The enormous success of the new Beastie Boys album Hello Nasty, now in its third week holding fast to Number One on the Billboard 200 and one of the more interesting stories to come out of the music industry this month, is being heralded by Capitol Records Senior Vice President and General Manager Lou Mann as "a textbook case of how to set a record up". Nearly one million copies were sold in the first two weeks following release. His comments were reported in the August 7 issue of Radio and Records.

In an interview with Steve Wonsiewicz, Mann says, "I've never seen a setup this good for an album, and it's all because we devoted enough time to do it right." The marketing was developed over a six-month period in advance of release, an almost unheard-of effort to secure the success of an album.

Phil Costello said he couldn't remember ever starting a campaign six months in advance. Capitol's Promotion and Marketing vice president was quick to admit that he has learned from this experience that "You can't set up a record early enough; you can't get too far in front of people."

"We took a very top-down approach and looked at all of the activities that were going on with the record," Mann said. "We basically had a Beastie Boys task force that met just to talk about the record and how we wanted to enter the market. People like [Gold Mountain exec and Beasties manager] John Silva and people from [the Beasties record company] Grand Royal were there at the get-go. The meetings were like big think-tank sessions where we would talk about different ideas, and then someone would go off and explore an idea and report back as to how it would work."

What came out of those sessions, according to Wonsiewicz, were the following:

a. a teaser campaign early in the year to heighten awareness that the album was being released;
b. a 30-minute infomercial created by the Beasties and shown on late-night public access channels beginning two weeks prior to release;
c. a videography for MTV and other outlets;
d. a publicity blitz timed to appear prior to release;
e. use of the band's website for sales on the day of release;
f. and select broadcast, print and billboard buys.