People often ask DeWolfe and Anderson how they managed to get millions of people to find out about their product without ever buying a single piece of advertising. Their answer? Exploring new creative avenues in which they could promote themselves, and that meant not relying on conventional marketing.
From the music they listen to, to the clothes they wear, to the way they run their business, nothing about Anderson and DeWolfe says conventional businessman. In creating their marketing strategy, they wanted to go about things differently. They did not to follow in their competitors’ footsteps and just buy ads. They wanted to be unique, and uniquely effective.
“We didn’t do traditional marketing, but we did try to find photographers and creative people because we thought that would make the site more interesting,” says Anderson. When MySpace was first launched, its members were mostly comprised of Los Angeles-based actors, photographers, and musicians. “That made for an interesting community, and brought in a lot of people,” he says.
In order to attract this creative class, Anderson and DeWolfe offered them the chance to do something that nobody else did – whatever they wanted. “In the early days, there were a lot of bands signing up,” says DeWolfe. “They told us that they’d like to post their lyrics and tour dates. Users told us what they wanted to see, and we just built it.”
For the first time, bands could actually make money on their music without ever signing a recording deal. They could upload their music, distribute it online, sell their CDs, and announce their tours all from their MySpace homepage. “It gives those artists a longer period of time to develop themselves before they get signed, or make a living without getting signed at all,” says DeWolfe.
To take that idea even farther, Anderson and DeWolfe launched MySpace Records to help promote bands that are popular on their site but have yet to sign with a major record label. They have also begun working with film festivals, promoting the independent filmmakers on MySpace in the likes of Sundance. “We’re always looking for the right opportunities,” says DeWolfe.
But even after the site has been promoted, if Anderson and DeWolfe refuse to charge bands for promoting their music and the like, how does MySpace make its money? “It's not only the banner ads,” says DeWolfe. “We allow advertisers to set up their own profiles and build a community around their brand. You can become a friend of Toyota or a new movie exactly the same way you become a friend of a real person on MySpace. That's incredibly successful. We work with all the top brands in the world.” More recently, Google also agreed to pay $900 million for a three-year advertising deal with MySpace, which most major brands have begun to take advantage of.
For Anderson and DeWolfe, however, the bottom line when it comes to marketing is based on the same philosophy that governs the rest of the company. “As PR counselors we need to persuade companies to let go,” says DeWolfe, “to give up control of the message; to learn from consumers who want to co-create the brand.”
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