The Branding Spiral
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 The Branding Spiral
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| #1
KennyLee Guru Posts: 1358 |
posted 02-05-2001 07:50 PM
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Nothing is working! Why? Because you can't do it with the internet alone. Not Amazon.com. Not MP3.com. Not KennyLee.com. Here is an excerpt from Jesse Berst explaining how successful business will be done. http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_2745.html
quote: There is much more if you go to the story. Looking at MP3.com's big money makers I notice one thing. The big moneymakers on the web must be doing something offline to bring traffic. They are using spiral branding. Anyhow, I'm thinking about this a lot right now. And thought I'd see if you guys had any comments. ------------------ IP: Logged |
| #2
dond Guru Posts: 208 |
posted 02-05-2001 11:32 PM
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Kenny, Your article makes my day!! It explains a lot, and, makes me finally recognize that we're on the right track. 95% of our music business is off line, in the brick and mortar world. We've earned a living there for decades. In 2000, 5% of our sales came from the internet. In 1999, 3% was web based. We were big time, internet losers! I thought we were total failures in the digital world. Especially after all the dot.com hoopla and IPO successes. Tonight, I feel pretty good! Our Bricks and mortar stuff is growing, and, the internet percentage is increasing too. Maybe we weren't as stupid as the media made us feel. The big time dot.coms are failing, and, we're slowly continuing to grow. BTW, I agree with all the precepts in that article!!!! ------------------ IP: Logged |
| #3
KennyLee Guru Posts: 1358 |
posted 02-06-2001 12:31 AM
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quote: Well, I'd say that 99.9% of Kenny Lee's business is offline. I'm a bust on the internet. I quit sending my offline customers to the internet over a year ago because it seemed to be working against me. I sell my CD for $15 at shows and regional retail. The $5.99 on MP3.com confused my customers. They weren't picking up on the difference in quality aspect. And since MP3.com did the dumb thing of showing my customers how little I make? Well, I for sure can't send them there now. Lately, my customers constantly tell me "I found your song on Napster". And they think that is cool. It is not a whole album. I'm free. Metallica is free. Madonna is free. It's all equal and doesn't harm my other business. Napster doesn't blow my offline cool like MP3.com does. But getting back to the article, it looks to me like the internet is more likely to work by sending our customers to brick and mortar outlets. Using the spiral described in the article. Which to me is where the OMDs are fucking up. They have no TV exposure. Except for Napster which has gotten lots of free TV exposure on the news. The OMDs also have no brick and mortar tie-ins. There was a lot of talk way back when of kiosks. Where you could go to the MP3.com kiosk at Best Buy and download and burn a DAM CD. But, so far as I can see? That never happened. Anyhow, glad you like the article, dond. I'm still trying to figure out how it can work for me. If you figure it out? Let me know. ------------------ IP: Logged |
| #4
Hatchet Man Guru Posts: 421 |
posted 02-06-2001 03:11 AM
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Shit , I have been sayin' this for two years. I just didn't have a fancy name for it. the hamsters just ignored me or slammed me because the brutal truth is welcome like a root canal minus novacaine. One thing you missed mp3.CON got a bunch of free ads on TV too. Mostly negative but hey the content providers kept showing up. I have been telling the hamsters for two years that the mention of mp3.CON to labels was a huge minus. any bands on the CON are immediately suspects of being mediocre or worse. Look the CON until recently knew their marks well & played them down to the wire. the first DAM CD I got froma content provider tipped me on the inferiority of it. Yet the fools kept sayin' but it's only $6. Hey fuck it. Music isn't worth it if it sounds like crap. The morons just didn't get it. As I have said ad nauseum Ampcast has a tiny chance to be something that we could make some spare change with. I floated the TV ad idea to them before this. Of course I got no response beside we are working on generating traffic. What are they doing? Your guess is prolly better than mine. I haven't a clue. The only site that made real large sums of money so far is the CON. It's still the WalMart of mp3s. My hunch? It will be bought out & the indies will be relegated to the back woods. ------------------ IP: Logged |
| #5
KennyLee Guru Posts: 1358 |
posted 02-06-2001 11:21 AM
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quote: Yep. But, to me, this article does more than just give it a fancy name. It explains it in detail. As far as MP3.com(n) being the Wal-Mart, etc.? Seems to me that like a lot of internet start-ups they made one big lick. IPO day. And they are just riding that jackpot money until it's all gone. Because, apparently, the geniuses at MP3.com haven't read this article. Or if they have? They are doing the opposite on purpose. ------------------ IP: Logged |
