The New York Magazine profiles Kate and Jack Spade.
Highlights from the article:
“Someone once told me that if you ask a woman What is the favorite thing in your closet?, she’ll pull out her newest dress,” says Jenna Lyons. “If you ask a man, he’ll pull out some tattered old thing he’s had forever. That’s the big difference. And that’s what Andy gets.” Essentially, he understands that men are happy to have their shoes resoled again and again, and that they’d like to buy shoes that deserve it."
- Andy Spade’s explanation, the key, he says, to his marketing success?
“The bigger you get, the smaller you act.” By which he means: The more personal a brand, the more stuff it can sell.
A big thanks to the blog All Plaid Out for highlighting the profile.
Currently spending way too much time on Svpply at the moment.
"Svpply is a retail bookmarking and recommendation service. Filtered through the collective wishlists of our members, Svpply features the full spectrum of retail products, from the exclusive to the wholesale."
I have been thinking a lot this past week about social media, online brand marketing and “socializing with your fans.”
My main thoughts have been:
1. Why do some companies and brands attract more fans than others?
2. Is social media just like opening up a retail store on a busy street? You can either have walk-in paying customers or have thousands of people simply walk by, just looking through your window?
3. Why do some small isolated companies have passionate, completely obsessive fans on a wide geographical scale when other international brands have pseudo fans that just cannot be reeled in to become a part of the company’s “family?”
4. Is a “fan” a good thing or should we just focus our time and efforts on paying customers rather than those that just “walk in and read the magazines in the bookstore?”
5. Is there too much focus on getting followers and building out brands and companies through social media networks? Many companies haven’t made up their minds about their offline brand, let along their online.
6. Some companies and brands don’t even have to try in order to create a following. They simply are just themselves, offline, online and in person. Is being just you the best way to market yourself? Warts and all?
7. Do consumers react better to honesty and openness? Can only small companies and brands translate well to fans by opening up and showing anything and everything about their company and their products and services?
8. Has the traditional sales model changed? Is there a sales cycle anymore? Do consumers only buy from people they like? It doesn’t matter how good the product is, if you don’t like the company or the salesperson you won’t buy it. Does this apply to music in relation to fans not just becoming hooked on the sound? They have to like and connect with the band or the artist as a person as well.
It’s terribly easy to get completely caught up in building an online following while losing some of the reason your built up your business or brand before social media “tools” came along. Social media is just that. It’s a tool that you can add to your belt of other on or offline marketing and communication tools. Social media shouldn’t change how your package your company, your products or yourself.
If you come across as pushy online and aren’t pushy offline what do you think will happen to your image? Be real, be you, just be. Marketing yourself online and growing a following comes easy when you don’t have to think about it.
This article was originally written in August 2009. Why am I re-posting it? The music industry has gone through intense turmoil over the past two years with traditional business models being ripped to shreds. I won’t go on but for many it’s been a real ugly time and if you are a label or an artist that comes out on top then you deserved to be congratulated.
This post highlights one artist, Imogen Heap, who has taken social media to a new level, using it to her advantage, captivating listeners and growing a huge base of followers.
Even if you don’t work in the music industry, there is something to gain from understanding how Ms. Heap has created a following. Not just touting her music in exchange for money, but by being at the frontline of promoting herself as a real person and engaging her tribe of fans using an array of social media tools.
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This week a great article on how the UK artist Imogen Heap (you may recognize her as the other half of the late group Frou Frou) connects with her fans, has been circulating throughout the online music world at the industry level, social media level and at the artist & fan level.
The article has gathered some attention but I don’t think enough attention. Perhaps Ms. Heap isn’t well enough known through the music world to garner the attention she deserves. However, regardless of how popular she is musically, Imogen Heap has created a growing and fiercely loyal fan following, not only because of the intimate, almost obsessive, creativity she adds to her music, but to the ways she has been personally reaching out and connecting with her fans way before social media came into the limelight.
