Hyduc Street: Marketing but perhaps not as you know it!

Writing a song about the place where you live can be a bit of a challenge I found: it has to be clear to the intended local audience so that they feel they are in on the 'secret' but also vague enough so other people don't feel excluded from the musical conversation. Places that are nowhere can be anywhere. Many references were made to things perhaps best understood by locals but in a way disguised as word play or metaphor. We ran a local quiz to see if people could work out the landmarks, history and events in the song's narrative and used this in our publicity material. Why? well we were looking for a new angle, a new way of engaging with a potential audience, a way onto local radio and copy for the platforms we were trying to keep fed. This is what we ended up with:

HYDUC STREET: The Quiz!

1 Which city in in the UK does ‘Hyduc Street’ portray?
2 The ‘Hyduc Street’ name has replaced the original street name in the opening shot of the video, a well-known street. What, is the real name of this street and (clue) why did it rise from the ashes?
3 Which general area of the city can be seen in the first black and white aerial drone footage at the beginning of the song?
4 What does the line, ‘Circles of braids and knots’ refer to?
5 Where was the black and white photograph of the now derelict kiln, taken?
6 The ballet dancer represents china figurines made by which Royal company?
7 What does ‘Hyduc’ mean when used as a local colloquialism.
8 ‘This old town remains.’ Arnold Bennet’s book ‘Anna of the Five Towns’ missed out a sixth town. Which town was this?
9 ‘All the Monkey Heads are singing, la la-la la la.’ What is this a reference to?
10 If you took a ‘walk along our Nile’ which part of the city would you be in?
11 What is ‘a proper cup of tea’?
12 ‘A cut is more our style.’ What is a ‘cut’?
13 On the video, which village (in the foreground) does the main road pass through when the words, ‘hold a lock of gold, a sin kissed trinket,’ are sung?
14 ‘And we don’t let go or say goodbye.’ Which personal/social quality has traditionally kept people from leaving the area?
15 At the end of the video there is a stencilled badge on the wall. What genre of music does it celebrate?
16 What was the name of the club where this celebration used to take place?
17 The introductory piano passage of the song is a homage to the style of hymn sung in a church referred to locally as a, ‘cathedral’ Where is this ‘cathedral?’
18 During the closing credits, immediately after the words, ‘let it break free tonight.’ there is a background shot of a local motorway. Which motorway is this?

Thus the lyrics took time to prepare and many photographs were taken to support the video that we eventually put together. So, 'was it worth it?' Did this marketing work? Well it was certainly a lot of fun. I learned a lot about my City from historians and talking to the many people that responded to the questions we asked (and the corrections received where some issue or event was hotly debated - and there were many such debates!) Overall, despite its quirky approach, I believe it worked well. We have received a large increase in engagement, grown our online presence and received much needed support, encouragement and praise. Listens to our song and watches of our video has dramatically improved.

Through ethnocloud our music has also reached a global audience - people from at least 15 different countries have been in touch, it's really quite uplifting to have your work appreciated it's motivational, encouraging, it drives the creative juices. I guess we,like many musicians, love the creative process but recognise that commercial success is a long shot. Its people and communication that have made this work worthwhile for us. Ultimately, our real reward has been through getting into the fray of dialogue, talking to people and learning from this. Downloads on the music streaming services don't offer most of us much reward or encouragement (unless you happen to have 6 noughts after your monthly stats) but there is a huge amount of richness derived from the friendships forged and the words exchanged during the process of what most of us enjoy best: making music. In honesty, we ended up getting a different response than the one we planned but in the end it sure feels like the one we needed! Gar