They say the average Londoner is filmed 300 times every day on the CCTV cameras that festoon just about every lamp post and building in the city. Manchester band The Get Out Clause, decided to put some of their home town’s cameras to good use, by performing their single 'Paper' in front of a series of spy cams strewn across the city, then demanding the film under the Freedom of Information Act, editing the clips together and releasing the result as a promotional video.
By October, The Get Out Clause had received nearly 158,000 views on YouTube and managed to gain a lot of useful coverage, including features with Sky, the BBC, The Daily Telegraph, The Sun and from as far afield as Japan, Australia, France, Canada, Italy, the USA and Hong Kong. Not content with turning CCTV to a novel purpose, the band also dropped 1,000 CDs at locations in central Manchester coffee shops, book shops, bars, hotels and restaurants and asked people to take the CD home, copy it, then return it where they found it for another passer-by to find.
While the band didn’t exactly score a number one hit with 'Paper', they did raise a lot of interest, with academics from Stanford University in the USA even using it as an example of successful marketing.
