Canada Word of Mouth Discovery #1 - Barenaked Ladies Musical Buzz

If there's a band in Canada, that has understood the idea of buzz and put it into practice, it's the Barenaked Ladies (BNL) .  Heck, some of the uninitiated reading this post might have thought this was a profile about new trends in porn...buzz is baked right into their name.

From the time they were banned from a New Years Eve celebration at Toronto City Hall for being politically incorrect (so far from the truth), to making a new media impression shortly thereafter ward on City-Tv's Speaker's Corner and becoming the Patron Musical Saint of Kraft Dinner with song "If I had a Million Dollars" - the Ladies know how to make an impact.

I'm writing this post after hearing three things about BNL from various sources in the last week alone:
- they are hosting a cruise called "Ships & Dip" with their fervent fans (and spending the whole trip on the boat, not just jetting in and out...too cool)
- lead-man Ed Robertson is star of Ed's Up for OLN Canada, which will cover his journeys by plane to various locations given to him only in the form of GPS coordinates, and his adventures once he arrives
- they are asking people to send in a video of their best air guitar

Beyond the umpteen charity and cause-related  events I have seen Steven Paige at in Toronto, you have to respect their approach to music, business acumen and talent for clever self-promotion.

With such a rampup over what is usually a slow August news season - there must have been some force at work behind the buildup of BNL press.  Bingo - album release Sept 12th - The Bare Naked Ladies Are Me.

Let's explore other buzz-generating tactics they have used:
- the ability for fans to remix their songs on their site
- the ability for fans to design the official Bare Naked ladies album T-shirt
- a blog hosted by each of their band members - admittedly Steven Paige's is the only one you could really call active
- their own fan club The LADIES ROOM
- affiliating with the hottest properties across media - Xbox, The Sims and NASCAR,
- prominent and ongoings supporters of worthy causes - Make Poverty History, Hurricane Katrina, Deafness, Children's Miracle and other innumerable charities
- all the site goodies you might expect from a connected and in touch band
- a My Space site with over 28.000 friends

We thought of more undiscovered and obscure nominations to kickoff our list of Canada's Word of Mouth Discoveries 100 List but The Barenaked Ladies are richly deserving. More to follow here.