Marketing
Issue No. 14 - December/January 2004
Rock Rules
by Dr David Corkindale
A new book claims that aged Rock & Roll groups like the Rolling Stones owe their continued popularity and – importantly— profitability to marketing skills. Maybe there are some lessons those of us marketing other products and services can learn from them.
Brands that rock: how to win fans and influence profits by Blackwell and Stephan ( John Wiley & Co.) chronicles the continuing success of groups and artists like The Rolling Stones, KISS, Elton John., Cliff Richards and even Bob Dylan with seeming hit CDs and sold—out concerts. This is decades after they first came to prominence. How do they do it?
The authors analyse the careers of these people using a marketing framework. They suggest 13 strategies for success that can be gleaned from the music world and cite other companies that have implemented them— including Mountain Dew, Starbucks, Wendy‘s (US), Intel, and Microsoft.
What they find is that a group like the Rolling Stones is run very much as a business—in fact, like a corporation. The Stones’ HQ is in the Netherlands as the tax regime is more favourable than the UK. Separate divisions look after Albums, Royalties, Touring and each is led by an executive with a management team that would fit in any consumer business. The overall business is managed for profit. For example, each Stones album contains some new numbers and some recycled old ones. In that way they can release four albums a year rather than just two. At concerts, these CDs are not the main items for sale, if they are on sale at all; the concert—specific merchandise promoted to eager fans is t—shirts and hats that are much more profitable. So, the concerts are a means to an end as well as being profitable in their own right.
This is an example of adapting the business model to the changing times. In many industries it is difficult to be very profitable in simple ways; many are mature and competition keeps prices low. Most companies can only be as profit...
