Promoting on Itunes

Artists have been doing podcasts and videos to promote new work for some time, however the Billy Joel podcast celebrating the 30th anniversary release of "The Stranger" was something I had not seen done before. Other artists have been interviewed about the cultural impact of the album (Sting, Duncan Shiek, Jimmy Webb), along with personal recollections by Billy himself. These interviews have been added over intermittent weeks since the podcast launched. (The Stranger broke sales records of the day, only to be superceded by Thriller years later).

A smart way to engage the audience--but it would have been even smarter if the marketers could have figured out how to get consumers involved in the conversation.