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Hencorp Gone Bozo

July 5, 98

From the Head Offices of Hencorp, Marketing 101 (as in, How Not...) "If A CD is Released In the Forest..."

How do you release a record when you're not actually releasing a record? When you don't have distribution in Canada, and you don't have it in the U.S.? If we were to go out today and hustle up some reviews and a few people actually got interested in our product, then those people might end up looking all over the place and they wouldn't find the darn thing anywhere and there'd be a palpable Henfan backlash and we'd be net losers. How smart is that? So this time, instead of doing the full-bore press blitz that's generally expected of us, we're thinking about trying on a little number called the Anti-Campaign. (Thereby leaving open the possibility that we can arrange distribution by the end of the summer.)

This time it's The Trickle, the lengthy Pre-Release. No mailouts with big H medallions or CDs buried in dirt or free chocolate bars or any of that funny marketing stuff. A CD release party? Not on your life. It's too much from the old Me Me Me school. (We like the CD release gigs where the band didn't quite get its product manufactured in time.) So what we've decided is this: we'll sneak out a few advance copies as if we were dealing in tickets for some secret Prince gig at the ElMo, like some insider thing. And give away a couple too (see below!), testing the waters with one toe. At some point, if it's warm, maybe place a classified ad in the Georgia Straight, or do an appearance on Vicki Gabereau's (sp) TV show. Low-key.

After Vicki maybe then it starts heatin' up a tad? So we throw a coupla hundred thou (pennies) into a mid-level "release" in the fall, when the kids are back in school. Perhaps we go straight to MTV, straight at the bass and drum scene, straight at Jann Arden or Tricky. Not yet though. For now it's a waiting game. "Let the Henlistees decide for you," the marketing consultants say. "Let them judge."

On that basis, here's what we propose, dearest Henlistee: Five (5) people who correctly answer the following skill(?)-testing question will each get one new CD by The Henrys sent straight to their abode (one per abode), free of charge. Anyone else on this list of loyalists who wants the CD (called "Desert Cure", by the way) gets one copy POSTAGE INCLUDED for a One-Time-Hencorp-Gone-Crazy fee of $9. That offer expires at the end of July. Have we gone NUTS???? (Ensuing copies revert back to the old pail-of-icewater-in-the-face price of $15 plus $2 postage.) Brace yourselves, here comes The Question: What team is going to win the World Cup? (Okay, like we said above, "skill" ain't necessarily part of this equation.) Now, if you were to say, for instance, that Brazil was gonna win, and there were 30 of you who did, and Brazil won, they we'd have to hold a draw to find 5 lucky winners. So it could be argued that you might want to - just a suggestion - go with Croatia, and be part of a smaller scene. (What do we know?)

Entries must be e-marked by noon on Tuesday. Winners will be announced soon after the 12th, we hope. (The only thing is, Hencorp will be closed July 12-19, but we'll try to get our email *non situ* and announce the names of the winning entries during that week.) Good luck, y'all! We'll get back atcha with the results just ASAP! And once you've heard the CD, please hit Hencorp with your savvy marketing concepts for that big autumnal campaign.

 

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