I disagree. How many times have you tried to describe drum corps to somebody and they were like, "Oh like the movie Drumline right? I loved that."
Take a look at what Gap is doing right now, because I think that this is a great model of viral advertising that DCI could be doing for cheap.. or even have other companies doing a similar campaign
http://sfcitizen.com/blog/2009/12/17/look-...n-the-bay-area/
Gap is taking around a cheerleading squad and drumline (made up of DCI drummers) to major cities and just performing on the streets. Now imagine if DCI did this in a way that wasn't cheesy and minus cheerleaders, emphasizing that these are the best drummers in the world. Everyone always stops and watches that guy playing bucket drums on the street. I guarantee you that people would go crazy if they saw a really great drumline playing some good stuff. Theres no way to ignore that. Even do the same thing with a horn line. Then you advertise the hell out of DCI, what this is, where you can watch it, when it will be coming to your town.
Then you partner it with a website designed for people who don't know what DCI is that has really well produced short documentaries and playing videos that make drum corps look AWESOME!
Meanwhile somebody pitches the athleticism of drum corps to Gatorade.. they put their logo on some drumheads and there you go.. DCI has some more money.
After a few months of success, Gatorade puts out a commercial where a snare drummer is attached to a machine that measures his work output, he starts sweating orange gatorade, and it shows people that this isn't just standing around on a football field at halftime, it takes some real athleticism.
http://www.youtube.com/user/youtheducation#p/u/5/0JNiP25dlNc
All of the sudden, people know what drum corps is and they start going to shows. Bam... DCI is actually making money.