Why am I devoting an entire post to her and the article in question? Well, I have been working in the music industry for close to eight years now and have worked through the successes of traditional artist marketing, CD distribution and the recent exciting changes that are changing the way we listen to, market and distribute music. There is so much information and commentary being written, commented on, blogged and Twittered about the music industry and where it’s going, who is failing, where the opportunities are for labels and artists and what the revenue models will be for the future. It’s actually exhausting, but exciting, to keep up with everything that is going on. I have mulled over writing potential blog postings on “How to get your music heard,” and “Top 10 things an artist can do to promote their music,” but there is so much information out there already I would just be regurgitating what has already been written (and much of it hasn’t totally been proven to be sustainable).
I’m not going to try to recreate history, so if there is one artist, one example, one working model that pushes the boundaries on how artists should connect with their fans, then Imogen Heap is up there at the top. If you don’t like her music then that’s fine but that’s not the point. Read the article here and spend some time watching her videos and following her online. You’ll see the point I am trying to make.
Artists know their music better than anyone, even their listeners. They know their comfort levels and their boundaries with creativity. They experience what it takes first hand to make a new record, get out there in the marketplace to the masses and to be heard in this new music industry where everyone is shouting at once. Artists want to socialize with their fans and create a connection with new followers. Artists are bombarded with calls for “all music should be free” and “you can make money from touring.” Of course it’s tough and requires a lot of work but today there are more opportunities for artists to grow and generate an audience than ever before.
Imogen Heap has been at the forefront of her own marketing for nearly a decade with her own website serving up a “social media” connection with her fans since she and the group Frou Frou, her former collaboration with Guy Sigsworth, disbanded in 2005 (actually Heaps current website has barely changed from when it first launched) She once ran an online fan competition where she invited the lucky winner to her house and cooked them dinner right there in Heaps own kitchen. The competition was an absolute scramble and the rest is self promotion history.
Heap has 735,000 followers on Twitter, has garnered the creative skills of her fan base and involved them in the creation of her new album, has a video journal on YouTube and makes every one of her fans feel like she could be their best friend, auntie or big sister. And they just love her for it.
Bands and solo artists must connect with their fans more than ever before. It's not enough for a fan to like your music. Listeners don't just like music anymore, they have to like the performer, the vocalist, the drummer, the guitarist. They even have to like your website design, your tone of voice, your image, your blog posts and Tweets. With unlimited online services available to market music and connect with your fans, mostly for free, it's tempting to think that these tools are the beginning and end all of your music's success. Sometimes, direct honesty and a personable insight into your music and your lives are all that is needed to created that fan connection.
“We’re a generation whose medium is television and movies, it just is. As much as we might like music we like it better with visual stimulus accompanying it with digital media, with the inundation of bands, the rate bands are coming out, the rate that music is consumed, I mean people just listen to something once and then move on. People have no choice to make it the music equivalent of a magazine, the go get the ones that you want, the style that you like, you listen to it, then you get another one and just blow through them, I mean they’re not novels, they’re not someone pouring some tremendous amount of time to really make some difference in someones life.
If things keep going that way, it’s not going get any easier for us, I know that’s for certain. I mean if the music is as good as we always hope that it will be, which I have no idea, it’s impossible for us to be, have any idea what we’re doing really, then hopefully people will find it, that it’s worth finding.”
A documentary film by filmmaker Nicholas Kleczewski about one of America's best unknown bands, The Snake The Cross The Crown.
Everywhere I read I see voiced dismay about music not making anyone any money. Music being stolen, music being copied, music being turned into something that is watered down, diluted and shared without any respect for the label or the artist. It's true, all this is happening but it doesn't take away the fact that music is still being made without any thought of monetary reward. Musicians all around the world record and perform every day regardless of whether they'll be paid for it or not. That's music. Music's an artform. A way to express, a way to escape, a way to entertain.
Do you think these guys, the Black Keys, think about money upfront before they perform? Do you think they are always worried about who rips off their music?
