Music is a big part of my life. I listen to music daily. I book bands through school organizations. In the past I interned with both an LA record company and a local concert promoter. Music is something I hold dear to my heart, and I also am very intrigued by the business side of music.
Ever since Napster, the state of the music industry continues to experience turmoil. No one seems to have a sure answer on where the new business model lies. I have heard several different perspectives regarding this. Record labels have one idea. Concert promoters have another. Merchandisers think one way. Artists try to make their own way. Lawyers argue about the meaning.
The past eight years in music was marked by plummeting CD sales, major labels and businesses going out of business, and artists struggling to find their place with the consumer. The interesting thing about all of this lies in the customer themselves. Business – in all the suits and glory – lost and blamed the consumer. In any other business, would this fly? Isn’t the customer always right? I would say the answer is no to the former, and yes to the latter. So if this is true, what went wrong? And more importantly, what can the music business do to fix it? This is where I begin to tie in customer insights.
Every week I read about a new service offered relating to music. Sometimes the new service involves an iTunes competitor. I see articles about digi-pack albums that come with not only songs, but a PDF booklet, bonus tracks, and behind the scenes videos. When I turn on the TV, I hear indie artists in commercials and sitcoms that catch my attention in new ways. One article last week discussed Google’s new iPhone competitor and its partnership with Amazon music. That is just another hip new way of bringing music directly to the customer. The music industry is clearly looking for new ways to make money. The key for them is to find something of value to music listeners, such as myself. The problem lies in the underlying fact that many people no longer place monetary value on the music itself. Illegal downloading changed the value of music. Why pay for something when downloading it free is so easy?
Especially when so many people are doing it.
So considering these issues, I would like to know what customer insights are out there that could help to market new music to fans. The following are some point to consider:
• What used to work?
• What marketing techniques have been tried that failed?
• What do the businesses know about their customers?
• What catches people’s eye for new music?
• How can marketers ensure a steady stream of income from music consumers?
• What hasn’t been tried?
There are many more questions I hope to answer through my research and case study. In addition to finding customer insights, I am curious about what sort of customer experience companies set as their goal. Or do music companies even market customer experiences? Certainly some bands release creative artwork, or even some gimmicks with their albums. But is this truly a customer experience? What content are customers missing? Why are they missing it? Would a better defined customer experience help grow the value of music in consumers eyes? Or is this a lost cause?
I can’t imagine a world without music. There is no doubt the art will survive, but true uncertainty lies in where the business will be over the next 25 years. Change is necessary, and I think that the only way to salvage the wreckage of the industry from the past few years is to look to the customers. By gaining insights as to who they are, you will be able to successfully market yourself to them.
Monday, September 29
Monday, September 22
Blog 3
From curiosity, to interest, to enjoyment, to satisfaction, and finally loyalty, marketers want customers to cycle through the process of choosing their products. The question is how does a brand separate itself form all the rest, or how do you make your product be the one that catches eyes? As discussed in A Framework for Managing Customer Experiences, this is simple create a customer experience.
Many companies attempt to do just that. Some are successful, others are not. These successes and failures are all part of the game. As I think about what company I feel does a good job of creating customer experience, I run through all of the obvious brands. Apple, Starbuck’s, Axe for the men, Victoria Secret for the women. All of these make great case studies for business schools. A more personal brand for me would be Levi’s. Levi’s jeans, as I mentioned in a previous post, hooked me in through a series of sponsored events. The company annually rents out a building and parking lot in downtown Austin for the SXSW festival to host a five day party. The space features several live concerts, art displays, drinks and refreshments, lounge areas, and giveaways.
What makes a customer experience successful depends on how well the company appeals to SEMs, or strategic experiential models. The campaign of sponsoring parties and events across the country such as the SXSW event I am familiar with, appeals to several SEMs. Such parties have the elements of feel, act, and relate.
Feel is incorporated through the layout of the parties. Keep in mind, that when you first walk in, you are in a room that is full of jeans and other Levi’s products, all of which are for sale. So there is no secret that the company wants you to buy their product. But as you move through the building, you come to several lounge areas, complete with couches, computers, and tables. For those of you who aren’t familiar with SXSW, it is an action packed week with nearly no spare time. You are constantly running to and from events, getting little sleep, and certainly exhausted. Can you imagine the sheer joy when walking into a room full of comfy couches? That is exactly what Levi’s is going for, the feeling of relaxation and lounging. If the party makes you feel relaxed, shouldn’t the jeans?
