In the years before Michael Jackson passed away, you didn’t often hear his music on the radio. But as soon as he died, we wanted to hear his music again. His songs were everywhere.

The same thing will happen this week with Whitney Houston.

You see, when something is rare we naturally perceive it’s value to be higher.

John Lennon’s album Double Fantasy came out just three weeks before he was shot in December 1980. When critics first reviewed the album, most were unimpressed and some were downright scathing. Prior to Lennon’s death, the album was at #46 in the UK and #11 in the USA. Then, wimmediately after his murder, the album shot to #1 and went on to win Album of the Year at the 1981 Grammy Awards. Rolling Stone would later name the album the 29th best album of the 1980s.

What happened? Simple. We lost John Lennon and came to the stark realization that his music would no longer be with us. Knowing that, we placed new and increased value on his music. Instead of a mediocre album, we saw Double Fantasy as musical genius… in part because of the circumstances, not the music.

The death of Whitney Houston is no doubt a sad tragedy.

At one time, she was an amazing singer with a magical voice. She made history with her success. But as you watch the tributes to Whitney pour in this week, remember that over the past decade her music had been invisible on radio stations and her name had only been in the headlines for negative reasons. A few days ago, the world was not clamoring to hear “I Will Always Love You” one more time. Nobody was downloading “The Greatest Love of All” from iTunes.

That all changed with her passing.

The relationship to business is clear: when the supply of something is infinite, value is naturally lowered. When supply runs short of demand, perceived value goes up.

RIP Whitney Houston, 1963-2012.

Buddy Holly had a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses that he wore on stage. At the time, nobody else wore black horn-rimmed glasses, let alone a rock star on stage! Buddy Holly stood out among his peers.

A young John Lennon was heavily influenced by Buddy Holly. In fact, he named his band in homage to Holly’s “Crickets”, calling his band “Beatles”. But John was also influenced by those glasses, and decided to wear his own glasses on stage quite frequently. Today, people often refer to round wire glasses as “John Lennon glasses”.

Does your brand have a visual cue that helps establish your identity, or do you look pretty much the same as all of your competitors?

Car dealers are notorious for sameness. Open up any newspaper to see their ads all looking nearly identical. Same with real estate agents. Does anybody have the guts to stand out?

Here’s a way to gauge this: If your logo was removed from your advertising piece, and your competitor’s logo was put in its place, would your advertising still work?  If the answer is yes, you aren’t different enough. Your ad should only work with your company, and look ridiculous with anyone else’s logo.

Be brave. Be different. Stand out.

Buddy Holly did it. Elton John did it. KISS did it. Lady Gaga does it.

You can do it too.

To help make your business stand out in the crowd, order Brand Like A Rock Star now. And don’t forget to grab your free 100 page Musical Companion from Amazon. It is the #1 most popular free marketing book in the Kindle store.

Most normal (whatever that means) human beings don’t usually fall in love with inanimate objects. We fall in love with human beings, with all of their emotions and imperfections and insecurities.

We connect with great songs expose those deeply personal emotions, things you’d be reluctant to even tell your closest friends.

You can feel both the immense joys and dark fears of fatherhood in “Beautiful Boy” by John Lennon.

Foster The People’s “Pumped Up Kicks” takes you inside the twisted mind of a troubled teen about to exact revenge on those who bullied him.

“Check It Out” by John Mellencamp laments the arrival of mid-life, when you have every material thing you want but “you can’t tell your best buddy that you love him“.

It takes real courage to write and sing stuff like that, to expose and share your fears, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities… the same ones all of us have but are afraid to acknowledge. Sure, we act like we’re perfect, but we’re all wonderfully imperfect, just like Seth Godin’s cool new book title… “We Are All Weird”.

Brands that expose some of those same imperfections are the ones who take that leap from inanimate object to human qualities.

The brilliant Chrysler “Imported From Detroit” campaign did that, acknowledging that American automakers had let quality slide and vowing to make owning an American car a thing of pride once again. It recognized what we were already thinking about American manufacturers and Detroit itself instead of trying to sell us something we didn’t believe. Truth is a very human trait.

