So you think the pace of your industry changes fast?

Try being a rock star.

You write a great song. It’s four minutes long.

Now do it again, but different.

Now do it ten more times so that you have an album.

Now, as soon as your album is a hit, start working on a follow up.

While you do all of that, watch as tastes evolve and styles change. Watch as social media accelerates these changes. Watch as technology makes it possible for people to avoid paying for your album and that same technology makes it possible for far less talented artists than you to go viral.

When change hits your industry, you have two choices as I see it.

The obvious one is to adapt with the times. This is what nearly every expert says you need to do. Embrace the new technology! Change what you do to match the evolving tastes! Evolve or die!  Sometimes it works, and sometimes it is like KISS going disco with “I Was Made For Lovin’ You”. When it works, it is Apple evolving from a computer company into a technology company… or Old Spice changing from your grandfather’s cologne into your kid’s body wash. When it works, it is glorious and profitable.

The less-obvious choice is to intentionally avoid changing. Often not changing fails, and you appear out of touch with the times and irrelevant.  But consider The Rolling Stones. The Stones are celebrating 50 years together, yet they’ve only recorded four new albums in the past 25 years. That means that they made nearly every memorable piece of music in their first 25 years! Then, they decided not to change, and they became a very wealthy nostalgia act. When it works, it too is glorious and profitable.

Neither choice is right or wrong.

The only right thing to do is recognize the changes around you and formulate a conscious plan to deal with them.

It isn’t so much “Change, or die”… it is, more accurately, “Be aware of change, or die”.

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With stunningly few very rare exceptions, the greatest songs in rock history use colorful, interesting, and unique words and phrases.

Those colorful words and phrases engage our brains and paint vivid images in our minds. We can’t forget them.

Let’s look at this section of Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone”:

You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain’t no good
You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain’t it hard when you discover that
He really wasn’t where it’s at
After he took from you everything he could steal.

Frowning jugglers and clowns doing tricks? A chrome horse and a diplomat carrying a Siamese cat on his shoulder?

Yes, those are the somewhat confusing words to the song that Rolling Stone magazine listed as #1 on their Top 500 Songs Of All Time. Those are words and phrases that capture your subconscious and demand that it pay attention.

Great advertising does the same thing!

For example, let’s compare those cryptic Dylan lyrics to the script to what many consider the best advertisement of the past decade, the famous Old Spice “Man Your Man Could Smell Like” ad:

Hello, ladies. Look at your man. Now back to me. Now back at your man. Now back to me.

Sadly, he isn’t me, but if he stopped using ladies scented body wash and switched to Old Spice, he could smell like he’s me.

Look down. Back up. Where are you? You’re on a boat with the man your man could smell like.

What’s in your hand? Back at me. I have it, it’s an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love. Look again. The tickets are now diamonds.

Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady. I’m on a horse.

Starting now, make a vow. Rid your advertising of the words that your competitors are using. Eliminate as many of the usual “advertising” words as you can. Throw away every single cliche you can find.

Instead seek out colorful and dynamic words that shatter your prospect’s mental filter and dive deep into their memory, so that when they need whatever it is you sell… they think of you first. And nobody else matters.

When you are creating advertising – whether it is radio, print, TV, outdoor, or interactive – you are writing songs. Just like Bob Dylan.

How does it feel?

Click here to order Brand Like A Rock Star today and start building a stronger brand right away, using the core marketing strategies of legends like Bob Dylan, U2, AC/DC, Grateful Dead, Nirvana, and many others. It is available in paperback and Kindle download.

A few months ago, Eric Dodds of the awesome Brains on Fire Blog wrote a piece that was inspired by my book Brand Like A Rock Star.

Being a Brains on Fire fan, I was eager to read the blog post. But as I read it, to my disappointment it became evident that Eric wasn’t writing about my book. He was writing about the title. And he made a good point. Why would anyone strive to be a rock star today?

Hell, if any single industry could be accused of clinging to an old-world business model while the new world evolved before their very eyes, it is the music industry.

Rock stars are notorious for their self-destructive habits, self-delusional perceptions, and self-absorbed behavior.

And the non-creatives in the rock star biz – the suits – are just greedy bastards hell bent on turning art into money.

It begs the question that Eric asked… why would anyone want to be a rock star?

The answer is simple.

Because when you rock, the world pays attention.

And nothing is more important to marketers today that getting attention. Nothing.

Without attention, you have no awareness.

