OK Go has never been a band known for living “by the book,” but their latest effort shows them crossing new boundaries as a band. Today marks the launch of “Say the Same Thing,” a word-based mobile game for iOS and Android coded by the band’s own guitarist, Andy Ross. The premise of the game is for two players to each say a random word, and then in turns work to present words that are conceptually “between” the random words until they meet in the middle by saying the same word. This isn’t an app to extend the reach of OK Go’s music per-se; instead it is an extension of OK Go’s brand and sensibility. The app is released by OK Go in partnership with the label they started, Paracadute Records, a partnership that allows the band to pursue its unique set of artistic and technological endeavors.
Tag: Damian Kulash
Will brand sponsorship bring back music videos?
For most bands in the slumping music industry, the day of big budget videos is a luxury of the past. But last week undisputed kings of the viral music video, OK GO, found a new avenue to make their art a reality: corporate sponsorship.
The band’s clip for “This Too Shall Pass,†which features a mind blowing two story Rube Goldberg contraption, was bank rolled by none other than State Farm Insurance. In a brilliant move, the band also arranged the deal so that State Farm paid for the right to make the YouTube clip embeddable anywhere on the web. The band’s singer Damian Kulash recently wrote a piece for The New York Times questioning EMI’s decision not to allow embedding of YouTube videos and State Farm graciously presented a work around solution.
This is the first example of prominent corporate sponsorship of a major music video that we know of and State Farm’s bet has paid off handsomely– the clip received close to a million views a day in the first week of launch. The video includes a toy car with the State Farm logo as well as a State Farm teddy bear and a closing thank you to the brand for making the video possible. Continue reading “Will brand sponsorship bring back music videos?”