The concept of making inanimate objects human isn’t new. Leonardo Da Vinci intentionally blurred the lines on his paintings, giving the Mona Lisa a sense of human imperfection and motion.

What is your brand doing to add human qualities to your business?

Are you being honest and real in your marketing? Do you sometimes expose flaws or admit obvious realities?

Does your advertising speak to people in real worlds, or cliches and ad-speak?

Do you speak with your customers, taking the opportunity to turn unsatisfied customers into lifelong fiends of your brand?

If you aren’t being human, you shouldn’t expect human beings to fall in love with you anytime soon.

First things first: the book Brand Like A Rock Star is now available online. No more waiting. You can order it right here as a paperback or Kindle version. It starts appearing in stores on Saturday. Now on with the fun…

Jay emailed me this week asking “Is Pan Am an indestructible brand?”

After the debut of the new TV show Pan Am you might wonder if it isn’t indestructible!

Despite four financial collapses, bankruptcy, terrorist attacks, crashes, and perpetual abuse of the name since its glory days faded in the 1970s, it still carries tremendous allure.

Every young boy (and even some girls!) growing up in the 1960s wanted to be the Captain of a Pan Am jet.  For a 60s girl, it was a dream job to be a Pan Am stewardess. Flying was romantic and exciting, and Pan Am stood for all that was great about the era.

Pan Am didn’t just fly airplanes. They flew Clippers. They didn’t have a terminal building at JFK Airport in New York, they had a Worldport.

Today the functioning Pan Am brand clings to life as a railway in New England. Yet the brand’s cache makes owning the name profitable. Licensing of the logo on merchandise, in movies, on clothing, and in TV shows, makes owning the name worthwhile, even though it no longer functions as an airline. Pan Am exists primarily as a trademark today!

But to answer Jay’s question, I don’t think the brand is actually indestructible. Great brands have a purpose, and that is to make money for shareholders. Pan Am failed in that regard, and hasn’t flown since December 3, 1991 when Pan Am Flight 436 landed in Miami. If you fail at your primary business objective, you fail the brand test. You are destructible.

But what is really cool about Pan Am, as Jay pointed out, is the incredible power of what the brand stands for to this day:

Romance | Exploration | Adventure | Intrigue | Destiny | Luxury | Excellence | Freedom | Escape

When you stand for things like that, you can build a powerful magnet with your brand. Despite Pan Am’s disappearance as an airline, we still associate all of those wonderful images with the name. If you stand for emotionally powerful ideals like that, we will remember you forever.

On the other hand, if you stand for “low prices”, we will only remember you until a lower price comes along.

Rock stars use the power of emotion to draw us in. You never forget how Pete Townshend smashed his guitar on stage night after night in the name of rebellion. You never forget how John and Yoko’s stayed in bed for peace. You never forget the lyrics of the Bob Seger song that was playing on the car radio while you were in the back seat growing up too fast. Powerful emotional ideals indeed. 

The lesson of Pan Am is to stand for powerful emotional ideals, not empty advertising cliches. You may never build an indestructible brand, but you might just come close.

By the way, remember what was in the background when The Beatles landed at JFK in 1964?

Being branded as ”the quiet Beatle” didn’t exactly set George Harrison up for instant solo success, but he found it anyway.

His music reflected his devotion to Indian mysticism and Hinduism. He continually broadened the horizons of his bandmates and his fans. Much of what he did wasn’t all that mainstream, but he did it anyway. And much of it resonated with people.

George Harrison was honest. He was passionate. He was a writer, and the only Beatle (so far) to write a full autobiography. He was an avid gardener, and his dedication to the earth was reflected in much of his music. He was friends with all three other Beatles after the band broke up. He played on Ringo’s and John’s solo albums. And he was a Traveling Wilbury.

George Harrison would have turned 68 today, had cancer not taken him from us in 2001.

I admire the honesty and quiet dedication to causes that George Harrison reflected in his life.

Honesty and quiet dedication are admirable qualities in people and in business.

Whole Foods quietly supports organic and sustainable farming and environmental conservation. They don’t brag about it much… they just do it. It is part of what they stand for.

