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.
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