Dead Marketing

Dead Marketing


I am indebted to PRNewser for a brief summary of a great little book, Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History.

Last weekend I read the book, which took all of about two hours to cover about 150 small pages and roughly nineteen learning from, if not the most iconic band in history, certainly one of the greatest “brands” in rock-n-roll. My connection with the Dead is thin, but not non-existent, I’ll explain that in a moment.

I’m a believer in transplanting wisdom from one field to another, quite different field, hence I instinctively like the proposition that the Dead have a lot to tell us.

Marketing Lesson’s theme, reinforcing a lot of other books, staring with David Ogilvy’s Confesisons of an Ad Man, is that if you try to establish a brand, or attempt to sell a widget just like every other marketer, or widget salesman, you are limited to winning a small-medium or maybe even large helping of the widget pie, but won’t achieve greatness. The Dead didn’t deliberately exclaim, “let’s set rock marketing on its ears;” rather they followed what to them was simply the right path to doing the right thing and the dividends of this strategy were success for thirty years and creating a brand that continues to ensure long after founder Jerry Garcia’s death.

So what did the Grateful Dead do that was so counter-instinctive?

For one, allowing anyone to record their concerts. Imaging if tonight you sashayed into an Eminem concert at Madison Square Garden armed with a tape recorder and a large directional microphone. If you were lucky you’d get thrown out. More likely you’d be busted. But the Dead took a totally opposite approach, even arranging special areas for amateur recorders. It wasn’t simply that they wanted to be nice guys. They instinctive knew that fans would exchange tapes and talk up their concert experiences, thereby creating more buzz and enthusiasm for Deadom. This policy, by the way, didn’t seem to hurt album sales one bit and today there is a vast collection of concert material in the public domain.

Unlike most bands, which toured to support recordings, the Dead again upset the business model: albums were simply a way to reinforce their concert schedule. This might have diminished their relationship with the record label, but established a much stronger revenue base.

Long before anyone ever heard of customer-relationship marketing, Garcia and the boys built band loyalty by rewarding their most ardent fans with special promotions and great seating.

There more in this little book that reaffirms that you don’t need an MBA to by savvy at selling.

Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the sixties and being addicted beyond the point of no return to “folk music” (OMG!), I often saw Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and Pig Pen, aka Mother McGee’s Uptown Jug Champions, at The Tangent in Palo Alto and Off-Stage in San Jose. Jerry usually presiding over the five-string.

But here’s the defining moment: one evening, my pals and I were wrapping up an evening of body surfing near Pescadaro, south of San Francisco (Don’t ask. We were young and Foolish). Walking by a small club out by the Coast, we noticed some new kids in town. The Grateful Dead. Mother McGee’s boys had traded in the banjos and acoustics for electric guitars and drums. “I can’t believe the Champions have sold out and gone rock-n-roll” I whined. To add insult to injury, they were charging FIVE DOLLARS a ticket to see the show.

“No way I’m going to pay that,” I said. And didn’t.

As the years went by, I saw the Dead in San Francisco, LA, Vegas and New York. But never scored fivedollar tickets.