Best Marketed Bands

[uncool2pillow]

After seeing KISS last night, I was thinking about bands that had great marketing. Not bands created specifically by marketing (boy bands, Spice Girls, etc.) but marketing that pushed bands to higher levels. Here are a few...

 

1) KISS, duh!

2) Grateful Dead

3) Rolling Stones (mostly from the iconic Warhol lips and tongue alone)

4) The Beatles, esp. in the moptop days

5) Wilco 

6) Most hair metal bands

[tinnitus photography]

White Stripes/Jack White

Van Halen

[nalafej]

Springsteen

[jff]

The Who.  Lots of iconic imagery (the "male" logo, Pete's windwilling arm, "Maximum R&B", etc.), and the destroying of instruments is perhaps THE rock and roll archetype, which they are still cashing in on decades after their last guitar was smashed.

[uncool2pillow]

The Who.  Lots of iconic imagery (the "male" logo, Pete's windwilling arm, "Maximum R&B", etc.), and the destroying of instruments is perhaps THE rock and roll archetype, which they are still cashing in on decades after their last guitar was smashed.

Definitely the most effective use of the Union Jack by a British Invasion band.

[calvino]

I always thought Zeppelin did a great job with their Swan Song and blimp logos. --- I had few similar  buttons on my Van Halen hat in the early 80s. And all the 'cool people' or at least the rest of the burnouts always knew who the four symbols represented.

 

[uncool2pillow]

The Police were great with that kind of iconagraphy too!

 

[jff]

Yes had a really good thing going with Roger Dean's album art.  

[calvino]

Of course, Eddie will destroy most of the entire world's band's marketing out of the water....  (Maiden has been great at it from the start)

 

[uncool2pillow]

Of course, Eddie will destroy most of the entire world's band's marketing out of the water....  (Maiden has been great at it from the start)

 

YESSS!!

[remphish1]

Metallica probably has the most shirts out there that I see people wearing

[jff]

Of course, Eddie will destroy most of the entire world's band's marketing out of the water....  (Maiden has been great at it from the start)

 

 

I've never seen a merch booth swarmed like at the Maiden show I saw last month.   There had to have been 20 lines, probably 50 people deep each (and that was only one of the multiple t-shirt booths).  And I've never been to any show with anywhere close to as many people wearing a t-shirt advertising that night's band.

 

Maybe this is normal at big metal shows.  I wouldn't know, since I don't really follow metal.  But seeing this kind of devotion was weirdly awe-inspiring.   

[chuckrh]

Rolling Stones. Without  the genius marketing they would've been playing fine Native American entertainment complexes years ago. That being said, they were fantastic this year. At least the show I saw. Far better than the show I saw in 2012 (last time I saw them prior to this year). 

[Winston Legthigh]

 

3) Rolling Stones (mostly from the iconic Warhol lips and tongue alone)

 

 

John Pasche designed it, not Andy Warhol.

[tinnitus photography]

Metallica probably has the most shirts out there that I see people wearing

for an underground band, Sleep has the merch game dialed in to an outrageous degree.

[TCP]

Marketing isn't just merch. To me, the best marketed bands are some of the boomer-classic rock acts who, after years and year of effort from their labels/PR/promoters/etc, get pushed into "legendary" status despite maybe only having one or two big albums like Fleetwood Mac. 

[Winston Legthigh]

Remember when CCR's Chronicle Vols.1 and 2 were marketed with a TV commercial?

 

[calvino]

Remember when CCR's Chronicle Vols.1 and 2 were marketed with a TV commercial?

 

In the late 80's, record companies in general did great marketing of 60's bands in general with the Freedom Rock commercials.  

 

Guessing they were piggybacking off the resurgence of the Grateful Dead's 87 Touch of Grey  hit. 

[Winston Legthigh]

Though I didn't own a single album by either band (at the time), in junior high I was preoccupied with drawing Van Halen's "VH" logo, and the Dead Kennedy's "DK" logo. 

[jff]

Black Flag's gotta be considered.  I'd like to see the pie chart of societal awareness of their logo vs. actual knowledge of their music.

[uncool2pillow]

John Pasche designed it, not Andy Warhol.

Damn, I've been under the wrong impression for going on 3 decades or more. Thanks!

 

Black Flag's gotta be considered.  I'd like to see the pie chart of societal awareness of their logo vs. actual knowledge of their music.

Good call!

 

[TCP]

Remember when CCR's Chronicle Vols.1 and 2 were marketed with a TV commercial?

 

 

3LPs for $15?! Damn. That would be a $70 boxset now a days limited to 1000 on clear-water-coloured vinyl. 

[Chez]

Black Flag's gotta be considered.  I'd like to see the pie chart of societal awareness of their logo vs. actual knowledge of their music.

I can speak from personal experience to that fact.  My oldest son got an arm tattoo of Black Flag's logo while in college -- years before he had ever heard one of their songs!

[jff]

I can speak from personal experience to that fact.  My oldest son got an arm tattoo of Black Flag's logo while in college -- years before he had ever heard one of their songs!

 

There are a lot of angles from which to unpack this.  It's a cool looking design that has stood the test of time. And tattoos are something a lot of people get with no forethought whatsoever (my brother is a tattooer, so I know from him that a significant percentage of customers have absolutely no idea what they want.  They just know they want a tattoo right now.)  Considering that, I guess a Black Flag logo is as good as anything else to get tattoo'd on your arm. 

 

But I have to wonder what happens if you eventually listen to the band and find that you hate their music.   What if you do a similar thing, and then you find out the logo is for a neo nazi band?

 

I guess that's a digression, but it does speak to the power of marketing and branding.

[ih8music]

The Misfits certainly seem more popular now due to their iconic logo.