Kanye West + A Puppet + Olympics + YouTube = Best Way to Drop New Video

By Kyle Austin

August 12th, 2008

By Kyle Austin

Back in the olden days, say 2001, musicians would scamper to MTV’S TRL studious in Time Square and discuss the launch of their new music video with Carson Daly or some other nail polish wearing hipster. That’s what worked and that was the standard formula for dropping a new video. That’s not so hip anymore.

Today, Kanye West has the blogosphere, Twitter and YouTube a buzz, by dropping his ninth video off his 2007 Graduation album as an online video. NEON, the media group which directed John Legend’s “P.D.A. (We Just Don’t Care)” produced the video. In the video Kanye takes on the role of a puppet and is competing as a track star in the fictional “Unified Games.”

The video was rolled out earlier today on Kanye’s official blog and is making its way across the Internet and YouTube land. No doubt in my mind that it will build buzz from the ground up and be a feature story item in the mainstream media over the next couple days. That’s the value of a well produced and timed (the strategy around timing for the Olympics was well choreographed, make no mistake) viral videos. Kanye has always shown a flash for marketing and creativity and it’s on full display here.

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