Whoring for the man is nothing new to us, as long as we keep to johns outside the auto industry. Howie Cockrill's got the same issue with the music industry, so whoring for the auto industry is, for him, perfectly acceptable. The blogger behind Ford's Fusion Flash concerts — the source of some just-left-of-the-dial acts, like Los Lonely Boys, Pete Yorn, Fat Joe, The Roots and Yellowcard — Cockrill has our recent-grad dream job, a mere decade too late for (some of) Jalopnik's old-tyme asses. No matter, Car Buyers' Notebook talked to Cockrill about his Ford gig, the long-form audio interviews on the blog and the "experiential" reviews (i.e., please don't piss off our acts) he's done throughout nine of the the 10 stops tour. Click through for Cockrill's take on the blog's impact.
One is that its pure goodness to have random free shows of relatively big bands. Another is that this project represents an initial interesting foray of corporations into cross-marketing (car + music) and riding the wave of the blog & podcasting revolution. I think this is just the beginning of major companies attempting to cash in on the indie/underground cache of blogging and podcasting - with the result being the mainstreaming of those new areas of the internet.
Don't worry, we've already duct-taped the windows. We just need to finish wallpapering the safe room.
Ford Fusion Concert Blogger Has the Best Blogging Gig in the Blogosphere [Car Buyers' Notebook]
Related:
Dan Neil Declares Ford Fusion Remarkably Adaquate; DCX Searching for Hemi Guy [internal]