1. How the Re-Invention of the Music Industry Can
Inspire New Approaches to Marketing Strategy
John Greene
Kellogg School of Management
November 16, 2017
Staying Ahead of
Your Napster

2. Hello.

5. I believe the future of marketing
innovation can be inspired by the re-
invention of the music industry.

6. You want me to apply lessons
learned from the music industry?!?

7. Sometimes, re-invention
happens only when
there is no other option.

8. “For years, the record labels had a
business model that was consistent
and single-minded: (1) bundle
together a dozen songs on a CD, (2)
ship the discs out to retailers, and (3)
collect money. “

9. And then, suddenly, music could no
longer be sold like cereal.

10. Global Recorded Music Industry
(in billion U.S. dollars)

11. The scary news:
Every industry
has a Napster.

12. The better news:
You can be the
Napster.

13. Through a decade of
collapse, innovators within
the music industry have
had to re-invent their
approach to everything.

14. Global Recorded Music Industry

15. And the re-invention in the music
industry illuminates new ways of
looking at three fundamental
questions that can help any industry
stay ahead of their Napster.
What do we
really sell?
Who are our true
competitors?
How do we
launch new
products?

16. TODAY’S AGENDA
What do we
really sell?
Who are our true
competitors?
How do we
launch new
products?
Pharrell’s “Happy"
and How to Design
Hit Brand
Experiences
Avicii, Aloe Blacc,
and The Age of
Liquid
Expectations
Kanye and
Product Launches
in the Attention
Economy

17. Pharrell’s “Happy” and How to
Design Hit Brand Experiences
#1: What do we really sell?

18. #1: What do we
really sell?

19. “We rent DVDs.”

20. “We sell film.”

21. “We sell newspapers.”

22. Products in any
industry can be
quickly and
devastatingly
Napster-ed.

23. “Customers don’t buy
hammers. They buy a
beautifully hung picture
on their wall.”

24. $0.05 $5.00

25. Shift #1:
Products Experiences

26. - Guy Oseary,
Madonna’s manager
“In the past, people would tour to
sell their albums; today they put
out albums to promote their tours.
The pendulum has swung.”

27. It turns out that a hefty number of “MDNA” albums
weren’t sold the usual way.
For every ticket sold online to Madonna’s upcoming
shows, purchasers automatically receive a copy of
“MDNA.” They get a link to a free purchase on
ITunes, or they can send in their mailing address
for a physical CD. It doesn’t matter if the concert
ticket is $52 or $350.

28. - John Philip Sousa, 1906
"I foresee a marked
deterioration in American
music and musical taste, an
interruption in the musical
development of the country,
and a host of other injuries to
music in its artistic
manifestations, by virtue -- or
rather by vice -- of the
multiplication of the various
music-reproducing
machines."... The player piano
and the gramophone strip life
from real, human, soulful live
performances.”
In partnership with McSweeny's,
Beck's Song Reader will be "an
experiment in what the album
can be now," there will be no
CD, no LP, no mp3. Just the
sheet music, ready to be
performed by anyone willing.

29. What can Pharrell’s “Happy”
teach us about designing
contemporary brand
experiences?

30. “Danceable grooves have just the
right amount of gaps or breaks in
the beats. Your brain wants to fill
in those gaps with body
movement.”
- Maria Witek, Arhaus University in Denmark

31. Witek says that people all over the world
agreed on which drum patterns made
them most want to dance:
“Not the ones that have very little complexity
and not the ones that had very, very high
complexity… but the balance between
predictability and complexity.”

32. Designing hit brand experiences:
Molecules, Gaps, and the Right
Amount of Surprise

33. Think of your brand experience as a
molecule of experiences from your
customer’s perspective.

36. Start with your mission.
From products to
experiences
Design the molecule that includes
everything your customers experience;
not just those that you directly create/sell.
Leave the right gaps for your customers to
fill in on their own.

37. evolving the
way the
world moves
Start with the Mission

38. evolving the
way the
world moves
On-Demand
Real-Time
Tracking
Invisible
Payments
Identify the Core Pillars of Your Customer Experience

39. UberBlack
evolving the
way the
world moves
On-Demand
UberX
Real-Time
Tracking
Invisible
Payments
Uber Taxi
Uber Rush
Scale Products off of Your Core Experiences

40. UberBlack
evolving the
way the
world moves
On-Demand
UberX
Uber Family
Real-Time
Tracking
Invisible
Payments
Uber Taxi
Uber Rush
Whimsical
Deliveries
Uber
Chopper
Ice Cream
Delivery
Kittens
Identify New Audiences and Moments of Need

41. UberBlack
evolving the
way the
world moves
On-Demand
UberX
Uber Family
Real-Time
Tracking
Invisible
Payments
Uber Taxi
Uber Rush
Whimsical
Deliveries
And, Importantly, Identify Opportunities for Growth
Uber
Chopper
Ice Cream
Delivery
Kittens
What Other Consumer Markets
Need to Have Movement Evolved?
Why Not License the Software
Experience (eg, Amazon Cloud
Storage)?
What Other Consumer Moments
Need to Have Movement Evolved?

42. Shift #1:
Products Experiences
What experience do you sell?
(only use words that one of your consumers would use!)
Is your mission catalytic?
(Does it immediately lead to ideas, or is it just “accurate”?)
Are you leaving space for dancing?
(Finding the right balance of predictability and co-ownership?)

