swf files. The weird flash interface that played different samples from TDTWWA and Starfuckers. The bits of David Carson artwork posted to nin.com (the track listing was revealed as one of those posts). All these things served to make me insanely excited for the new album (The Fragile remains the gold standard for "Things I Was Insanely Hyped About That Actually Lived Up To My Expectations").

For WT NIN released a bunch of little movies with song snippets. YZ obviously had the ARG. Even Ghosts and The Slip had the whole "two weeks" thing that made them sudden and exciting.

So I'm kinda disappointed that all the info about Hesitation Marks has, mostly, come from the music media. The album was announced on Pitchfork. The track listing was published by Rolling Stone. It all been a little bit underwhelming.

Krazy
06-23-2013, 01:56 AM
No.


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botley
06-23-2013, 02:01 AM
Honestly, I think Sheridan and Reznor got tired of having to self-promote their own projects. The reason all of those things came across as cool is because those guys were both creatively involved with trying to engage the audience. Unfortunately, they seem to have found in the process that some stuff comes along with that... drawbacks to keeping it all less than arms-length. Maybe I'm wrong and the ARG budget for this record is immense, but I think what really happened is they got sick of trying to sell records themselves after spending five years getting the word out with no marketing department other than their own brains. They just want to make cool music and stage shows and videos with other creative people right now.

allegro
06-23-2013, 02:29 AM
Broken and TDS had none of this fancy schmancy promotion stuff, just Usenet buzz and a cool video. And I think that was just fine.

BenAkenobi
06-23-2013, 02:32 AM
I'm sure that in a month or so, when the touring begins, lots of things are going to emerge.

botley
06-23-2013, 03:40 AM
Broken and TDS had none of this fancy schmancy promotion stuff, just Usenet buzz and a cool video. And I think that was just fine.
Well, they had Interscope Records' marketing department, which at the time wasn't also having to compete for promo budget with other arms of a larger corporation.

butter_hole
06-23-2013, 04:24 AM
Has anyone got a copy of the tracklist reveal for the fragile?

slopesandsam
06-23-2013, 04:31 AM
My thing is, I derive a great deal of enjoyment from anticipating things. So I enjoy stuff the heightens my anticipation. In the past, NIN have been really great at promoting new material. It's almost weird how they're not really promoting it themselves this time around.

Emil Dorbell
06-23-2013, 04:40 AM
I like it! The official tumblr and instagram posts have been very cool. I'm hoping they'll release some behind the scenes videos of tour rehearsals and song snippets etc soon. I wonder how much the reddit and digg (and old media too I suppose) attention from going indepent translated into ticket and album sales? They're obviously not doing anything like that anymore, but I'm sure there's something up their sleeves... If not, well, just another month until we get a setlist and youtube videos from the first show :)

allegro
06-23-2013, 05:34 AM
Well, they had Interscope Records' marketing department, which at the time wasn't also having to compete for promo budget with other arms of a larger corporation.
We also didn't have the Web.

jessamineny
06-23-2013, 06:09 AM
It's likely very utilitarian. They seem to be marketing to the masses (with the releases of information through major music media) and not the fanbase at this point. Maybe once they get a mainstream blanket of awareness, they'll start more creative methods to keep all of them (and us) anticipating the release/tour.

FULLMETAL
06-23-2013, 07:50 AM
Well, the sponsored post on my FB feed is becoming a little annoying. Otherwise, I agree that the marketing is taking a broad swing to hit the casual fan. That said, it's still early in the campaign and I'm sure there are other things waiting to happen. We know there's a video being worked on. The festival leg of the tour is starts in just over a month. NIN.com's message board (and site?) is being re-designed. I think as a fan base, we've been spoiled by Trent's & Rob's creativity.

I think the best indicator for future promotion would be Bowie's recent release, The Next Day. He probably spent his budget on video clips & exclusive RSD singles instead of marketing a tour, but I think the pattern of press releases is similar.

Dragonkaos
06-23-2013, 12:02 PM
Agree, stilll diferent for all the other artists and bands but even so for NIN is a bit strange see all the traklist via rolling stones two months earlier, some make more interesting the things is got all in supence, but now we know the name of the album, all the songs etc. The video making with Come Back Haunted is great.

However still with a very conceptual art, a promotion so visual as always, but yes is diferent because touch more audiences and masses, is more direct not just for the people who know NIN work. Sorry my caca english.

gorast
06-23-2013, 01:10 PM
Simply put, NIN doesn't care and doesn't intend to promote to anyone who's posted on this forum at least ten times. We're going to buy the album, whether we're singing its praises while paying for it or mumbling to the next person in line about how it's going to be horrible as we're handing over our money.

