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Some topical and somewhat random thoughts today.

First, if you haven’t already downloaded chapter one of Brand Like a Rock Star, wait no longer. It is a free pdf that you can read and share with others. You can grab it instantly here.

Last weekend I had the pleasure of joining 16,000 other Parrotheads at Jimmy Buffett’s Toronto concert. Only KISS rivals Buffett in terms of inspiring visible brand loyalty among fans. You must have a powerful brand to inspire grown men to don grass skirts and coconut bras! It was rare to see someone at the Jimmy Buffett concert who wasn’t at least sporting a colorful tropical shirt. Even the parking lot was a party, as Buffett fans openly defied Canada’s normally restrictive laws against American-style tailgate parties. Such rebellion!

The Buffett brand connects with people in a meaningful way because it touches our very primal need to play.  It frees up our inner-child. It is a brand built on silliness, immaturity, relaxation, and pure uninhibited fun.

Maybe your brand isn’t built on immature fun, but your odds of success go way up when you connect with an emotional need within your customers. Forming an emotional bond is way more powerful than always trying to offer the lowest price. Customers coming to you to have an emotional need satisfied d0n’t really care much about price.

Speaking of emotions, what accounts for apparent emotional angst one encounters in their 27th year?

Brian Jones. Jimi Hendrix. Jim Morrison. Janis Joplin. Kurt Cobain.  Now add Amy Winehouse to the sad list. It is tragic to lose so many people to the powerful demons of addiction, fame, and depression.

On one hand, it is easy to wonder what incredible music could have been made had these tortured geniuses lived longer lives.

On the other, it is interesting to consider how their deaths impacted our perception of their music. Faced with the prospect of never hearing any new music from Hendrix or Cobain, do we naturally worship their music on a higher altar? Does the value of their catalog of music go up simply because they are gone?

There’s no doubt that a lack of supply can increase demand. For example, I wouldn’t have worried about missing an episode of “Entourage” back in season 3, but with this season being the final one, there is no way I will miss a single moment. The reality of no more new episodes (diminishing supply) has increased my urgency to watch (higher demand).

Finally, thank you for the ongoing support. The official book release of Brand Like a Rock Star is a little over two months away. It wouldn’t be happening without you!  Our little network of readers continues to grow, and I would be tremendously grateful if you would consider forwarding this to any of your friends who love music, marketing, advertising, PR, and branding.

Let’s also connect on Facebook at www.facebook.com/brandlikearockstar.

Thanks!
Steve

Remember the first album you ever bought?

For me, that album was Glass Houses by Billy Joel. It was 1980 and I was 10 years old. My friend had a copy and I loved every song on it. I just HAD to have it.

Did you buy that magical first album (or any album for that matter) because the band asked you to?

Of course not. You bought it because the band gave you a reason to… they recorded a great album you wanted to own.

Apply that to social media.

Today I received an e-mail that said  “Like us on Facebook and win”. Later in the day I walked into a store and on the door was a sign that said “Like us on Facebook”.

That’s like Billy Joel asking me to buy his album. It is like walking into a party and having someone say “Be my friend and I’ll buy you a drink”. In a word, it is pathetic.

People don’t become (real) friends with you on Facebook because you ask them to. They become real friends with you on Facebook because you are interesting, engaging, intruiging, and valuable to be friends with. They want to be your friend for the same reason I wanted that Billy Joel album. There was a reason to.

What fools most marketers about social media is that gimmicks and contests appear to work. Friend counts spike when companies offer “Like us and win a prize” contests. Twitter followers grow when you use automated systems that follow hundreds of random people who mostly follow you back.

So you need to ask yourself this question: do you want to have a lot of so-called friends who don’t actually care about you, or do you want to have a smaller number of friends who sought you out because you enrich their life?

That’s an easy question for any rock star brand.

What was the first album (or cassette or CD) you ever owned? Why did you buy it? What inspired you to become friends with the band?

PRE-ORDER Brand Like A Rock Star now at Amazon.com!

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This post is a follow-up to the earlier piece on the success of Owl City.

Iyaz set up his MySpace account in 2006 to showcase the music he was working on back home in the British Virgin Islands.  Music plays such a vital role in Caribbean culture, and musicians in the “BVI” have been heavily influenced by reggae, soca, calypso, dancehall, hip-hop, and pop music.  The result of all of those influences is an infectious bright sound that has recently caught on in North America in a big way.

