Rolling Stone Magazine plans to let their readers choose who will appear on their highly circulated cover in exchange for their readership’s dandruff. At the next independently run but corporately financed concert you attend, please expect the music rag, with help from Atlantic Records, AOL and Jimmy Fallon, to morph into an army of little monkeys that will gleefully remove the dead skin off your scalp. Much like the loveable animal in their commercials. L’Oreal’s Garnier Fructis brand will then collect the flakes and distribute the highly sought after salty treat amongst it’s shareholders.
In a collaboration with Atlantic Records and AOLMusic.com, Rolling Stone has selected 16 of what it calls “undiscovered acts” to compete — first for online votes, then live at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee in June. The final winners will be determined in August and, along with gracing the cover, will receive a recording contract with Atlantic Records.
The competition, being sponsored by Garnier Fructis, a L’Oréal brand, was announced on the Monday edition of “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” where in August the final winner also will be announced and will perform.
Fine, fine. Maybe that’s not literally what’s going to happen. Really, it’s not going to go down like that. Seriously. And it’s not like Garnier Fructis doesn’t really appreciate the 16 indie bands and “music events with unisex appeal” and are in fact more concerned with tapping into the psychological insecurities associated with self-conscious music fans that may suffer from a completely normal amount (about 487,000 cells/cm2 according to Dandruff: the most commercially exploited skin disease) of skin shedding. Seriously, it’s not like that at all.
Introduced in the United States in 2003, Garnier Fructis is unusual among hair care brands for marketing not just to women but to men as well, in part by sponsoring music events with unisex appeal.
This June will be the fifth year that the company will be a sponsor of Bonnaroo, erecting temporary salons to give free shampoos to festival-goers, many of whom camp onsite. Last summer the brand lathered up more than 6,000 people at Bonnaroo, and also stocked the campground showers.
What it’s really about, obviously, is the “core equity of the brand”. That is to say, non-cryptic, marketing lingo that is very easy to understand and translate into practical terms.
The brand will be featured prominently on the competition section of RollingStone.com, while on another section of the site that will go live on April 1, the Garnier Fructis Green Room will show behind-the-scenes videos, including stylists coiffing musicians.
“Garnier Fructis has a platform of authentic voices, and music has always been a core equity of the brand,” said Deborah Marquardt, vice president for media and integrated marketing at Garnier.