This sort of promotion is absolutely par for the course in 2013. NIN is a band that hasn't existed in the public eye for four years, and they need to fix that. So they're going to announce shit through Pitchfork. The tracklist will be on the front page of Rolling Stone first and nowhere else. Because that's how you get people that aren't us to care about an album.

Leviathant
06-23-2013, 02:24 PM
Want to see what happens when you market explicitly to fans?

Here's all the NIN Hotline traffic from W_T on. (I don't know if I still have fragile-era stats anywhere)
http://i.imgur.com/VAljOYi.png

Final Destiny basically hit it on the nose. Existing NIN fans are going to buy it. What they want are new NIN fans. They want people who will be like, "Hesitation Marks is my favorite NIN album" because they only just got into NIN this year. The same way people say that about With Teeth (I know!) and Year Zero (I know!) and Pretty Hate Machine (I know!)

Wretchedest
06-23-2013, 02:33 PM
Alsobkeeping in mind that NIN's best "marketing" (Year Zero, i think anyone would agree) was funded out of pocket by trent. Anything super crazy cool is probably going to seem risky to the folks in charge of the ad budget.

slopesandsam
06-23-2013, 03:42 PM
Those stats make it look like the highest spike in traffic was during the YZ ARG?

But I'm not saying I'm disappointed that they've decided not to go to the insane effort and expense of an ARG again. I'm not disappointed that they're trying to market outside the fandom. I'd just like it if there was more "Here's another little bit of the artwork" or "Here's a tiny song snippet" type posts, as well as the more standard PR releases to music publications.

gorast
06-23-2013, 06:22 PM
Those stats make it look like the highest spike in traffic was during the YZ ARG?

But I'm not saying I'm disappointed that they've decided not to go to the insane effort and expense of an ARG again. I'm not disappointed that they're trying to market outside the fandom. I'd just like it if there was more "Here's another little bit of the artwork" or "Here's a tiny song snippet" type posts, as well as the more standard PR releases to music publications.
Wasn't ETS one of the major hubs for organizing ARG information?

Well, we're still over two months out from release. We'll probably see more artwork popping up on Tumblr and/or Instagram as the release date draws near. And as for song snippets? Wait until the tour starts, then we'll probably get two or three new tracks.

carpenoctem
06-23-2013, 06:40 PM
Relax, it's June. The album is still two months and some change from official release. Trent said this was just the beginning when he released Came Back Haunted, so you can rest assured there's more to come.

Demon.seed.22
06-23-2013, 08:20 PM
I'd like to think tr still has to approve anything.

snaapz
06-23-2013, 08:39 PM
I'm a fan of teases and samples, gives me more to think about other than "cool single, now I wait until sept for the rest". It also keeps me interested pre-release and the short snippets and imagery gives the album some personality.

I'm sure we will see more stuff in the coming weeks/months...

slopesandsam
06-23-2013, 11:26 PM
I may have jumped the gun a little. It's only been a couple of weeks since the album was announced, after all.

thefragile_jake
06-23-2013, 11:51 PM
I've actually been seeing a lot more promotion for this record and the upcoming tour a lot...I think the hype machine for Hesitation Marks is doing just fine.

billpulsipher
06-24-2013, 11:05 AM
I would prefer TR to release a video of them in rehearsals playing a couple new songs and maybe an old one....

ninedead
06-24-2013, 11:42 AM
i think the hype is going to come in the form of the upcoming tour, ill take a tour to promote an album over an ARG any day!!

thefragile_jake
06-24-2013, 12:06 PM
i think the hype is going to come in the form of the upcoming tour, ill take a tour to promote an album over an ARG any day!!

I think it depends on the artist, the album and themes within the record as well. Year Zero made sense to have some kind of alternative reality thing going on since the whole record was essentially set in a futuristic world...and even though I didn't care for YZ, I can see why people liked it.

I like the art direction Hesitation Marks is going in and I don't think anything similar to an ARG is needed for this record....that's just my opinion though.

Canuckle
06-24-2013, 01:27 PM
I'd also like to echo that we are still more than 2 months away.

I think we will see more as we approach (probably early July for music video, maybe early August for some snippets) the actual release date, but with HTDA, new NIN, touring for both and all that comes with being a husband and father of two, I'm sure Trent and co are very happy going the more traditional route on this one.

