MAN ON THE STREET

[When I was in Austin for South by Southwest, I was stopped on the street by a blogger from some advertising agency/PR firm and asked a few questions about street marketing, etc. I forgot all about it until today, when an unrelated Google search turned up the resulting blog post. Here 'tis.]

The Dailies: March 18
Daily Person
Phil Freeman, metal blogger for MSN Music is at SXSW to do a live, onstage interview with Lemmy from Motörhead. He also does freelance writing about heavy metal for the Village Voice and other New York area publications.

What are you excited about seeing this year?
Well I’m hoping to get to the in-store performance for High on Fire (editor’s note: we saw High on Fire last night and it was fantastic). Also, I might try and get in to see Maldita Vecindad, this Mexican rock band who are amazing.

What brand-sponsored parties are you looking forward to?
I tend to avoid the heavily-sponsored types of events. There are only a couple of metal shows tonight so I’ll probably be bouncing back and forth between those.

Have any promotional items or events stood out to you so far?
Not so far. But today’s only my first day. It’s my first time in Texas so I’m just kind of wandering.

Do you think street marketing works?
At a thing like this I’m not sure it does. Honestly, I’m trying to figure out the point of SXSW because most of the bands are already signed. I do think street marketing works for bands as a general approach- hand out a cd, a card, a sticker, whatever. I think that can convince people to look at your music or download something. At a place like this I don’t think it works that well because there are too many people competing for your attention.