| #6
dond Guru Posts: 208 |
posted 02-06-2001 03:19 PM
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Kenny, It's going to be a symbiotic relationship with your web activities. Our web sales are growing because of the off line stuff. It's feeding the web site, and, web activities are finding new, on line clients, in strange places. The article is correct, they have to work together. Synergy is a possibility. Unfortunately, except for in-kind trade offs with public television, and, a few cable outlets, I can't afford TV promotons. It works, from my limited experience, but, I don't have that kind of capital to invest, and, capitalize on that mass exposure. The web is a possible way to augment paid TV exposure. We've been playing with low bandwidth, transferrable, combination, live/interactive video events. This has potential for future paid video exposure too. Music alone, isn't enough however. All of us have to learn to do it all in the future! ------------------ IP: Logged |
| #7
KennyLee Guru Posts: 1358 |
posted 02-06-2001 06:31 PM
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quote: Well, at present, TV and Radio is what's holding the independent musician back. A lot of bands are doing videos. It's getting real cheap to do. What with Digital Editing. These videos are shown on the web in herky jerky thumbnail size. Trying to create the TV experience on the web. Which the article says won't work. And, so far, it hasn't. So, how do we find a way to get on TV as well as the web? I don't know. It may be impossible until convergence occurs. ------------------ [This message has been edited by KennyLee (edited 02-06-2001).] IP: Logged |
| #8
deel Guru Posts: 202 |
posted 02-06-2001 08:43 PM
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quote: well, this is alot like the CON, with all of the chartrigging / gaming! but thier branding is in the shape of a downward spiral..
[This message has been edited by deel (edited 02-06-2001).] IP: Logged |
| #9
Hatchet Man Guru Posts: 421 |
posted 02-07-2001 06:53 AM
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Riffage tried a radio camaign. I hear several out here on the West Coast. Apperently it didn't do much good. It is a pity. Instead fot eh the CON spending all that money on major labels CDs and the the fines. Ballpark $400K, they could have done some zine, radio & TV ads to promote Indie Artists. That may have required some weeding of the garden. In my view, most of the cream of the crop re: Artists bailed a few months after the IPO. I still feel that some site will fill up the vacuum that the CON will evntually leave. ------------------ IP: Logged |
| #10
KennyLee Guru Posts: 1358 |
posted 02-07-2001 11:52 AM
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quote: Well, for example, cnet.com has a TV show. Yahoo.com puts out a magazine. All attempts at creating a spiral. walmart.com has huge brick and mortar, of course. MP3.com has no spiral. Just email spam and a website. The only spiral on MP3.com is independent artists pushing the site at their shows. Which MP3.com has damaged by posting income on the artist pages. What can MP3.com do now to turn it all around? Well, they could start by bringing in new management. ------------------ IP: Logged |
| #11
Hatchet Man Guru Posts: 421 |
posted 02-07-2001 10:10 PM
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Kenny, A fave? See if any Phil Frazier songs are on Nappy? ------------------ IP: Logged |
| #12
KennyLee Guru Posts: 1358 |
posted 02-07-2001 10:41 PM
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Phil, I just checked the Napster service and did not find you listed. But I don't know if that means anything. Cause Napster is not an OMD. It's a network. And it changes every second and I can only access one server at a time. If you wanna, get Napigator and MediaEnforcer. Two programs that help you search the Napster labyrinth. I mean, I love ya. but I ain't gonna spend all day on this. ------------------ IP: Logged |
| #13
Hatchet Man Guru Posts: 421 |
posted 02-08-2001 12:17 AM
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Ah...the love. You see it here folks. Kenny loves Hatch. Now that I have it in writing how can I use it to my best advantage? I could ruin this guy. hehe Thanks for the time you did devote, man. ------------------ IP: Logged |
| #14
edexter Newbie Posts: 17 |
posted 02-08-2001 12:42 AM
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I believe in cross marketing and it has been working well for me. I find that I can also get fans from writing poetry and writing software. I notice that this site is alot faster than it used to be. ------------------ IP: Logged |
| #15
KennyLee Guru Posts: 1358 |
posted 02-08-2001 10:39 AM
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quote: Well, it was till you showed up. Now we've got 4 posts a day to try and handle. Sheesh. ------------------ IP: Logged |
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