The Good, Bad, and the Ugly Ways to Promote a Single

In the recent months I've witnessed a number of promotion mistakes, and some of the right ways to promote a single.  Especially when you consider the competition each single faces, things like promotion can be key to success.


The Good and The Bad:
-Release the PV and covers (and any other information) in plenty of time.  Never wait to the last minute to release these.  People like myself take into consideration the cover or any extras when deciding which version to purchase.  The sooner you release this the more pre-orders you will likely get; this is very important when you consider the first day sales.  PV is short for promotional video, therefore always release it or preview it plenty of time beforehand.  I have yet to see a PV for the sushi version of Morning Musume, whatever that group is called.  There is less than a week left.  Same goes for their next single as well.  SKE48 has already released an extravagant PV on YouTube and the covers.


-Promote the group.  If the group is popular enough the single should accumulate strong sales.  Magazine covers, commercials, dramas, and variety shows.  Any appearance presents opportunity to plug the single and the group.  AKB48 has a number of variety shows all to themselves.  Their center member, Atsuko Maeda, is starring in a much-talked-about drama.  AKB48 has also been hosting a number of events where they've showed the PV or performed the single.  In comparison, I have not seen any magazine scans from Morning Musume.  The biggest promotion I see is talk about graduation.

The Ugly:
Never ever upset the core fan base.  All press is not necessarily good press.  Never announce that you are taking away anything from a release.  This is about AKB48's 18th single PV.  The main PV, which is always included on the DVD of the limited edition set, will not be included on this DVD.  If this was suppose to be a stunt, I have to say this is the worst way to pull it.  To ban the promotional video, which purpose is to promote the single, and not include it on the DVD is a mistake.  For one, it lessens the worth of the DVD and will lead to fans cancel their orders.  To appease the fans they've announced that it will be released through cell phones, which means it should only be viewable in Japan.  It will surface online, but the PV will not be released till the single release date.  This whole debacle does create buzz, but leaves fans with a bad taste in their mouth.  This incident was like setting a warm cookie in front of a child, telling them that they can have it once it cools down a bit, then taking it away saying that you've changed your mind and that they will never get it.  Later, because you feel bad, you give the cookie to the child, but now the cookie is cold and the kid can't enjoy it as much because they are so pissed off at you.  Plus, after all this stress and anxiety this has caused how much you want to bet the PV will not be as amazing as it would of been if they had just released it.  Now, since it was banned, we expect it to be out of this world.  You have to deliver something to cheer up the fans, but even then it might be too late to get back those sales that were canceled.