Chick-Fil-A doesn’t open on Sunday. They don’t put a neon sign up in the store that says “we’re religious”, they just do it. It is in their DNA.

Quiet. Honest. Real. Human. Subtle. Gentle. All qualities that any brand can learn from the career of George Harrison.

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Dear John,

We didn’t do much at school on Tuesday, December 9, 1980. 

We were typically boisterous, innocent kids as the day began, but there was a strange, heavy presence that quieted us as our teacher walked to the front of the classroom looking distraught and confused. He announced that he wouldn’t be able to teach us that day.

Instead, on a desk near the chalkboard was a box full of albums he had brought from home. Moments later an awkward pimply kid from the tech club wheeled a record player into the classroom, plugged it in, and left.

The room was silent.

The teacher held his head low as he delicately removed an album from its jacket and placed it on the turntable.

The needle touched vinyl, and in a few seconds music began.  The teacher raised his voice over the music as he told us about a man who had been shot and killed the night before.  He talked about how he had grown up listening to this man’s music, and how much it meant to him.

For hours he sat there on a stool at the front of the classroom and let the songs play.  In between them he would share stories about the band, the man, and the songs.  He was our own personal DJ, and he told us stories that made us laugh.  He told us stories using words we were pretty sure 10 year-old kids weren’t supposed to hear.  He told us stories about the man and his successes and downfalls.  We learned about this man’s quest for peace, love, and equality.  And we listened to his music.

I have no idea, looking back 30 years, how long this went on.  I certainly don’t remember anything else that day.  I only remember Sgt. Pepper and Revolver and The White Album and Double Fantasy and Walls and Bridges and Mind Games.  Most of all I remember Imagine and watching my teacher tell us about John Lennon through his tears.  A 10 year-old boy doesn’t soon forget watching a grown man cry.

I don’t remember any math, English, or geography.  According to the Board of Education, he didn’t teach us anything that day. Yet I learned more on Tuesday, December 9, 1980 than I did on any other day in my life.

I wish I could have learned those same lessons some other way.

From the 10 year-old inside me, thank you John, for your music and your message.

Peace,
Steve

http://www.brandlikearockstar.com/

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If you run a neighborhood coffee shop, your brand isn’t “coffee”.  Your brand is the emotional reaction that your customer has when they interact with your coffee shop, either in person, in words, or visually.

Brands run deeper than just products.  Apple’s brand isn’t computers or phones, it is sleek and powerful user-friendly technology that makes you feel like a leader among your peers.  Harley-Davidson isn’t motorcycles, it is raw power and unfiltered attitude that makes you feel like a rebel for a few hours on the weekend.

John Lennon is a great example.  John Lennon’s legacy lives on because his brand isn’t music.  The John Lennon brand is artistic creativity that inspires peace, possibility, and a conscious awareness of how you can make the world better for you, those around you, and generations to come.

Take a tour around http://www.imaginepeace.com/, a site created by Yoko Ono that keeps John’s vision for peace alive.  The official EMI Music site at http://www.johnlennon.com/ does much the same.  If John Lennon’s brand was simply music, wouldn’t the bulk of his on-line presence be dedicated to music?

Strong brands are emotions and feelings, not products and services.  When you build your brand on that level, you are tremendously more likely to forge a lasting bond with your customer.

Peace.

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He would have turned 70 this week, had not the loose screw in Mark David Chapman’s head stolen him from us on a cold December night in 1980.  We are fortunate that John Lennon left us a wealth of music to remember him by.  The life and music of John Lennon teaches three intriguing business lessons.

1. Forget fear.  Fear grips all of us, preventing us from acheiving greatness.  The fear of failure or ridicule turns creative people into paper-pushers and inventors into followers.  John Lennon wasn’t afraid.  Could a man afraid of ridicule recorded some of the eclectic and unusual sounds that John recorded during his sessions with Yoko Ono?  Could a man afraid of ridicule appear stark naked on the cover of Rolling Stone, more than once?  Many businesses are bound by fear, scared to take that next brave leap to a place they clearly know they should go.  Jump.  Yes, you might fail… but failure is just another step on the ladder to success.  If you don’t fail now and then, you aren’t taking enough risks.

