Return on Intention

This post is in relation to Pop-music’s Lesson to marketing. If you haven’t read it, take some time to do so before continuing.

Again this point is relevant to a lot of music styles, not just rap, but let me be wildly stereotypical to make a point. While we project that pop music is predominantly about love and relationships, we also suggest that another popular content for song is all about selfishness. We will use Rap music as an example.

Many Rap songs are based on attitude and personal gratification. One of the most popular of them all is the subject of how much money, wealth, cars, toys and women a particular artist or group has. This, like our pop music example is an insight into human behavior.

While the two topics may seem contradictory, they are not so different. On one hand we have the pop music’s idea of love, and on the other hand we have raps view of collecting women. Could we find any two things more opposite? Actually, there not so far apart. How are they related? They are both in reference to relationships.

There is no point expressing an accumulation of things (money, cars, etc…) unless it’s used as a comparison to another. This is relation. “I have more women that want me than you” is a relational comparison. The argument doesn’t work unless there is another side to compare it with.

This suggests a few things. One is that differentiation is critical to a brand. If you don’t have a strong and meaningful way of comparing yourself or your brand to your competition, then how are your fans (customers) supposed to know that being on your side is the right side to be on? The second thing to consider is whether your differentiation and brand image is built using the right “metrics”. To be successful in rap music you have to have the most money, cars, houses, toys and women wishing to be with you. If you decided to become a rap artist and rap about how you have more life insurance and a better retirement package, you probably won’t get too far. You would be using the wrong metrics. What metrics do your customers use to rate brands? What metrics is your brand built on? Are they the same or related?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007 at 3:52 pm and is filed under Mar Comm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.