43. Avicii, Aloe Blacc, and The Age of
Liquid Expectations
#2: Who are our true competitors?

44. “Avicii Unveils Bizarrely Twangy Mumford
& Sons Reinvention During Ultra Set.”
“Hey, you got your bluegrass in my techno!”
“EDM Superstar Avicii Makes a Kazoo-Heavy
Kinda-Country Record.”

46. #2: Who are our
true competitors?

47. Business breeds
us to be fighters.

48. Direct Competitors
Original iPhone Launch

49. But often it’s not the
competitor right in
front of us that we
should be most
worried about.

50. Experiential Competitors

51. Experiential Competitors

52. Customer expectations are
becoming increasingly liquid
across every category.

53. Perceptual Competitors

56. Shift #2:
Static
Expectations
Liquid
Expectations

57. The Age of Liquid
Expectations
Direct They sell products that compete
with ours.
Experiential
They sell experiences that
replace ours.
Perceptual
They change the expectations our
customers have for us.

58. Direct What competitors sell products/
services that compete with Uber?
Experiential
What competitors offer
experiences that are threatened
by Uber?
Perceptual How does Uber change the
expectations that consumers have
for brands in other industries?

59. Direct
For Londoners and tourists
alike, Wednesday was a
headache-inducing travel
day in the city. In a new
show of solidarity and
anger against the taxi app
Uber, around 12,000
London cab drivers
suspended their service
and took to the streets.

60. Direct

61. Direct

62. Experiential
"We get customer feedback
everyday saying, 'Hey I just
sold my car; I don't need to
pay for parking at home or
work.' Lets say that's $500 a
month for both. We just saved
them $6,000 a year. ... I think
that's why so many people are
using Uber and getting rid of
their cars."
- Travis Kalanick
Direct

63. Direct
Experiential
Perceptual
Uber has made payments
invisible by making the entire
checkout experience, well,
invisible. Getting out of the
taxicab is the equivalent of
checking out of the taxi, with
payment automatically
triggered at that moment. The
overall experience is
predictable and hassle-free.

64. Direct
Experiential
Perceptual
Uber has made payments
invisible by making the entire
checkout experience, well,
invisible. Getting out of the
taxicab is the equivalent of
checking out of the taxi, with
payment automatically
triggered at that moment. The
overall experience is
predictable and hassle-free.

65. Direct People who transport things for you
Experiential The Auto Industry
Perceptual
Anyone who connects people to a
service, anyone in the payments
industry…

66. Shift #2:
Static
Expectations
Liquid
Expectations
Who is your biggest perceptual competitor?
(the one that is re-shaping your future from afar)
Who could be your perceptual inspiration?
(The brand/experience that could inspire innovation)
What opportunities could thinking perceptually inspire?
(scaling your business off what you change, not what you “are”)

67. Kanye West and Product Launches
in the Attention Economy
#3: How do we launch new products?

68. Traditional New Product Development
Shrouded in secrecy.
Predicated on “perfection”.
Focused on the end product.

69. 9
seconds
8
seconds

71. “In the current news cycle,
artists spend years of their life
eking out albums that hardly
last for more than a week or
two in the headlines.”

72. What makes a successful album in
2016? A No. 1 debut on the Billboard
chart? Steady play across streaming
services? A hit radio single or a viral
music video?
Kanye West’s “The Life of Pablo” has
managed to achieve a level of online
and cultural ubiquity, despite having
none of the above.

75. “Have you ever seen a finished
picture?” the painter says. “A
picture or anything else?
Woe unto you the day it is said
you are finished! To finish a
work? To finish a picture? What
nonsense!
To finish it means to be through
with it, to kill it, to rid it of its
soul, to give it its final blow: the
most unfortunate one for the
painter as well as for the picture.”
- Pablo (Picasso)

76. Launching a perfect product
that everyone forgets about
two weeks later isn’t perfect.

77. If you had to choose, would you
rather be interesting or right?

78. “If I were President of the United
States, I would rather be right than
interesting. If I were a CEO of a
company, I would rather be right
than interesting. But I am a
journalist–
what journalist would rather be
right than interesting?”
- Malcolm Gladwell

79. “If I were President of the United
States, I would rather be right than
interesting. If I were a CEO of a
company, I would rather be right
than interesting. But I am a
journalist–
what journalist would rather be
right than interesting?”
- Malcolm Gladwell
In today’s
attention
economy, you
have no choice
but to be right
(enough) and
interesting.

80. Shift #3:
Creation of
Brands
Creating as
Branding

81. Shift #3:
Creation of
Brands
Creating as
Branding
Confidential creation process Open creation process
Consumers Collaborators
Finished product Minimum viable product
Product Life Cycles News Cycles

82. Shift #3:
Creation of
Brands
Creating as
Branding
What do you need to change to account for a 48 hour half life?
(What’s your 8 second pitch?)
How are you inspiring others to author on your behalf?
(Using the process of your creation to inspire publication by others)

83. Staying ahead of
Your Napster
What do we
really sell?
Who are our true
competitors?
Products Experiences Static
Expectations
Liquid
Expectations
How do we
launch products?
Creations Creating

84. Thank you.
JohnGreene60614@gmail.com
www.aboutjohngreene.com