Lvei’s also incorporates SEM act by putting Levi’s jeans on all of the performers and event hosts. What better way to convince concert goers to buy a brand of jeans when Lou Reed is on stage performing in a pair of Levi’s? I have to be honest when I see the party hosts running around in Levi’s and notice all of the attention they are getting, I think to myself, maybe I should get a pair of those too…
Finally, with relate, Levi’s makes you feel at home at their event. They acknowledge and represent the subculture of music fans, hipsters, audiophiles, rockers, hip-hoppers, or whatever group may be featured that day at the event. You can identify with the urban art displays featuring old vinyl records or ghetto blasters, or there many photographs and posters of famous bands. There is a culture among us, and Levi’s wants to be a part of it. They tell us that by wearing their jeans, we can all be a part of it together.
Obviously, since I have stated that I support and buy Levi’s jeans because of the way they targeted me with customer experience, I feel they are successful. But what segment are they targeting here? Well, it comes down to the music crowd. Not just any music crowd, because surely 80% of the world who has access to music enjoys it to varying degrees. But this targeted subculuture incorporates those who actively seek out new music and make music a part of their lifestyle. By lifestyle, I mean attending concerts regularly, following music news, sharing music with friends, and purchasing music affiliated items. The need here that they are trying to address is the need for comfort and style. Levi’s jeans are stylishly displayed at these events. And they are associated with the subculture of their target audience. So they successfully meet this need.
Many companies attempt to do just that. Some are successful, others are not. These successes and failures are all part of the game. As I think about what company I feel does a good job of creating customer experience, I run through all of the obvious brands. Apple, Starbuck’s, Axe for the men, Victoria Secret for the women. All of these make great case studies for business schools. A more personal brand for me would be Levi’s. Levi’s jeans, as I mentioned in a previous post, hooked me in through a series of sponsored events. The company annually rents out a building and parking lot in downtown Austin for the SXSW festival to host a five day party. The space features several live concerts, art displays, drinks and refreshments, lounge areas, and giveaways.
What makes a customer experience successful depends on how well the company appeals to SEMs, or strategic experiential models. The campaign of sponsoring parties and events across the country such as the SXSW event I am familiar with, appeals to several SEMs. Such parties have the elements of feel, act, and relate.
Feel is incorporated through the layout of the parties. Keep in mind, that when you first walk in, you are in a room that is full of jeans and other Levi’s products, all of which are for sale. So there is no secret that the company wants you to buy their product. But as you move through the building, you come to several lounge areas, complete with couches, computers, and tables. For those of you who aren’t familiar with SXSW, it is an action packed week with nearly no spare time. You are constantly running to and from events, getting little sleep, and certainly exhausted. Can you imagine the sheer joy when walking into a room full of comfy couches? That is exactly what Levi’s is going for, the feeling of relaxation and lounging. If the party makes you feel relaxed, shouldn’t the jeans?
Lvei’s also incorporates SEM act by putting Levi’s jeans on all of the performers and event hosts. What better way to convince concert goers to buy a brand of jeans when Lou Reed is on stage performing in a pair of Levi’s? I have to be honest when I see the party hosts running around in Levi’s and notice all of the attention they are getting, I think to myself, maybe I should get a pair of those too…
Finally, with relate, Levi’s makes you feel at home at their event. They acknowledge and represent the subculture of music fans, hipsters, audiophiles, rockers, hip-hoppers, or whatever group may be featured that day at the event. You can identify with the urban art displays featuring old vinyl records or ghetto blasters, or there many photographs and posters of famous bands. There is a culture among us, and Levi’s wants to be a part of it. They tell us that by wearing their jeans, we can all be a part of it together.
Obviously, since I have stated that I support and buy Levi’s jeans because of the way they targeted me with customer experience, I feel they are successful. But what segment are they targeting here? Well, it comes down to the music crowd. Not just any music crowd, because surely 80% of the world who has access to music enjoys it to varying degrees. But this targeted subculuture incorporates those who actively seek out new music and make music a part of their lifestyle. By lifestyle, I mean attending concerts regularly, following music news, sharing music with friends, and purchasing music affiliated items. The need here that they are trying to address is the need for comfort and style. Levi’s jeans are stylishly displayed at these events. And they are associated with the subculture of their target audience. So they successfully meet this need.