(That being said, what does it say about our ADD society that we expect artists to entertain us from release date confirmation to the actual release date? Lots of great music coming out in 2013; go listen to some of it and you will find Sept 3rd sneaks up on you!)

Flauros
06-24-2013, 01:44 PM
Honestly, I think Sheridan and Reznor got tired of having to self-promote their own projects. The reason all of those things came across as cool is because those guys were both creatively involved with trying to engage the audience. Unfortunately, they seem to have found in the process that some stuff comes along with that... drawbacks to keeping it all less than arms-length. Maybe I'm wrong and the ARG budget for this record is immense, but I think what really happened is they got sick of trying to sell records themselves after spending five years getting the word out with no marketing department other than their own brains. They just want to make cool music and stage shows and videos with other creative people right now.
That seems to line up with what Trent was saying on Kevin and Bean this morning in regards to why he signed with Columbia. He was saying that when he was independent he found himself worrying about things like promotion, and how to engage fans, and other things that weren't music, things that he doesn't have the patience for.

FernandoDante
06-24-2013, 01:55 PM
I can't wait until Columbia's paid human-spam-bots start posting comments on Antiquiet promoting the release of Hesitation Marks.

Leviathant
06-24-2013, 02:12 PM
I can't wait until Columbia's paid human-spam-bots start posting comments on Antiquiet promoting the release of Hesitation Marks.

Man, that's so dumb. NIN fans already do that shit without prompting, I hope Columbia considers not adding to that, particularly to an already friendly site such as Antiquiet.

ninedead
06-24-2013, 07:21 PM
(Lots of great music coming out in 2013; go listen to some of it and you will find Sept 3rd sneaks up on you!)


This HAS turned out to be a great year for music i must say myself!

ElOsoBlanco
06-27-2013, 06:31 PM
Considering Trent's comments that he wants to focus on the music this time, I think we'll see traditional promo from Columbia and a lot of iPhone photos/videos from Trent&Rob on social media. I'm not expecting many snippets or teasers, maybe some rehearsal vids.

Since he's no longer independent, I don't think Trent is that motivated to shift units. If Joe 90s Alternative Rock Fan hears about a new NIN album, downloads it illegally and decides to see Tension 2013, Trent still benefits. It's up to Columbia to give the consumer incentive to buy it instead of logging onto bittorrent, and that's probably a relief to TR.

jessamineny
06-27-2013, 10:28 PM
You make it sound like you think he "gave up" and washed his hands of the business side, handing everything over to the record label. I'd rather think that Columbia is now merely one of the tools in TR's arsenal, and that he's exploiting the system to help him accomplish his goals.

Reznor2112
06-29-2013, 10:16 AM
Has anyone seen promotional stuff for their album at their local record store ie. Posters, stickers, displays? It may still be too early.

richardp
06-29-2013, 05:25 PM
Has anyone seen promotional stuff for their album at their local record store ie. Posters, stickers, displays? It may still be too early.

No, but Kansas City has huge billboards on the sides of our highways.

FULLMETAL
06-29-2013, 05:37 PM
Has anyone seen promotional stuff for their album at their local record store ie. Posters, stickers, displays? It may still be too early.

How many of us are lucky enough to have a local record store?

AgentofChaos
07-03-2013, 01:02 AM
If I was promoting this record, I'd have done pretty much what has been done so far. It's a simple loose formula.

Announcement then tracklist + artwork.

Then single + tour dates + video.

Now is the spot where is gets interesting. If you are on a truncated schedule, the album is basically out by this point. For whatever reason, we have to wait another couple months. Not the end of the world, this is how it was for years and people made out just fine. But the big question is how do you spend the rest of the time before it drops in the digital age? Well, looking at it from a label perspective there are a few options.

1) You could do basically nothing except keep advertising, whoring on radio etc, hoping the build up takes care of itself. Con being with the long wait you lose some momentum, especially with an eventual leak, and you drive fans a bit squirrely by beating them over the head with the same marketing again and again.

2) You could release another song or two, a bunch of snippets, teasers along the way etc. Con being you blow your load too early and have too much saturation by the time people actually hear the record because whatever you send out there now is going to get repeated ad naseum.

3) You could spend July up until Lolla reminding people why they love NIN without touching on the new stuff. This means tossing out some vault stuff. Some Wave Goodbye videos. Whatever. Something new that's actually old. Then, you spend the last few weeks of August driving the hype machine hard with the new stuff. You release the second single in mid August. You release maybe two small studio teasers ala those 30 second HTDA clips. A couple rehearsal vids. Some behind the scenes tour stuff. So every few days there is something new to hold fans attention until the eventual jizz fest.

