Motor
10-04-2011, 01:24 PM
Backing Indie Bands to Sell Cars (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/business/media/toyota-scion-is-backing-indie-bands-to-sell-cars.html?_r=1)
A crowd of young music fans gathered outside the Roxy Theater in Hollywood one Saturday afternoon recently, jostling for free T-shirts. As Repulsion, a band of the grisly heavy-metal style known as grindcore, blasted through songs like “Pestilent Decay” and “Splattered Cadavers,” dozens of fans on their way in and out of the club scooped up the garments, printed with a gory design typical of the genre.
But the shirts were not for Repulsion or any of the other bands at the Roxy, a venerable Sunset Strip dive. They advertised Scion, a line of small boxy cars made by Toyota that hardly seem the stuff of heavy-metal fantasies.
Now, after years of sporadically releasing music, the company wants to act more systematically, almost like a record label, by sponsoring a full campaign of record releases, videos and tour support for about 20 acts.
A decade ago, a band working with a major corporation faced accusations of selling out, and some of the acts that have worked with Scion have been criticized online, often harshly. But the prevalence of corporate branding has erased much of the stigma once associated with it.
Over the years, Scion has paid for dozens of indie bands to make recordings and videos, and it has put on hundreds of small events like the Roxy show, which the company said cost about $10,000. In its search for ever more marginal forms of music, it supports heavy metal and garage-rock bands, as well as obscure dance subgenres like dubstep and moombahton (a style loosely related to reggaetón).
The idea, according to Jeri Yoshizu, Scion’s manager of sales promotions and the architect of its cultural strategy, is to build good will through many small actions rather than a few large ones.
“My goal is for Scion to stand out as a corporation that gets behind the music community — not the entire music community — and for the brand to represent the feeling that everybody gets something,” she said. “Scion gets something out of it, the kids get something out of it, the artists get something out of it. It’s not just one way.”
This month, Scion A/V, the company’s art and music project, released music by the Los Angeles D.J. and producer Dâm-Funk, and the Singapore grindcore band Wormrot. The company paid all recording costs and is giving the music away to fans, and the acts retain ownership of their music.
On Wednesday and Thursday, Scion will host its second “Music(less) Music Conference” in Hollywood, with about 70 panelists, including Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo and the producers Prince Paul and Mark Ronson.
Jack Hollis, Scion’s senior vice president, said there was no clear way to measure the effectiveness of its music marketing. “We have chosen to be supportive of the arts regardless of whether it comes back directly to us,” he said.
For Scion, focusing on subcultures and genres means constantly being on the lookout for other companies that may have the same idea. Ms. Yoshizu, who started at Toyota in 1995 in the parts logistics division and is the only current Scion employee who was part of its introduction in 2003, said the company had abandoned its early association with hip-hop partly because another carmaker began to work with some of the same artists and paid them more.
“If we’re going after a genre, as soon as another corporation taps into it, you’re done,” she said. “So what do I need to do strategically? Go for the under-underground. Why? Because you can’t sell the under-underground to other corporations.”
Before the show at the Roxy, which was free, there were no Scions in the parking lot or in the immediate vicinity. And the metal die-hards lining up for the show expressed various opinions about Scion’s cars, but most were appreciative of the company’s efforts to support their favorite music.
A crowd of young music fans gathered outside the Roxy Theater in Hollywood one Saturday afternoon recently, jostling for free T-shirts. As Repulsion, a band of the grisly heavy-metal style known as grindcore, blasted through songs like “Pestilent Decay” and “Splattered Cadavers,” dozens of fans on their way in and out of the club scooped up the garments, printed with a gory design typical of the genre.
But the shirts were not for Repulsion or any of the other bands at the Roxy, a venerable Sunset Strip dive. They advertised Scion, a line of small boxy cars made by Toyota that hardly seem the stuff of heavy-metal fantasies.
Now, after years of sporadically releasing music, the company wants to act more systematically, almost like a record label, by sponsoring a full campaign of record releases, videos and tour support for about 20 acts.
A decade ago, a band working with a major corporation faced accusations of selling out, and some of the acts that have worked with Scion have been criticized online, often harshly. But the prevalence of corporate branding has erased much of the stigma once associated with it.
Over the years, Scion has paid for dozens of indie bands to make recordings and videos, and it has put on hundreds of small events like the Roxy show, which the company said cost about $10,000. In its search for ever more marginal forms of music, it supports heavy metal and garage-rock bands, as well as obscure dance subgenres like dubstep and moombahton (a style loosely related to reggaetón).
The idea, according to Jeri Yoshizu, Scion’s manager of sales promotions and the architect of its cultural strategy, is to build good will through many small actions rather than a few large ones.
“My goal is for Scion to stand out as a corporation that gets behind the music community — not the entire music community — and for the brand to represent the feeling that everybody gets something,” she said. “Scion gets something out of it, the kids get something out of it, the artists get something out of it. It’s not just one way.”
This month, Scion A/V, the company’s art and music project, released music by the Los Angeles D.J. and producer Dâm-Funk, and the Singapore grindcore band Wormrot. The company paid all recording costs and is giving the music away to fans, and the acts retain ownership of their music.
On Wednesday and Thursday, Scion will host its second “Music(less) Music Conference” in Hollywood, with about 70 panelists, including Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo and the producers Prince Paul and Mark Ronson.
Jack Hollis, Scion’s senior vice president, said there was no clear way to measure the effectiveness of its music marketing. “We have chosen to be supportive of the arts regardless of whether it comes back directly to us,” he said.
For Scion, focusing on subcultures and genres means constantly being on the lookout for other companies that may have the same idea. Ms. Yoshizu, who started at Toyota in 1995 in the parts logistics division and is the only current Scion employee who was part of its introduction in 2003, said the company had abandoned its early association with hip-hop partly because another carmaker began to work with some of the same artists and paid them more.
“If we’re going after a genre, as soon as another corporation taps into it, you’re done,” she said. “So what do I need to do strategically? Go for the under-underground. Why? Because you can’t sell the under-underground to other corporations.”
Before the show at the Roxy, which was free, there were no Scions in the parking lot or in the immediate vicinity. And the metal die-hards lining up for the show expressed various opinions about Scion’s cars, but most were appreciative of the company’s efforts to support their favorite music.