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25 Days of Harry - January 18/Day 11 - Harry and Music // Performing

Please consider donating to Harry’s Charity Drives if possible!

LOUIS TOMLINSON © Rhys Frampton | SID Magazine 2017

both harry and louis act like they’re 75 old retired couple like “whats that? jorts?” “smile for snapchat” “for what?” like y'all are in your 20s jot that down

this is the year of woodland dwellers releasing their long-anticipated albums. hozier down, louis to go.

25dohs; day 5 → harry + this tour outfit

please consider donating to Harry Styles’s Birthday fundraiser and Stand up to Cancer in memory of Robin Twist!

// so tell me why my gods look like you //

December 29th, 2015

BLACK LIVES MATTER | END GUN VIOLENCE | PRIDE FLAG (07/07)

long way down // one direction + art

Shawn Mendes for Wonderland Magazine, 2018

im listening to a music industry podcast and it’s an interview with a guy who used to be a brand manager/marketing guy for sony and he just literally said sony invited a “dedicated group of 1d fans” to their offices monthly to discuss strategies and that they got rewarded with merch and meeting the band lots of times lmao like we knew this was happening but it’s nice to have it confirmed

for further clarification from OP: it’s a dutch podcast called “Klap Van De Molen” (audio here), episode 60, the 1D bits are between 23:00-27:00. the guest is Fulco Polderman (linkedin profile)

I hope you don’t mind I add to this with a quick translation.

In the intro they talk about his job in general. The guy was brand manager for 1D (and probably other acts) for Warner Sony in the Netherlands. (Warner is his current job.) He talks about 1D fans or any fans from any bands with quite a bit of respect and doesn’t take the bait from the interviewer to make fun of them.

Some general comments he made before he started on 1D as a specific example: “I will never have trouble marketing music that’s not my taste, because who am I to think I know better? If it’s not your taste, doesn’t mean it’s not good. If people love it, don’t look down on it.”

About One Direction: [quotes as accurate as possible]

“With One Direction it was very specific. We had a group of five girls, they were part of the Street Team, they were almost marketeers themselves. Not because they had the training because they were very young, but they knew the target group like nobody else. That began with 20 girls and it became 40,000 girls [I imagine he means 20 fans who became 40,000 fans]. They were constantly in contact with the fans.”

Interviewer: Did you invent the Street Team? “No, if I remember correctly, it already existed. My colleague Wouter Jansen had contacted them, and I took over when I became brand manager of 1D. I contacted them to see how we could build on this. I mean, I can decide from my ivory tower what they’re supposed to like, but I’d rather hear it from them. And we did really cool things. We created a pop up store in Utrecht based on their input, we did fan events, we took over a cinema in Ede [weirdly small town but OK] for 8 hours, doing a live stream with the band [1D day I guess?], purely based on their ideas. Those were all big hits, not because we were so genius, but because the girls said ‘we want this’.”

Interviewer: So you contacted these girls and they were in your office on Monday morning? “They were in our offices every few weeks, yes”

Interviewer: And you talked, had drinks? [lame joke about lemonade. bc underaged, sigh] “Yeah! Brainstorming. I think that’s important and we still do that with other bands and other target groups”

Interviewer: So did they do this so they could meet the band? “I don’t know, I never asked. We did reward them - because they spent soo much time -  so we made sure they could meet the band when they were in the country. Or they got merch first”

Interviewer: It does help if the band cooperates with this stuff. 1D didn’t mind? “Yeah they didn’t mind. I still love the example because you can put this idea on paper but ultimately you need to check with what the fans want. So it should be a collaboration. And we do this now with other artists too, from singer songwriters to boybands to older target groups, hiphop…”

The Street Team is still active I think. No idea who they are, they may be annoying as hell. But this guy is not being cynical at all. Basically grass roots marketing more than anything.