By the time the tour starts I imagine we'll have an idea which of the routes Columbia is going with. Might be a hybrid version of two of those options. It will definitely be different from HTDA as I don't think we'll be seeing 4 song videos before the album gets released. If it was up to me I'd go with option 3, but that's just me, and there might be legal issues in regards to the first half of that plan anyhow (in regards to pumping classic NIN live videos, etc).

allegro
07-03-2013, 01:20 AM
Maybe there is also an old school pre-web aspect to this promotion.

Reznor going back to a major is probably more for promotion and distribution to areas where he could never reach on his own: small markets, foreign markets, etc.; Reznor has mentioned this in several interviews.

Artists generally have to pay for promotion; at some point, it's wasted money to promote to existing loyal fans using budgeted revenue when free promotion is available and valuable (and you can sink your ad revenue into the areas that need it most).

That YZ ARG brought in lots of new fans, but the music business has shifting tastes and attrition, common concerns in advertising and marketing.

Sure, to many of you the marketing seems to be as much fun as the music, but that fun costs money; in the case of marketing to existing fans, it means zero return on advertising investment (because you would have bought the album, anyway).

Also remember that very little promo up front and then a phenomenal record being delivered on the due date provides cheap and quick word-of-mouth and media promotion; a good product sells itself.

rboggs
07-10-2013, 09:39 PM
I have to say, living in nyc the promotion of both the album and local shows have been almost omnipresent. Billboards and plaster posters in all major intersections, side streets, and random nooks. I stepped out of Academy Records yesterday to find a spray painted NIN logo on the sidewalk.

I've been calling it the summer of NIN in NYC. It's nice to see it, and def 180 from GHOSTS/SLIP

Leviathant
07-10-2013, 10:06 PM
Given that the NIN show in Philadelphia is part of a festival, we have no such posters. It's kind of a shame, I'd love to get one. Russell Mills art, omnomnom. Of course, finding one of those posters that's not plastered and weathered is probably next to impossible.

Krazy
07-10-2013, 10:23 PM
I'm not sure if it makes a huge difference in the big picture of things, but I do wish that TR would be more pro-active on Twitter than he has been recently. He's made a couple of tweets and retweeted one NIN Tweet inregards to the promo of tour and HM. He's got 1.5 million followers compared to ~200k for NIN.

For example he could've tweeted at the time of tour pre-sales start times, etc.

billpulsipher
07-11-2013, 11:17 AM
He basically bailed on twitter after the "incidents" of 2009

butter_hole
07-11-2013, 03:59 PM
speaking of the tdogg on twitter, his most recent tweet about the shynola films video had a follow up tweet that he's now deleted, about scoring a full length..

HMMMM

butter_hole
07-11-2013, 04:01 PM
Ah, whoops, nope, it's still there, I just had the wrong filter on.

thefragile_jake
07-11-2013, 04:05 PM
I think after the Fuji Rock Festival when NIN plays it's first show since 2009, we'll start hearing and seeing some more about the record. It's close to the middle of July, the promotion for this bad boy will start picking up even more in the next couple of weeks.

You don't want to overexpose a record to your audience....which I kind of think Daft Punk did earlier this year.

I loved that album but you couldn't go to a music site without seeing something promoting RAM.


How many of us are lucky enough to have a local record store?

I have two in my area, had I not already pre-ordered the record I would've most likely purchased it from one of them.

butter_hole
07-11-2013, 06:27 PM
I think after the Fuji Rock Festival when NIN plays it's first show since 2009
Unless FujiRock have put some money down insisting that the performance is their debut show, I wouldn't be surprised if the band held a dress rehearsal in the LA area in the coming weeks.

jessamineny
07-11-2013, 06:34 PM
You think they'll do it before the festival shows, or before the arena tour? (I was betting on before the arena tour.)

Demon.seed.22
07-12-2013, 12:01 AM
Where was the spray paint?

Demon.seed.22
07-12-2013, 12:04 AM
I have to say, living in nyc the promotion of both the album and local shows have been almost omnipresent. Billboards and plaster posters in all major intersections, side streets, and random nooks. I stepped out of Academy Records yesterday to find a spray painted NIN logo on the sidewalk.

I've been calling it the summer of NIN in NYC. It's nice to see it, and def 180 from GHOSTS/SLIP

Where did you see the spay paint? That shit would make my day.

sick among the pure
07-12-2013, 07:10 AM
Where did you see the spay paint? That shit would make my day.