Without attention, you have no engagement.

Without attention, you have no click-throughs. No sales. No ROI.

Attention is the water in a just-add-water recipe. All of the other ingredients in your campaign are nothing if you don’t add attention. When KISS walked out on stage in 1974 wearing bizarre comic book make-up and started to blow stuff up on stage, the world paid attention. While plenty of people hated KISS, plenty more loved them.  assionately.

When Lady Gaga appeared at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2010 wearing a dress made from raw meat, the world paid attention. Gaga has her detractors, but her clan of “little monsters” is far more powerful.

Getting our attention doesn’t always have to be flashy and controversial, like KISS and Lady Gaga.

Powerful brands like Chipotle and Whole Foods got our attention by committing themselves to causes we can rally around, like sustainable farming, organic foods, and clean power sources.

Old Spice got our attention by making us laugh and by giving us content we wanted to share with our friends on social networks.

Whether through humor, causes, or controversy, all of these brands recognize that without attention, they cease to exist.

A rock star lives on center stage with a powerful spotlight shining down, thousands of fans eager to sing along and experience the raw emotional power of hearing the songs they love sung live and in person.

When you rock, the world pays attention.

And that’s why, no matter what you do in life and business, you want to be a rock star.

If there’s one thing I love about rock stars, its that they never give up. They never surrender. They always believe, no matter how bad things might be, that they are one great song away from a comeback.

Aerosmith was pretty much a piece of rock history in 1986 when an up-and-coming hip hop act named Run-DMC invited the band to re-recorded a rap-based version of “Walk This Way”. The song became a bigger hit than the original, and skyrocketed Aerosmith’s career back to the top of the charts. They went on to one of the most prolific phases of their career in the following decade.

Meatloaf is a living-breathing comeback story. After recording one of rock’s best selling albums in 1977′s Bat Out of Hell, Meatloaf sunk into obscurity and eventual bankruptcy before rising back to the top with Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell in 1994. His life has been a perpetual rise and fall and rise again.

It happens with companies and brands as well. Growing up in the late 70s and early 80s, I would have never considered wearing Old Spice cologne. The brand was nearly worthless until it was revitalized over the past decade, and now is the top-selling men’s bath product on the market.

Apple might be the most valuable company on planet earth today, but there was a time when their $500+ stock was worth about $5. At one point – not so long ago - the company was nearly bankrupt. Pretty decent comeback, no?

Lindsay Lohan is on the comeback hunt these days, hosting Saturday Night Live last weekend. Reviews were mixed, but despite the reviews it was one of the most-watched SNL episodes in recent memory.

Rock stars believe that every state is temporary.  Sure your song might be #1 this week, but that doesn’t guarantee anything for next week. You might sell-out tonight, but tomorrow is a different show in a different city… and there could be plenty of empty seats.

Like legendary rock stars, entrepreneurs believe.

You are down, but never out.

Never give up.

Order or download Brand Like A Rock Star now, the book that takes you backstage to explore the marketing strategies of rock ‘n’ roll legends, and how you can put them to use to make your business more successful.

Sometimes things go wrong, and brands get damaged.

Sometimes you have a late-night Thanksgiving car accident and your entire personal and professional life unravels before your eyes.

What bad things happen, brands need to rebuild.

For a brand like Nike Golf, once so aligned with Tiger Woods, that presents a daunting challenge.  And I like how they’ve handled it. Over the past few months, Nike Golf has been running an ad for their “Method” putter, showcasing the technology behind the club. It is a series of behind-the-scenes shots with pro golfers working together with Nike to create the perfect putter. One of the golfers just happens to be Tiger Woods.

He isn’t the centerpeice of the commercial. This isn’t a commercial about Tiger Woods. This is just a commercial about golf club technology that happens to include Tiger. It is a gentle reintegration of Tiger into the Nike brand.  The subtlty of the move is entirely calculated. Nike is being very cautious, because the Tiger Woods brand is dangerous – both because of his personal troubles and his shaky golf ever since the scandal hit.

Plenty of rock stars have bottom out, only to rise again.

For Carlos Santana and Johnny Cash, their comebacks were linked to collaborations with a fresh new generation of musicians. Santana recorded Supernatural with help from Rob Thomas, Everlast, Eric Clapton, Dave Matthews, and others. Johnny Cash teamed up with producer Rick Rubin and recorded his own interpretations of songs by Nine Inch Nails, Soundgarden, Depeche Mode, and U2.

