Gimmick: a trick or device intended to attract attention, publicity, or trade

I’m as a sniffy about the use of gimmicks as the next Authentic Songwriter. I want my precious creation to be the thing that attracts the attention. I don’t want to trick people into listening to it.

Do I?

In fact our art won’t generally attract any interest at all if it doesn’t itself contain gimmicks.

Who heard of a joke without a punchline.

Or a song without a hook.

When making our thing, we intentionally try to trick people into continuing to listen. Whatever tactics we use, we’re certainly not using them with the intention of encouraging folk to lose interest.

Which has made me think that perhaps we shouldn’t look down on attempts to attract interest and seek attention through gimmicks, in order to get people to pay attention to Our Thing in the first place.

Perhaps we should make more of a song and a dance, about our song. Or dance.

How far we go with that idea, is a personal issue of course. And if the gimmick becomes bigger than whatever it is attempting to attract attention to, then things have probably gone too far. But at the end of the day, we’re all advertising something.

We’re not trying to hide it from view.