A genuine piece of marketing genius

The new Nine Inch Nails' CD: "Year Zero" holds an interesting secret. The CD is thermally reactive; it turns white when it comes in contact with a heat source. This is something that could actually promote buying the CD as opposed to stealing it.

The CD is black when you open the case. Once you listen to the music and remove the disc from your player, the CD than turns white with black abstract looking designs.

In addition, Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor is using a multimedia scavenger hunt that leads fans to online destinations to promote the new "Year Zero" album, which is now available for purchase. However, when I went to the website, I wasn't able to locate the hunt. So maybe you have to purchase the CD in order to participate?

The marketing agency 42 Entertainment is behind the new form of entertainment, as Reznor perceives it instead of a CD promo. They’re also the agency that was behind 2005's "alternate-reality game" promoting the Halo 2 videogame for the XBox.

A source with knowledge of the project says the campaign forms the body of the "Year Zero" experience as reported by CNN

"It is the CD booklet come to life. It precedes the concept album and the tour. And it will continue for the next 18 months, with peaks and valleys." The source continues, "No one has assembled the full story yet. The new media is creating the story as it goes."

In 2005, web-savvy fans discovered that highlighted letters in the words of a NIN concert tour T-shirt spelled out "I am trying to believe." Web savvy fans added a .com to the five words and, click, located a thought provoking and eerie website.

I plugged into the Year Zero website and listened to the Year Zero music. It’s good - it’s very good.

The thermally reactive CD, thought provoking t-shirts and the scavenger hunt is a genuine piece of marketing genius. It entices fans and potential new fans into buying the CD. When was the last time you saw an artist put this much thought into the CD?

From: Tech Amok
When you translate the binary on the back to a link it goes to this link. http://www.exterminal.net/. Which is a pretty neat little commentary that i think is at least partially directed at the RIAA. Also, the Website is host to a bonus track.


The entire “alternate reality game” for this cd lead to a secret “resistance” meeting that turned out to be a live show for 50 fans.



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