Last Blog Post

What topic did I learn from during this semester? There have been many, but one that comes to mind is the importance of prototyping. Our discussion on building prototypes was insightful, and informative. It wasn’t until I started to build our group’s prototype that I fully understood its importance. Originally, our group decided on making one product. The product was to be a patio table accessory that allows you to have a heater instead of an umbrella. We evolved this into a table accessory that allows you to switch between a heater and an umbrella with ease, to make the patio table more useful during cold and hot seasons. When I searched online for images to model our prototype after, I discovered pictures of heater poles in the center of patio tables, and of course umbrellas as well. Even though I never found a table center that was designed to incorporate both an umbrella and a heater, I still felt that we needed to upgrade our idea to make it more unique. This is when we came up with the full blown Backyard Collective idea. I moved forward with the prototype, figuring it would help illustrate a sample of our product line. While I didn’t have the time or resources I wanted, I still developed a simple prototype that I learned a lot from. I had to think about the mechanics of designing a product that would fit under most patio tables. Basically, through building the prototype, I realized that we needed something narrow that could fit underneath the legs of whatever patio table customers might already have. Building the prototype also showed me that we would need to account for the extra weight of the heater pole versus the umbrella. With the design sketches, done after building the prototype, I addressed this functionality with special grooves for extra support around the heater pole. Through this process, I better understood how prototyping helps people think about what customers really want and need.

The image collage was a great topic as well. Running through this in class, with the personal image collage assignment got me thinking about the benefits of an image collage. While designing my own, I spent a lot of time thinking about what images mattered to me, and how they conveyed my feelings. Explaining it to my group also added another dimension to the collage as I figured out how best to put my thoughts into words and use the images to demonstrate this. I wasn’t the only one who thought the image collage was a good idea. Thew rest of our group agreed it was a good way to gain insights about the person putting together the collage. We used an image collage concept in our gathering insights phase. We asked for our subjects to submit pictures of their ideal backyard. A full blown image collage would have been more beneficial, but due to time constraints, we felt that a collection of images would suffice. The concept was the same, with our subjects submitting images and interpreting their thoughts and feelings about the images in relation to their ideal vision of a backyard. This helped us understand what we needed to do to help them improve the backayard.

This project was challenging, but I think we did a good job. It was difficult at first to get moving on the backyard, since none of us had our own backyard, and only one of us knew very many empty nesters. It was difficult to get past the planning stage of our gathering insights process. We couldn’t find enough people to take our survey among empty nesters we knew. But once we though about taking the surveys online and posting them on empty nester online communities, we got a good amount of results. With results to work from, our group did a good job moving forward and brainstorming ideas. It was a collaborative effort throughout the way, with everyone bouncing ideas off of each other. Professor Walls helped us out along the way, with his class brainstorming session and the idea about some sort of service to offer for the backyard as opposed to a product. We took his idea and adjusted it a bit to better suit the needs of our target group. We had fun putting the powerpoint together, and I think the presentation turned out very well. The group felt involved with the final product, even though Joaquin could not make the presentation. It was a positive experience, and I think we all learned about the importance of using customer insights when designing and marketing products or services.

Blog Post 9

What else do I see that makes me think companies and brands either know what they are doing in regards to customer insights and experiences or not? Well, I will try to tie this into my paper about the music business. I found a great article on FastCompany.com called “10 Musicians Who Rock the Web.” The article talks about a group of innovative artists changing the traditional business model for the music industry, utilizing the web to reach their audience. This article will play a key role in my paper, but for now, I would like to use it to answer the topic.

Bear with me as I try to explain this.

In the context of the music industry, you are dealing with artists. Artists essentially are “brands.” They work to increase their recognition among fans and music listeners and make money off of them. This money in turn is distributed to the “companies” whose jobs are to build their “brands,” or artists. In the context of this article, with the help of the companies around the, or in some cases, entirely on their own, artists are building their “brand” with new technology and ideas. It finally seems that people in the industry are using customer insights to create customer experiences. Everyone wins!

50 Cent is a great example. 50 saw the success of MySpace, Facebook, and other similar websites. He understood the idea of social networking, and the power it created for marketing a product and getting people involved. While some bands are content with just a MySpace profile, 50 took the idea to a whole new level. He created a new website, called Thisis50.com. The site is setup similar to MySpace, only the community is strictly for 50 Cent fans. Users create an account, and then they can get involved in the online community. You can create a profile, talk on forums, get free music from 50, submit your own music and get 50 Cents approval, and more. So you have a guy who saw a need for his fans to become more involved with his music, and created a new way for them to interact. This is a great way for superstar artists to build their fan base loyalty, and market products to them.