Wednesday, September 10
Blog Post 2
Barry Schwartz has some interesting things to say about the world we live in. While I can’t say that I agree with all of them, I can say that he intrigues me. Let us look at how Barry’s ideas relate to customer decision making. How can we use his ideas to better understand our customers, from a marketing view?
Everything on this Earth experiences some sort of evolution as time goes by, this goes with the territory of survival of the fittest. Certain heuristics are ingrained in human nature, or as Barry says “in our water supply” that we accept this as fact. I am not talking in the sense of a religious, “origin of life” argument on evolution, so don’t get too offended. But, like Barry says, humans believe that more is better, in the case of freedom, thus also in the case of choices. What Barry argues is that in fact, more is not better. He says that more choices lead to paralysis, escalating expectations and disappointment, depression due to self-loathing, and more. If this is true, then marketers need to consider his argument in order to better understand the customer and their decision process.
What has gone wrong in the new age of choices? Too much is too much. Marketing has evolved to fit the customers needs. As companies begin to look to customers individually, they take note of the many differences among people. In order to differentiate their brand, they try to suit as many of these needs as possible and give you a new choice. A choice catered to you. While this may sound good, marketers must realize the implications of this new technique. If you try and offer a choice for each person in America, you are talking about 300 million different styles of jeans you expect to compete with. Just 300 pairs of jeans frightens me enough. Can you imagine 300 million?
This brings us to Barry’s criticism of choice. How does a customer go to a mall and chose from 30 different stores, all of which offer different brands of jeans, then chose which style of jeans in addition to their choice on store? Paralysis might kick in, where they simply can’t make up their mind and just go home. Or maybe they just settle for a pair, and upon hating their choice, blame themselves for not considering other options. Maybe they had an idea of what they wanted, but can’t find the perfect pair. Can you imagine not being able to find one pair of jeans you like out of three hundred? In each scenario, the customer goes home unhappy, ultimately because they had too much responsibility in making a choice among hundreds. And if the customer is unhappy, the marketer is unhappy.
Barry throws around lines such as “Everything was better when everything was worse,” and “Low expectations are the secret to happiness.” While I don’t think this is 100% correct, it does have some implications for marketers. As opposed to giving customers unlimited amounts of choices, realize that people just want a good pair of jeans. We make enough choices in our own lives, so the last thing we want to do is spend as much time choosing a pair of jeans as choosing a college to go to. Marketers need to focus more on differentiating your brand through the relationships you have with customers, not by overwhelming them with options. Decision making is a difficult part of everyone’s life, and shopping should not be another frustrating part of the equation that is daily living.
Once marketers understand that they have gone too far in trying to enhance the customer decision making process, then they can focus on truly improving their relationships with the customers themselves.
Everything on this Earth experiences some sort of evolution as time goes by, this goes with the territory of survival of the fittest. Certain heuristics are ingrained in human nature, or as Barry says “in our water supply” that we accept this as fact. I am not talking in the sense of a religious, “origin of life” argument on evolution, so don’t get too offended. But, like Barry says, humans believe that more is better, in the case of freedom, thus also in the case of choices. What Barry argues is that in fact, more is not better. He says that more choices lead to paralysis, escalating expectations and disappointment, depression due to self-loathing, and more. If this is true, then marketers need to consider his argument in order to better understand the customer and their decision process.
What has gone wrong in the new age of choices? Too much is too much. Marketing has evolved to fit the customers needs. As companies begin to look to customers individually, they take note of the many differences among people. In order to differentiate their brand, they try to suit as many of these needs as possible and give you a new choice. A choice catered to you. While this may sound good, marketers must realize the implications of this new technique. If you try and offer a choice for each person in America, you are talking about 300 million different styles of jeans you expect to compete with. Just 300 pairs of jeans frightens me enough. Can you imagine 300 million?