Someone posted a pic somewhere, it's red spray paint stencil on the sidewalk with the NIN logo, Tension 2013, and the "local" dates/locations for NYC and NJ I think.
If I can find the pic, I'll edit it in here.

Blackbookpress1984
07-12-2013, 08:53 AM
You make it sound like you think he "gave up" and washed his hands of the business side, handing everything over to the record label. I'd rather think that Columbia is now merely one of the tools in TR's arsenal, and that he's exploiting the system to help him accomplish his goals.

While I would wish nothing more than for this to be the truth, When was the last time any major band exploited any major record label to their advantage? I'm sure Columbia is going to have their say in all of this and Trent's "wants" will be met but with hesitation. Jesus. I just used the album name in defining what's going on. Perhaps that's the reason behind the name? TR went independent for a while, dropped out of the album and tour scene and did the sound tracks to a few great films and now he's back in the touring and producing albums game again, and this time he's going back to a label that's not his. Could it be he's a little hesitant, and the album name is his personal way of putting that out there a little bit? (of course I could be way off, but hey, interesting theory I think.)

Blackbookpress1984
07-12-2013, 09:02 AM
also, as for promotional stuff I found a stack on HTDA 11x17 posters at my local reckless before that release, but it was about a month prior to release. hoping the same will happen here. keeping my eyes open for sure.

jessamineny
07-12-2013, 09:50 AM
While I would wish nothing more than for this to be the truth, When was the last time any major band exploited any major record label to their advantage? I'm sure Columbia is going to have their say in all of this and Trent's "wants" will be met but with hesitation. Jesus. I just used the album name in defining what's going on. Perhaps that's the reason behind the name? TR went independent for a while, dropped out of the album and tour scene and did the sound tracks to a few great films and now he's back in the touring and producing albums game again, and this time he's going back to a label that's not his. Could it be he's a little hesitant, and the album name is his personal way of putting that out there a little bit? (of course I could be way off, but hey, interesting theory I think.)

I'm confused. You seem to be accusing me of overreacting to the content of your original post from a few weeks ago... but then you went back and completely deleted your original post.

Blackbookpress1984
07-12-2013, 10:01 AM
I'm confused. You seem to be accusing me of overreacting to the content of your original post from a few weeks ago... but then you went back and completely deleted your original post. Sorry, I didn't realize there were any accusations in this post at all...

tony.parente
07-12-2013, 12:43 PM
I have to say, living in nyc the promotion of both the album and local shows have been almost omnipresent. Billboards and plaster posters in all major intersections, side streets, and random nooks. I stepped out of Academy Records yesterday to find a spray painted NIN logo on the sidewalk.

I've been calling it the summer of NIN in NYC. It's nice to see it, and def 180 from GHOSTS/SLIP

Could you snap some pics and throw it up on nin spotting?

jessamineny
07-12-2013, 12:48 PM
Could you snap some pics and throw it up on nin spotting?

Also Demon.seed.22 and sick among the pure

http://www.echoingthesound.org/community/threads/1709-NIN-Spotting-2013-(Part-2-2)?p=99884#post99884

FULLMETAL
07-16-2013, 09:39 PM
It's roughly 10 days before their first show of 2013 and 50 before the drop date for the album. Has there been any real promotional momentum amongst the casual or new fans for the release? Outside of the random instagram tease (which seems to be aimed more at the rabid fan), it feels too quiet. I'm guessing something will happen before the Fuji Rock show, but maybe they're waiting for that footage to begin the promotional push.

JessicaSarahS
07-16-2013, 10:18 PM
A radio programmer (personality? DJ?) said there will be a new single in a few weeks.

katara
07-17-2013, 06:37 AM
A radio programmer (personality? DJ?) said there will be a new single in a few weeks.
Thanks for the info. It's unsurprising, though. Most albums now are announced maybe three months ahead of time along with a single, with a second single hitting the airwaves about a month or so later.

dpeters
07-18-2013, 03:20 PM
A radio programmer (personality? DJ?) said there will be a new single in a few weeks.
Last time they said that the entire song was available online within three days.

Demon.seed.22
07-26-2013, 06:14 PM
Also @Demon.seed.22 (http://www.echoingthesound.org/community/member.php?u=2841) and @sick among the pure (http://www.echoingthesound.org/community/member.php?u=266)

http://www.echoingthesound.org/community/threads/1709-NIN-Spotting-2013-(Part-2-2)?p=99884#post99884

Awsome thx. I want the stencil.
PO saw the other day a building on 2nd ave (16-20th st) with the posters all along.