2. Be real.  John Lennon was many things, honest first among them.  Songs like “Mother”, “Beautiful Boy”, “(Just Like) Starting Over”, “Imagine”, and “Cold Turkey” were all deeply personal confessions about the man and how he saw his world.  It takes a lot of courage (see #1 above) to be that honest, but it is that raw honesty that made John Lennon’s fans so deeply passionate about him.  Brands willing to display that kind of vulnerability can forge a much deeper bond with their customers.

3. You can recover from (nearly) anything.  John’s life had its ups and downs over the years.  He dabbled far too deep in drugs.  His mid-70′s “lost weekend” binge is the stuff of legends.  John left the most successful band of all time to embark on a solo career, fought with US immigration authorities, and suffered many negative reviews of his music.  Aside from his assassin’s deed, John always recovered from setbacks.  “Double Fantasy”, his final album, was proof of his ability to recover.   Great brands know that every moment is temporary.  Success is a temporary state, and so is failure.  You do whatever you can to hold on to success, but it eventually goes away.  You fight failure as best you can, but it comes.  And goes.  Great brands recover and rise again.  Old Spice, take a bow.

John Lennon is deeply missed.  In the 30 years since we lost him, it is impossible to imagine how much great music he could have created and how many more musicians he could have influenced.  This week, celebrate the life of John Lennon and know that his brave style, raw honesty, deep passion, and enduring spirit live on in the heart’s of great brands everywhere.

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Rumor is that Taylor Swift, famous for writing songs about her personal relationships and experiences, has written a song about Kanye West and she plans to sing it at the MTV Music Awards tonight.

You probably remember last year, when Kanye stormed the stage after Taylor win the Best Female Video award.  Kanye grabbed the microphone from a stunned Swift and said that the award should have gone to Beyonce.  In the ensuring days and weeks, West felt an extreme backlash and disappeared from the spotlight.

Taylor Swift, meanwhile, has continued her meteoric rise and recently released the first single from her new album.  That song, “Mine”, is already a major hit on the pop and country charts.

Swift has endeared herself to fans through honest songs that are close to her heart.  She’s openly joked that it is hard to find people to date her because of her reputation for writing songs about her heartbreaks.

Brands that connect on a personal level always win.

When I ordered my last iPod through the Apple website, I had a quote from John Lennon engraved on the back.  It was a quote I chose, and the engraving was free.  There is no iPod quite like that one anywhere on earth.  Today my iPhone has a selection of apps that are personal to me.  My friends and coworkers have a different selection of apps, all personal to them.

Many sports manufacturers allow you to personalize your gear, creating equipment in your team colors or your personal favorite colors.  There will be no equipment exactly like yours anywhere.

Through social media sites you can now create an internet experience that is personal to you.  You can wake up to an on-line newspaper that is customized to your personal tastes, interests, and sources.

Smart brands today are like Taylor Swift.  They engage their fans on a personal level.  They communicate in connective language, not transactional words.  By revealing themselves to the world on a human level, they give us the chance to bond with them.  After all, people don’t bond with products or companies.  We bond with other people. 

If you expect your brand to connect with people, you need to find a way to make it human.

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When you’ve built an incredible brand that leaves behind a massive legacy, even your scraps are valuable.

John Lennon’s toilet sold at auction on Saturday for over $14,700 USD.  John used the throne from 1969 to 1971. When he had it replaced, he told the workers to plant some flowers in it.  Instead, builder John Hancock stored it in his shed, where it sat for nearly 40 years until he passed away.

A few weeks ago my family spent a week at my parent’s farm.  My 15 year old son was ecstatic when he rummaged through the attic and stumbled across an Apple Powerbook Duo 210, circa 1992.  It’s old and clunky by today’s standards, but the computer still runs perfectly!

Apple carries a similar brand legacy to today’s youth as The Beatles did to generations previous.  My son’s new 18 year-old Powerbook Duo probably isn’t worth that much cash, but it certainly carries nostalgia value! It has already gained him bragging rights amongst his tech-smart friends in the same way owning John Lennon’s toilet would make Beatles junkies envious.

When even your old junk starts to increase in value, you know your brand truly is a rock star!

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