But Santana and Cash hadn’t commited the kind of social crimes that Tiger Woods did.

Maybe a better comparison is Chris Brown, who is still rebuilding his career after assaulting then-girlfriend Rihanna in 2009. Brown was carefully reintroduced at a Michael Jackson tribute, where he performed an emotional version of “Man In The Mirror” that left many people feeling like the singer deserved another chance.  But then in March controversy arose again when Brown was accused of becoming violent in his dressing room after a Good Morning America interview that probed into the Rihanna affair and the restraining order against him. It remains to be seen if the career of the very talented Chris Brown can be rebuilt.

What can a brand in trouble learn from Tiger Woods, Chris Brown, Santana, and Johnny Cash?

* Take it slowly. Don’t try to conquer the world right away.

* Don’t make it about you. Instead, be humble. Tiger is doing that with the new Nike ads. Chris Brown did it with the Michael Jackson tribute.

* Find a few friends who can lend you credibility. Santana and Johnny Cash did that with tremendous results.

* In the end, being honest and straightforward will win you a lot of friends. Just ask Hugh Grant, who famously quipped “I did a bad thing, and there you have it” on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, shortly after Grant was arrested with a prostitute. Hugh’s career would have probably suffered a great deal more had he not been so forthcoming.

Chapter Thirteen of Brand Like a Rock Star is all about reviving brands that have been left for dead. What can your business learn from Johnny Cash and Old Spice? Find out when you pre-order the book now.

The book Brand Like a Rock Star comes out October 1. If you’re on the mailing list to receive rock star updates by email, you’ll get advance notice of events leading up to the launch. I will also be releasing a Brand Like a Rock Star Musical Companion ebook in a few weeks, and those on the mailing list will get it first. You can sign up here. Free and private and all that good stuff.

Creating great commercials, like the Old Spice campaign, is tough.

An equally tough challenge is seizing the momentum and turning a great campaign into a lengthy dramatic arc.

That’s what Old Spice has done, and they deserve full credit for it. Their recent Fabio vs. Isaiah Mustafa battle for the role of “Old Spice Guy” brilliantly brought the campaign back to the forefront and involved millions of people in their brand once again. Their creative piece of advertising transcended traditional “bought” media, and became a part of pop culture… effectively becoming “news”.

Far too often we look at advertising as living in the moment. But the advertising you run today exists alongside the ads you ran last month and last year. Your print exists with your radio and TV and interactive ads. Smart advertising is a three dimensional game on a never ending continuum.  And since great advertising is really just great storytelling, advertising should have dramatic arcs just like stories do. In storytelling there are heroes and villians and challenges that need to be overcome.  There is also emotional engagement, the willing suspension of disbelief, and a resolution.

Wouldn’t it be cool to have those elements in your advertising?

Emotional engagement = the customer’s attention

Willing suspension of disbelief = evaluation of your offer

Resolution = purchase decision

Great rock albums, in their day, had dramatic arcs. Even today the sequence of songs on an album is carefully thought out to take the listener on a journey. Concept albums are the obvious examples, but any great album is carefully sequenced with purpose. Each song should tell part of the story or communicate part of the aura. Thanks to dramatic arcs, you can’t possibly hear “Eruption” without hearing “You Really Got Me” right afterwards. You can’t appreciate “Happiest Days of Our Lives” without “Another Brick In The Wall Pt 2″.

Does your advertising have a dramatic arc? Does it exist in three dimensions on a never ending timeline? Or do you just run commercials talking about your prices and free parking?

In the days pre-iPhone and pre-Android, it was cool to have a Blackberry.

Now, all that has changed.

I had a great back-and-forth with Dean Heuman on Twitter (@dheuman). Dean is a marketing and communications pro with www.focuscom.ca and he is a die-hard Blackberry fan. But even Dean admits that “even if Blackberry comes out with something awesome, they are tainted with being uncool. It seems once you are tainted, you can’t be cool again.”

Can cool be recaptured?

There are some examples that suggest it is possible.

Only a decade ago, Old Spice was a washed-up brand that only your Dad would wear. Today it is the top selling men’s bath brand.

For a long time Johnny Cash was uncool, even in country music. He very quickly recovered that cool, and died a rock ‘n roll and country music icon.

Nintendo definitely looked pretty uncool compared to Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s Playstation. And then they created the Wii and changed all that instantly.

