Monks Get Record Deal Through YouTube

Written by Daan Jansonius on March 24th, 2008 | 4 comments

Universal Records has been on the look out for “monks, men of the cloth and sacred singers” for quite a while and now they found them- thanks to YouTube!. They placed adverts in religious publications hoping to find Gregarian singers, who they could offer a record deal.

They were sent hundreds of demo tapes, but the Youtube video they got from the monks from the Monestary the Holy Cross impressed them most. Tom Lewis, an Universal A&R executive told the BBC Website the following of his latest addition:

“These guys found about the competition through a friend of theirs in London and they sent a link of their monastery and of them singing on YouTube,” he said.

“It was beautiful, beautiful music and they’re using the very latest in terms of communication devices available to them to get their music heard.

The recording will start in April, with the launch of the album scheduled for the end of this year. All profits will be used to train new monks. Presumably to teach them how to leverage social media for the benefit of his monestary.

Source: BBC Webpage

DJ Looks for User Generated Content

Written by Daan Jansonius on March 24th, 2008 | no comments

Where most popular DJ’s and artists receive underwear from their female fans, Ferry Corsten gets a lot of video clips of people dancing and lip syncing to his world famous tunes. He says he enjoys watching them a lot, although maybe not so much as ladies underwear, and it inspired him to write out a contest for his newest tune ‘Into the Dark’.

Fans are asked to send in their craziest, funnies videos of them dancing to ‘Into the Dark’, everything is allowed. Although Ferry does display a sense of humour and a keen sense of what goes on on the internet as anything involving two girls and one cup isn’t allowed. At the end of the contest he’ll make a selection of the best videos, which will then be put into the video clip of the track he created with Howard Jones.

Giving fans (or consumers) a chance to interact with a brand through user generated content can be a great way to enhance engagement. It can also help to create ‘fansumers’ and will give brand advocates a great opportunity to talk about and interact with you.