One of those “island pop” artists, Sean Kingston, stumbled on Iyaz’s MySpace page and loved what he was hearing.  So he fired off an e-mail to Iyaz.

But he didn’t get any reply.  So he sent another one.

Finally, Iyaz replied. It turns out that at first he didn’t believe he was actually trading e-mail with the chart-topping singer.  He was.  And soon the two became friends, with Iyaz heading to Miami to meet him in person.

A few months later, the collaboration paid off and Iyaz joined Sean Kingston’s record label.  His debut song, “Replay“, is now in the top 5 on the Billboard chart.

Another amazing example of how social media has turned the old business model upside down.

Years ago, record company A&R people would spend long late nights in clubs listening to bar bands play, searching for that one magic sound that they could sign to a record deal.  The record company profited by those bands that became famous and sold millions of records, tapes, and CD’s.

Today, artists themselves can spend time on Facebook and MySpace looking for the next big thing.  Business savvy artists like Sean Kingston or Chad Kroeger can sign these artists to their own record label, and use their experience and connections to launch a career.

Years ago, bands could attempt to record their own music.  But very few had access to the equipment to create a recording that sounded professional enough.  Most home recordings, Tom Sholz of Boston aside, sounded like home recordings.

Today, even the most novice musician can easily afford the software to create a decent recording, and with a little work home studio music can sound every bit as what the major record labels are creating.

But Iyaz recorded his debut song “Island Girls” on his laptop using a microphone he bought at Wal-Mart.  That song was a massive radio hit across the Caribbean and launched his career by catching the ear of Sean Kingston.

This changing of the guard isn’t just impacting the music industry.  It has implications in almost every business.

* The next “big thing” in your industry might not come from where you would traditionally look for it.  Are your eyes and ears open to that?

* Technology make someone on a tiny Caribbean island as close as someone in the next room.  Where will your next customer come from?  After all, even this tiny blog has readers in over 50 countries!

* Social media allows a direct dialogue where one would have never before been possible.  Ten years ago it would have been impossible for this dialogue to happen so quickly and easily.

* Techonology in general has put control into the hands of the crowd.  Anyone can record a hit song, if they have the skill and talent.  You don’t need a million-dollar studio set up or a major label record company.

Today you either attempt to harness the power of social media by joining in the conversation, or your risk perishing in the undertow of fast-changing times.

Change is inevitable.  Growth is optional.

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No question that social media has, to some degree, replaced in-person communication as a means of interaction.  You hear stories all the time about first-love couples who get married after reconnecting on Facebook.  Frighteningly, there are well documented cases of people who have left spouses and children behind for “lovers” that they met on Second Life.  And certainly Craig’s List and other sites like it are filled with ads for people looking to meet others, for profit and otherwise.

Maybe social media has replaced the bar as the hook-up spot of choice.

But has social media replaced the bar as the means by which new music is exposed?

In the music biz, the story has been pretty much the same for over forty years.

You start a band, write some songs, and hit the road.  You tour relentlessly in bars and pubs. And with each passing gig, three things happen:

1. You get better at your craft.  As Malcolm Gladwell pointed out in “Outliers”, The Beatles got pretty damn good by playing for eight hours a night, seven nights a week, in Hamburg bars.

2. You develop more fans.  Playing in front of 100 people for 200 nights a week puts you in front of 20,000 fans.  That’s like playing The Staples Center in LA once.  You won’t ever play there for real without having a fan base.

3. You increase the odds of being noticed by someone who can make a difference.  Bands who play live in bars night after night develop a “buzz”, and a buzz gets noticed by the music industry.

But the times have changed, and Adam Young knows it.

Adam lives in Owatonna, Minnesota, a city of 25,000 people in Southwestern Minnesota.  It is not the center of the entertainment universe.   And Adam hasn’t toured town to town across America playing bars.  Yet his song just reached #1.

Adam’s song is called “Fireflies” by Owl City.  Owl City is the name Adam gave to his musical project.  It isn’t really a band, since Adam makes his music electronically.

In 2007 – that’s two years ago – Adam created Owl City and recorded an album of songs he created on his own while battling insomnia in his parent’s basement.  He posted the music on his MySpace page.  Over the course of a few months, the song “Hello Seattle” generated buzz.  In fact, it has been streamed over 6 million times on his MySpace page.