This brings us to Barry’s criticism of choice. How does a customer go to a mall and chose from 30 different stores, all of which offer different brands of jeans, then chose which style of jeans in addition to their choice on store? Paralysis might kick in, where they simply can’t make up their mind and just go home. Or maybe they just settle for a pair, and upon hating their choice, blame themselves for not considering other options. Maybe they had an idea of what they wanted, but can’t find the perfect pair. Can you imagine not being able to find one pair of jeans you like out of three hundred? In each scenario, the customer goes home unhappy, ultimately because they had too much responsibility in making a choice among hundreds. And if the customer is unhappy, the marketer is unhappy.
Barry throws around lines such as “Everything was better when everything was worse,” and “Low expectations are the secret to happiness.” While I don’t think this is 100% correct, it does have some implications for marketers. As opposed to giving customers unlimited amounts of choices, realize that people just want a good pair of jeans. We make enough choices in our own lives, so the last thing we want to do is spend as much time choosing a pair of jeans as choosing a college to go to. Marketers need to focus more on differentiating your brand through the relationships you have with customers, not by overwhelming them with options. Decision making is a difficult part of everyone’s life, and shopping should not be another frustrating part of the equation that is daily living.
Once marketers understand that they have gone too far in trying to enhance the customer decision making process, then they can focus on truly improving their relationships with the customers themselves.
Wednesday, September 3
Talking 'Bout My Generation
Generation Y. Millennium Generation. MySpace Generation. Echo Boomers.
Despite the comic cheesiness of these titles given to us by those who feel the need to categorize everything, it is accurate to acknowledge a new group of people this day and age a group of people who interact with each other and the world around them in many ways different from those of the past.
The article Generation Y by Ellen Neuborn defines this “Generation Y” as those born during 1979-1994. Ellen attributes several characteristics to this group. She mentions the racial diversity, a common single parent nurturing pattern, working mothers, and technologically savvy of this new age of human beings. It is certainly true that all of these are notable differences between Gen-Y and Gen-X and the baby boomers. Furthermore, Ellen goes on to describe what these new characteristics mean to marketers. This is where it gets interesting.
Ellen says that old marketing techniques no longer work, and companies are being forced to find new ways to break into the fragmented Gen-Y that has developed as a result of the internet. I agree that companies must continually find new ways to attract my attention in order to stand out among the mass of products and brands. I constantly overlook magazine ads, website banners, and TV commercials directed at me because I don’t find them unique in any way. Ellen is right on track when she says that companies need to get to know their customers before they can reach out to them. I found it interesting to read about Levi’s movement to become relevant again. Personally, I only buy Levi’s. How did they win me over? Simple. Every year at SXSW, Levi’s teams up with Fader Magazine and rents out a warehouse in downtown
Business Week released a podcast about the “MySpace Generation.” Again we have old people trying to put my generation in a box that they can explain and understand. I agree that social networking sites like MySpace are playing a huge role in shaping our generation. We do spend a lot of time on website such as MySpace. And since this webcast, Facebook, an even more powerful tool, has taken marketing to a whole new level. With Facebook, a company like REI can send advertisements to specifically targeted groups, such as people who list camping in their interests. That way instead of just assuming that the right people get the message, they are 100% positive it goes direct to the right customer.
I think it is important for my generation and marketers to realize that this new form of highly specialized target marketing is beneficial to both of us. I don’t have to waste my time looking at celebrity magazine ads, and People doesn’t have to waste time and money putting them on my computer screen. The reason? My Facebook profile doesn’t list any interests remotely related to celebrity gossip, so their ads aren’t programmed to come to me.
That being said, marketers need to understand that we are fully aware of their desire to latch onto us and suck up all of our disposable income. If they want to understand us better, know that we are naturally cynics. If your marketing techniques don’t seem authentic, or they come off as the marketers trying to hard, then I will move on to the next thing. And thus, I give you my list of things marketers should know about me. Consider yourself lucky, snooping marketers:
-
I am a cynic. You need to give me a reason to trust you.
I am busy, and thus time is a precious commodity.
I am only loyal if you continue to impress me.
I change my ideas and opinions as I learn, but I always stick to my principles.
I don’t have a lot of money.
I believe in strong ethics.
I like to be seen as an individual.
I have a need for constant improvement.
I care about my friends. Win them over, and you have better chances with me.
I can always offer you my word of mouth, if I have reason to.
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