Dylan's marketing push shows web savvy

Bob Dylan may be as old school as they come, but he (or rather, his organization) is pretty savvy when it comes to marketing. He has a new album, Together Through Life, coming April 28 this month, and anyone with a pulse would be hard pressed to say they didn’t know it. Word is seemingly everywhere, and a lot of it came free of charge.

First, Dylan offered the track “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’” for free download, while this week he offers Newsweek the chance to host “Feel a Change Comin’ On.” In addition, an interview with Bill Flanagan, the first two parts of which were posted on Dylan’s web site, now moves to Newsweek.com, where the third installment is now posted. Who could have predicted in 1993 when the Internet began to take off that newspapers would be cast aside in favor of reading on tiny TV screens and an artist busy recording covers of old tunes would be used to draw eyeballs to that new format?

But the marketing doesn’t stop there. In a nod to past promotions that allowed you to put your own text on Dylan’s cue cards in the video for “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” a promotion for “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’” allows users to create a “lyrical portrait video” that includes their own text and colors that reflect their mood. Here’s mine.

That’s a lot of cutting-edge promo for a 67-year-old folksinger. Will it matter? Well, Dylan had his first No. 1 album in 30 years with Modern Times, so anything is possible. His target demographic is certainly of the CD-buying, rather than MP3-downloading type. And early reviews are positive.