Traditional Advertising: Old Man.

I've been planning my next few blog posts about traditional advertising and getting things ready to go, but am haulted with a nasty cold. So, just a few more days, my friends, and we'll be back on track.

However, I do have a story today about traditional artist advertising. As I'm sure many of you have seen, musicians will plaster their name wherever they can - on street signs, light poles, sidewalks, trashcans, etc. I've illustrated that point in this post. Well, this morning as I made my way to the communications building I spotted an old man. Picture this. Ernest Hemingway with snow white hair, sunglasses, sneakers with mid-calve socks (somewhat scrunched), above-the-knee cargo shorts, a button-down collared shirt with a razor in hand. As soon as I saw him I started watching his actions. Why did he have a razor blade? What was the seemingly-normal man going to do with it? Slash students Freddy Krueger style? Nope. He was walking around Guadalupe Street scraping musician stickers off the poles, street signs and anything else in the city that had been molested by the musician.

I walked slower so I could watch his face as he scraped - it seemed like he was personally hurt by these musicians and their abandonment for any city aesthetics. He would shake his head in disappointment, much like a father would shake his head after finding out his daughter was dating the town's biggest thug. And then I had a sweet flashback to a poster-hanging assignment I was given.

At C3 I was given a stack of posters for a Black Joe Lewis show and told to go "plaster them in the city." So, I hesitantly took my stack and a roll of package tape. (I was hesitant because I try to save as much paper as possible or use recycled paper when I have the opportunity. This was just against my little green code I have. But oh well.) So, I walked to the Austin Convention Center and started putting up the posters on light poles. I felt like I was breaking the law, which I probably was. I felt sneaky, but not in a good way. I kept looking over my shoulder. It was probably really funny if you were a fly on the wall watching me creep around. After doing about 10 posters I started to head back toward my car - then a man started following me. He was a businessman, staring at me and saying things under his breath but loud enough for me to hear.

"You shouldn't be doing this." "This is defacing Austin." "This makes our city UGLY." "You suck."

OK, not that last one, but that's kinda how I felt. So, I pretended to be on the phone with someone having a really important conversation. So, needless to say, there are some people in the city who despise these flyers, stickers, posters, etc. and will say/do anything to get them down. Like Hemingway earlier today, this businessman was pretty passionate about the flyers - just in a different way.

So, for the promoters or musicians, what is the line you draw? Do you have a specific area to post your ads? Do you say f*** it and go on with your business? Is there another way to promote your show/band without paper? (This, by the way, is what I'm hoping to do in the business - find new and fresh ways to promote that are not on paper.) In the next few posts we'll see if little handbills and flyers actually get folks to shows. Stay tuned.