Ad Campaign Causes Promoters to Lose Taste for Meat Loaf Tour

Meat Loaf has sold a phenomenal 9 million copies of his 1993 comeback album, “Bat Out of Hell II: Back to Hell.” So how come the Loaf couldn’t even sell 1,500 tickets for a Forum concert?

A show planned for Aug. 13 at the Inglewood arena, which holds about 18,000 for concerts, has been canceled in light of those poor sales, and some industry observers are blaming a promotional scheme concocted by the singer’s manager, Allen Kovac.

The plan involved putting all 61 of Meat Loaf’s summer concert dates on sale the same day, with all the local concert promoters from across the country chipping in for a national advertising campaign.

That ad ran three weeks ago, and while in some parts of the country Meat Loaf shows at arenas and large amphitheaters have sold well, many others have not. Now, promoters say, most of their advertising budgets are gone while many of the tickets remain.

Most promoters interviewed did not want to be quoted on the issue. But many believe that the national campaign--which reportedly cost $1 million and included ads in USA Today and commercials during “The Tonight Show”--was a wasted effort.

“When you make the effort to sell broadly like that, not only is it more expensive, but you’re diluting the effectiveness,” says Ben Liss, executive director of the Washington-based North American Concert Promoters Assn.

“Narrowcasting works better, focusing the advertising and promotion to reach the specific audience that buys tickets. When you take that out of the market and you take the dollars (for advertising) out, it has an impact.”

Patience, counsels Kovac. Meat Loaf’s manager says that promoters are panicking too quickly and that the national ad campaign was part of a larger scheme to raise the singer’s profile and help the public view him as a legitimate arena-level artist.

A new single, “Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are,” is being released this week, and Kovac is confident that it will help generate more interest in the concerts.

But many promoters believe that Meat Loaf may not be the right artist to try the experiment with. Though his record sales have been huge, it was nearly 20 years between his hit albums, and in the interim he did not establish himself as a big concert attraction.

The consensus is that there may be some merit to the national campaign, but a different kind of artist would provide a better test.

It looks like they’ll get to find out. Kovac says that he’s planning the same kind of effort for another of his clients, John Mellencamp. Look for his national concert campaign to hit simultaneously with the release of his new album, “Dance Naked,” in late May.