The Lacoste crocodile is suddenly cool to wear again, despite being a powerful symbol of 80s preppiness.

What can Blackberry take away from the lessons learned by these comeback brands?

1. Find new friends. Johnny Cash found uber-hip producer Rick Rubin. Old Spice found creative energy in Wieden+Kennedy and spokesperson Isaiah Mustafa. When you associate with cool, you too can become cool.

2. Take serious risks. Nintendo went after an entirely new audience for video games with Wii. Johnny Cash recorded sparse acoustic versions of alternative rock songs. If you want to move the needle, you need to do remarkable things that are inherently risky.

3. Touch pop culture. Isaiah Mustafa, as the Old Spice guy, has become a pop culture celebrity. The Wii became a pop culture phenomenon. When the world is talking about you, good things usually happen. Unless you’re BP, Anthony Weiner, or Tiger Woods.

4. Be patient. Lacoste waited nearly 20 years through the age of grunge, until the prep look came back in style. Johnny Cash waded through two decades of musical fads before his raw sound found an audience again.

5. Create scarcity. A shortage of something creates value. The lack of available Wii consoles when they were first released created a massive push for them. The death of Johnny Cash, at the peak of his comeback, left us wanting more of the Man in Black. Demand + Scarcity = Value.

I don’t know for sure if any – or all – of those lessons will apply to the fortunes of Blackberry, but I hope the brand recovers and emerges strong. It is good for competition and for the people of Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, whose economic base has grown along with Blackberry’s parent company Research in Motion.

There is an entire chapter in the book Brand Like a Rock Star that examines how brands can recover their “cool”. You can pre-order the book right now.

If you don’t already follow Brand Like a Rock Star on Twitter, please do! You can also take part in the conversation on our Facebook page.

Legendary bands have legendary lead singers. Mick Jagger. Steven Tyler. Bono.

Great brands need to have legendary lead singers too. They need a face. They need humanity. People form powerful bonds with other people, not faceless companies. Therefore, brands that have a strong human element connect with us on a deeper level.

Apple gave the Mac a human touch in their Mac vs. PC ads.

Chrysler gave their brand Rocky-like human qualities through their “Imported From Detroit” campaign.

And perhaps most obviously, Old Spice took on a human form in Isaiah Mustafa as “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”.

Are you giving your brand a human element for people to connect with and embrace? Or are you asking your customers to feel human emotions (love, respect, devotion) toward an inanimate object (your company)? Let me know how that goes for you.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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Steven Tyler has a rejuvinated career as a judge on American Idol. He launched a new book this week, and next week will premiere the video for his new solo song “(It) Feels So Good“.  All this from a guy who, just two years ago, was rumored to be leaving Aerosmith, entering rehab, and pretty much written off.

No matter how crappy it feels, failure is temporary. Just ask Old Spice, Apple, Spam, and 86 years of Boston Red Sox futility.

No matter how glorious if feels, success is temporary. Just ask Hummer, Circuit City, MySpace, and the 2010-11 Chicago Blackhawks.

Don’t let either state get embedded too deep inside your head.

By the way, this isn’t the first time Steven Tyler has ressurected a forgotten career.

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Hearing the news about the death of Osama bin Laden inspired me to find “The Rising” by Bruce Springsteen on my iPod, quite possibly the finest song to be written about 9/11.

Springsteen was blessed with the gift of recognizing the mood of his fans, reflecting it back at them in a perfect musical mirror.

In the mid-70s he grabbed our hearts with “Born To Run” and no doubt singlehandedly increased motorcycle sales with his tale of escape from his dying industrial hometown.

A few years later he captured the disillusionment of the early-80s recession with “Born In The USA“, reflecting tough times through the eyes of a returning Vietnam vet.

And shortly after our collective breath was taken away by the horror from Ground Zero, Bruce shared his story of a New York firefighter climbing the stairs of the World Trade Center in “The Rising“.

Great brands reflect the mood and spirit of their customers in everything they do. Apple reflects a customer who lives on the cutting-edge. Old Spice reflects a customer who is irreverent. Nike reflects a customer who is inspired. Walmart reflects a customer committed to saving money.

Magic happens when you reflect your customer’s spirit in your presentation. I still get goosebumps when I hear “The Rising”.

If you enjoyed this post and are passionate about music and business, please consider subscribing to Brand Like A Rock Star by email. I will never share your contact info. You can also subscribe by RSS feed using the button on the upper right portion of the page.

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