Two years after putting the project together, Adam released a major-label album through Universal Music.  But the marketing strategy remained grassroots.  The album was released on-line.  The video was released on his MySpace page but “leaked” to sites like YouTube.    The song was available for free as the soundtrack to the iPhone/iPod Touch app game “Tap Tap Revenge 3“, which exposed the song to millions of potential fans.

The song is now the most downloaded song on iTunes and the #1 song in the US, Canada, and is being touted as the fastest-selling electronica/alternative song ever.

Only now can you see Owl City on tour, and he won’t just be playing smoke-filled bars downtown.  Upcoming Christmas season shows have Owl City playing the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, MN and the War Memorial Auditorium in Nashville, TN.

The marketing landscape for your industry is probably shifting just as fast as the music business. How can you tap into the power of social media to engage your customers?

Here are three lessons learned from the story of Owl City’s Adam Young:

1. Adam wisely gave some of his music away, essentially for free.  You could listen to his songs on MySpace or on “Tap Tap Revenge 3″.  If you liked it, you could buy the album right there on-line.  What can you give away for free in order to create an appetite for what you offer?

2. Adam created a community of music fans using MySpace and Twitter.  Thanks to that network, he became friends with people who could help expose his music to influential people in the music industry.  He also developed alliances with other artists who have collaborated on his new music.  Are you using social media to create a community of like-minded people?  Don’t sell them anything.  Just interact.

3.  At some point, you become your own story.  Adam’s rise from the family basement to the top of the charts is a great story that generates additional interest in the artist and his music.  What great story do you have to tell that will engage people and get them talking and thinking about your product?  Almost every business has a story hidden somewhere, waiting to be told.  We are storytelling creatures and crave the drama of a good story.  Let your story become your marketing.

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That first product launch is exciting, energizing, and spectacular.  Your enthusiasm is contagious.  You’ve spent your whole life, or at the very least a large part of it, getting ready to launch.

And after a few months, you start to wonder “what next”?

Brands that successfully endure for years and decades think beyond the next six or twelve months.  Change is a part of their corporate culture. They thrive on the uncomfortable feeling that change brings. They always ask “what’s next?”

MySpace started losing groud to Facebook.  What’s next?  Myspace evolved into one of the world’s leading sites for musicians and artists.

Apple spent decades with just 10% of the personal computer market.  What’s next?  Apply grew into the world’s biggest music retailer.

Sure some attempts at evolution fail. McPizza, New Coke, and Star Trek “Nemesis” are three examples.  But those are spectacular failures from brands that today remain incredibly strong in large part because they were willing to risk failure in order to evolve.

The McDonald’s pizza experiment failed miserably.  But their recent growth into healthier foods with a wider variety of menu items has rebounded the company in the past few years.  And their adventure into breakfast food gave them the wildly successful Egg McMuffin.

New Coke was a legendary disaster, yet the Coke brand – despite almost ludicrious line extension – remains the #1 cola brand on the planet.

Star Trek “Nemesis” in 2002 was the lowest-grossing and most poorly reviewed movie in the series.  Yet the Star Trek movie from last spring was a massive hit.  It has already made three times more money than any previous Star Trek movie.  But this one wasn’t like the other Trek movies.  William Shatner wasn’t invited.  Niether was Captain Picard.  And director JJ Abrams took a fresh approach to the story.  That’s a risk that paid off.

Winning brands are willing to fail, because failure means you are doing something, and doing something means you are growing.  If you’re smart and calculated, you’ll make more wise moves than mistakes.  And if you’re really wise, you’ll know when to pull the plug on mistakes and cut your losses.

It is the unwise who become stale because they were afraid of change. Change and evolution is too frightening and uncomfortable for some brands.  They don’t understand the warning from Neil Young in 1979, when his career was fading.  He felt his music was becoming irrelevant, and he wrote song about the dangers of recording the same type of music too much.

“My My, Hey Hey… It’s better to burn out, than to fade away.”

Neil was willing to go down in flames.  He took a risk and recorded a song that took his career into punk and grunge music, and recorded a song that influenced the careers of Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and a subsequent generation of musicians.  It turned his sagging career around.

So if you think it is the right thing to do, and you can do it in the name of evolution and greater success, then go ahead… risk burning out. It sure beats fading into obscurity.

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