State Farm Backs Band to Build Brand Awareness
Published 3/17/2010
Author: Piet Levy
Summary
Paint-blasting cannons, a crashing piano and a TV-smashing sledgehammer star in the Rube Goldberg-inspired viral music video hit “This Too Shall Pass,” from indie pop rock band and established YouTube darling OK Go. The video has scored more than 8 million views in 15 days, and is, no doubt, helping OK Go sell more albums and concert tickets. But there’s another entity seeking new fans and sales from OK Go’s viral success: State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co.
Bloomington, Ill.-based State Farm paid for a significant portion of the music video (budgeted at $150,000 according to The Wall Street Journal, although State Farm won’t specify). The company also forked over compensation to London-based record company EMI Group Ltd. to allow the video to be “embeddable” on blogs. In return, the company gets a special thank you at the end of the video and its logo makes a cameo on a toy truck at the video’s start. Otherwise, the ties to State Farm don’t seem all that apparent, which begs the question: Why did State Farm decide to back OK Go’s video effort?
View this content