• by Aaron Baar , August 11, 2011

The rock 'n' roll lifestyle isn't all glitz and glamour. Just ask Sierra Kusterbeck from the band VersaEmerge. Or better yet, watch a series of videos from Payless ShoeSource designed to promote the company's new Brash line of shoes.

The retailer contracted the band (and its charismatic singer) to promote the new line of shoes, which are targeted at teen girls. Rather than take a basic advertising approach, however, Payless's agency, Martin Williams Advertising, opted to tag along with the band on its European tour, filming everything that went on for a series of videos.

"The band just fell into our laps," David Richardson, group creative director at Martin Williams, tells Marketing Daily. "We did research on them and found they were on tour in Europe, which we thought was more dynamic than, say, Pittsburgh."

The videos, which launched this week on www.brashgirl.com, and will appear on TV, YouTube and Facebook, depict all aspects of being part of a rock-and-roll band, from performing in front of thousands of fans to the more mundane acts such as hauling equipment to gigs and spending hours sound-checking equipment.

To capture the entire lifestyle, the team spent several days on a tour bus with cameras rolling the entire time, Richardson says. In all, the agency created 30 video pieces that will roll out in six waves throughout the social media scene.

"Being in a rock-and-roll band can be dynamic and exciting, but it can also be boring and mundane when you're doing the sound check," Richardson says. "People always glamorize it in their minds. We wanted to humanize the band."

That realism and extra dimension will carry with Brash's "fashion rock princess" target of teen girls, Richardson says. Having grown up with the all-access world of MySpace and Twitter, they no longer expect to see only the glitz and polish of their idols.

"This audience is more suspect of that one-dimensional look, and I think they understand that it's not all rock and roll and glamour," he says. "That's what makes them interesting and relatable as people. I think that's an interesting look and this audience demands that in a way."