I don’t want to spend too much time on Radiohead, because it seems the topic has been way over analyzed. But if you aren’t familiar, Radiohead, considered by many the most reputable act currently producing music, chose to release their newest album in a creative way. They realized that music sales were down, many people chose to illegally download their favorite artists’ albums for free, and the physical product was losing to the digital world. So Radiohead offered a new mechanic to push their product. Fans could download In Rainbows online for however much money they wanted to pay, including free. While the band chose not to release actual numbers, their tour, media attention, and hype reached gargantuan levels. And they became the talk of the online communities about whether they had found a new business model. Basically, all they did was listen to what customers wanted. I was happy to pay $5 online for my download, because that is how much I thought it was worth. I also purchased a $50 concert ticket, and a $200 festival ticket to see them again later on. I recently bought the album on vinyl for $18.

David Byrne, of one of my favorite bands, The Talking Heads, and Brian Eno, the legendary producer and Byrne’s often times creative partner, have teamed up for several innovations in the music business. In 2006, they re-released one of their albums during its 25th anniversary. In addition to the physical release, they created a website devoted to a remix community. You could take the building blocks of the album and actually make your own remixes. Then you could post your remix on the website and other users could listen to it. Here you see to artists finding a way to create a new customer experience for their fans. What an innovation! For a fan, this means you can become the artist yourself, and find ways to creatively arrange your favorite musician’s original work. Do music fans really need this level of interactivity with their music? Maybe. Byrne/Eno also released an album exclusively online this year, recognizing that the customers use the internet as their primary record store now. Even wilder is that Brian Eno saw the success of the iPhone and its application store, and got a piece of that pie by creating his own application, which iPhone users can download. The application is a musical instrument that allows people to take Eno’s visions and make their own music. Creative genius or what?

I think it is safe to say that these artists, as well as many others, recognize that the music business landscape has forever changed. Consumers are looking for more than just a song. Anyone can grab a song online for free. But if artists truly want to get our money, they have to find new ways to interact with us.

Blog Post 8

Sorry this took so long, but here is my outline for the final paper. Enjoy.

I. Introduction
A. While the music industry has a history of failing to recognize customer insights, the time is right for a change – a new business model focused around the consumer.

II. What Customers Really Want
A. Convenience
1. Easy to find new music
2. Easy to transfer and listen to music
3. Easy to explore music beyond listening to it
B. Relationships
1. Least amount of middle men between costumer and artists
2. Feeling of closeness to artist
3. Music as a culture

III. The Old Model
A. Revenue
1. Album sales – primary source
2. Radio play – getting the word out
3. Merchandise – branding the band
B. Marketing Strategies
1. Television – Ed Sullivan and on
2. Movies – Hard Day’s Night, Shaft, etc
3. Fan clubs – mailings, memberships
4. Music stores – displays, specials, cover art
C. Decline and extinction
1. Album sales – steady shrinking
2. Album concept – falling out
3. Record Giants – going in and out of business, suits versus people

IV. Key Failures
A. Keeping up with technology
1. Cassettes, CDs, mp3s – slow adaptation
2. Online music services – iTunes, problems with adapting
3. DRM – restrictive measures on purchased material
B. Napster
1. Customers want new outlet – companies fail to recognize
2. Ignoring new demand – pushing out new opportunity
3. Criminalizing the customer base – lawsuits, effects on consumers
C. Public Relations
1. Monopolies – Clear Channel
2. Formula for music - deemed commercially successful
3. Payola – corruptive business practices

V. The New Model
A. iTunes
1. Pricing - $0.99 for every song
2. Recommendations – connecting users to new music
3. Ease of use – anyone can install, anyone can use
B. MySpace, Facebook, etc
1. DIY marketing – what makes MySpace successful
2. New measures – selling music on social networking sites
3. Social networking – implications for marketers
C. Touring
1. Sponsored tours – Rock Band, MTVU, etc
2. Revenue – the new source
3. Festivals and showcases – central place for discovering music
D. Creative marketing
1. Album release promotions –limited editions, in-store performances
2. Grassroots – flyering, postering, listening stations, etc
3. Radiohead effect – offering music alternatively, costs, revenue
4. Websites – news, games, interactivity
E. Television, Movies, Gaming
1. Licensing – using in other media and entertainment
2. Garden State effect – Grey’s Anatomy, OC, embracing the culture
3. Cameos – artists featured in acting roles
F. Diversifying your business
1. Artists branching out – establishing music as a brand, 50 Cent
2. Clothing, products – more outlets for creativity

VI. Combating piracy
A. Why RIAA failed
B. Can’t stop piracy
C. Must use new models to establish new value

VII. Conclusion
A. The business is slowly taking new measures to make the customer’s needs a priority, and one can expect to see a lot more creative ideas to make money in the music business. The result is a more profitable industry and a better product for consumers.

Post 8...

I have been slammed this start of the week, so I will have to miss this blog for the due date of this morning, but I will post my full entry tomorrow for feedback. Thanks for bearing with me!