Okay, so if you live in Montreal and are exposed to any form of media, you have probably already heard of Bernard Lachance.

If not, here is his story :

Bernard Lachance is a young persistant man that wants to become a professional singer. Without a network of connections, he does not have an agent, a manager nor a promotor…but that isn’t slowing him down.

He has adopted a rather hands-on/unique approach to attempt his chance to fame. He sells tickets to people on the street by stopping them and playing his songs. Once the tickets sold, he asks the ticket holders to check off their seat on the t-shirt he is wearing with the room layout. He has sold over 10 000 tickets so far by using this technique.

Recently, Lachance decided to conquer the US market. He saved all his money to rent the Chicago Theater for one night to make his debut. Now everybody knows that Chicago is where the oh-so influencial Oprah Winfrey’s lives and produces her daily show watched my millions of Americans. So Lachance decided to post a video on youtube to invite Oprah and her best friend, and equally famous; Gayle to his show (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tohGOH20aGA). So far, this single video has generated over 88 000 views, including the Oprah Winfrey’s production team who has invited Lachance to the show that will air tomorrow May 5th.

From a marketing stand point…

Personally, I think this marketing strategy is extremely clever.

Lachance had nothing to loose! Without investing a dime on advertising, he used multi-plateforms to promote his show, from tactical to broadcast, to online, including the Oprah empire. No matter what the return is, it will be profitable. That goes to show that any bright idea can have legs in all forms of media.

Not bad for a talented no name artist from Montreal!

There just might be a leason we can learn from this guy, that we might possibly be able to apply to our marketing strategies…when all else fails (lack of budget, time, options, etc) think outside the box and have some guts!!!