Fiona Apple and guerilla marketing

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on February 1st, 2006

Of course, just by mentioning the video for the single from Fiona Apple’s latest CD, we participate in their little game. The clip is actually amusing and it features (Friend of Apple) Zach Galifianakis lip-synching to one of Apple’s patented angst-fests.

To nutshell it, the story goes like this:

Fiona Apple’s clip for the song “Not About Love” took one day to shoot, cost her only a few digital tapes and was never intended to be a proper music video.

And the director (Yes, there is a director!) and she just walked over to Zach’s house and shot the video for 27 bucks and change and blah, blah, blah.

The supposedly on-the-cheap video (and it’s Blair Witchian, hoaxial back story) is most likely part of a guerilla marketing campaign intended to distract angst-ridden teens from the fact that Apple toils for Sony/BMG. That label had annual revenue last year of $21 billion! (That’s “billion” with a “B!”) And Apple is the opening act on the upcoming North American tour of Cold Play. (Whose front man, you’ll recall, made international headlines last year by saying the most inane things about the “evil profits” of international music conglomerates. “Shareholders are the great evil of this modern world,” he said, with a straight face.) They’re also spreading the idea that some of Apple’s tunes have been “leaked” to radio stations and they’ve started an online campaign to determine “Whatever happened to Fiona Apple.”

It’s a slicker, updated, new media version of “Paul is dead.”

And it’s not unlike what Rolling Rock and Rheingold and other barely drinkable beers are doing to promote their swill to college students.

Targeting hard-to-reach consumers who often relish the fact that they’re light years away from the mainstream is the goal of non-traditional advertising, sometimes called guerrilla, viral or grassroots marketing. The non-traditional methods also fly under the radar of many consumers and, in many cases, aren’t immediately recognized as advertising or marketing tactics.

But it is amusing, so go check it out.

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