Brilliant idea. Take a London cab, one of the most recognized vehicles in the world, and ask well known artists to perform live, unplugged, on the back seat. Amazing. Check out the whole roster here.
"Embracing the concept of hybrid, our mission is to bring new experiences that can only be created in Tokyo Through a unique global mix of music, visuals, and other forms of creative expression through a DVD and CD. W+K Tokyo Lab is all about being in Tokyo now, using the power of the city to attract the most innovative creative collaborators from around the world. We are passionate about the development of new ideas with our creators and connecting them to a new audience. Simply put, it is about good music, fresh visuals, and new concepts of creative expression." - W+K Tokyo Lab
I've been keeping an eye on the guys at the above company company for quite some time now, ever since they were featured in an Apple Pro profile piece. Based in Tokyo, W+K Tokyo Lab are a digital hybrid music label that combine not only technology with music but also the geographical space, lifestyle culture and exclusivity of Tokyo to develop simply stunning examples of digital music expression.
I was looking back through the November issue of Monocle magazine and they had a feature titled "How to be a band in 2010." I would link to the article but it's subscription only. In the article musicologist Simon Frith states that:
"More than ever, music is now an experience not a product and there are imaginative ways you can sell things around this experience."
Music is not the only "product" that has now been converted to an experience. Television and all other visual products have become experiences, even communication has evolved from the telephone and the fax to become an experience with social media, Twitter and online media. W+K Tokyo lab take physical medium (CD+DVD) which is still very dominant in the Japanese music scene, to dispel the myths that the humble CD is simply an outdated format for only storing music. Couple this with digital signage, mobile and other forms of digital street art and this artistic hybrid music label is setting a great example as to what business models could be easily transfered to other music and culture centric metropolis' such as London, Paris, New York.
I wrote this summer while attending the Montreal Jazz festival about listeners of music wanting a complete experience not just a collection of sounds to listen to. In a time when every label, artist, critic, strategist, visionary and futurist is trying to figure out the magic formula to build a sustainable and profitable business model around digital music it's no wonder that the industry landscape (where even the term "music industry" is becoming outdated) creates pockets for new digital companies with no legacy knowledge of the industry, to find new channels of marketing, promotion, distribution and economic reward. Experimental artists, labels and collaborators of music will come out above the rest, willing to try it and see, while remaining passionately true to their core beliefs of music as form of artistic expression and not just some money making machine where success is sadly becoming gauged on the number of followers.
First we had Threadless, a t-shirt company that prints solely on what their customers want to be seen wearing. They are heralded as being the first, and probably still the only, true web 2.0 company. They simply provide the web community structure and the printing of the t-shirts, whereas it's their customers that dictate what designs will be chosen to be printed. They don't even design in house; any designer in any country in the world can submit their design for the community to vote on.
Now we have Victors & Spoils, who are taking this model one step further and have sprouted up as an agency that functions purely on a crowdsourcing model. Anyone can pitch their ideas for a specific creative brief and the chosen pitch gets handsomely rewarded. I guess in layman's terms it's like an episode of The Apprentice where anyone can be hired, the client choses the finished product and anyone can get fired.
This new agency concept seems like an interesting idea, and apparently some clients are already waiting in the sidelines to be signed up, however this "open to all" creative process could introduce what companies fear might eventually happen to their brands. They still want perceived ownership, need an agency to take ownership and direction under one roof and would possibly be concerned that there would be too much supposed "outside critics" opinion on the interpretation of their brand. Victors & Spoils certainly have leaders at the agency's helm with ex-employees from CrispinPorter+Bogusky, so this probably comes as no surprise that this could be a ground breaking concept when you could potentially have your target demographic tell you how you should look. However it's always been a closed agency's role to lead the client onto the right path. Will opening it up to any and all just make brands more fearful that this trend could become nothing more than a public creative dissection?
Marketing, advertising and branding has always been about creating an emotional connection with your customer. Social media hasn't changed this, it's simply made the connection a 2-way communication.
