A New Marketing And Distribution Idea Twist

Here's a new twist on an older music distribution and marketing idea. Garage-pop band Killola is joining forces with digital concert distributor Aderra to create USB Dogtags as a way to sell unique merch items to their fans and provide the group with a another way to instantly connect with them. How? Fans who purchase the $40 Dogtag not only receive the band’s new album, but also their previous two on the same flash drive.

But here's the new angle. Fans plug the USB drive into their computer to receive exclusive updates from the band including new songs, remixes, live recordings, music videos and photos, which is also the basic idea of the different digital album formats like MusicDNA, CMX and Cocktail, which I talked about last year on my Big Picture blog. It's a great way to utilize the Music 3.0 connection with the fans that have a Dogtag, and for them to connect back.

So the basic premise is pretty good if you already have fans. If you're a new band however, you're better off just giving the things away to try to establish that fanbase. One of the cool things about providing music on a USB drive is that hardly anyone ever turns one down, since they're pretty useful whether you want the music or not.

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