Imagine an industry convinced that its only path to survival depends upon appealing to those who don't actually like, or need, the product in question.
By this logic, if those perched atop the music industry ant hill were selling BMX bikes instead, you'd derive endless pleasure from watching them haplessly spend good money after bad marketing to the elderly and the infirm while ignoring those who actually want the product and are eager to purchase.
This tends to happen anytime an industry loses touch with its core audience in a misguided attempt to maintain continuous growth at all costs.
Need an example?
Let's cast our judgmental gaze in the direction of the NFL, which has spent inordinate amounts of time and money looking for new ways to continue to broaden their base beyond those who are already "fans" of their product.
To do this requires putting as many non-fans in the seats as possible.
To accomplish this task, they'd probably have to make a lot of concession, like, say, considering placing a team in London, hiring Justin Timberlake as halftime entertainment for the Super Bowl, or choosing one or two weeks out of the season where players all wear pink in attempt to "raise breast cancer awareness", which is really just code for "trying to attract more non-fans to a game that, truth be told, most non-fans could care less about.
That would be like a women's gymnastics competition hiring Ted Nugent or Kid Rock to be their musical entertainment in hopes of attracting more male viewers, but to do so would actually displease their core customer base to such an extent that you lose more fans than you could ever hope to gain.
While such exercises in futility might succeed in temporarily bumping up your numbers a bit, whatever gains you make are lost the minute you stop the campaign in question. yet here we are year after year watching one scantily clad stripper or bearded boy bander lip sync to snippets of their most popular songs while legions of glittery backing dancers attempt to distract the eye from the glaring talent vacuum at the center of this dull charade.
Thing is, for the music industry to continue growing, it absolutely must continue winning over non-customers in order to maintain healthy profits.
Or does it?
This writer-slash-musician contends that the best way to win over new converts is by respectfully catering to those customers who have already proven with their wallets that if you treat them well, they will treat you well and that by diluting your product to appeal to non-customers is rightfully recognized as a waste of time and money.
Thus, the idea that the 18-34 demographic has the attention span of lightning bug and, thus, is the perfect music consumer is both insulting to anyone who happens to be between the ages of 18 and 34 and dead wrong.
If this concept had any merit, wouldn't it stand to reason that a ginormous radio conglomerate like iHeartRadio, which owns 850 of the most heavily-formatted radio stations in the country that have been repeating the same ten "hit songs" every hour in every market, would be making money hand over fist?
After all, iHeartRadio, along with their closest rival Cumulus (445 stations), long ago determined that we Americans only really need two choices of anything - Coke or Pepsi, Apple or IBM, Justin or Britney - so why are they $20 BILLION in debt?
Foregoing the obvious argument of fiscal mismanagement, which no doubt accounts for some of that massive debt, the only obvious conclusion is that the company's entire business plan was built upon a flawed belief that a company is only as profitable as the massive growth it forces upon itself at the expense of current customers.
By shrinking their playlists, jamming more commercials in between songs, and removing all local flavor, iHeartRadio scared off many of their listeners, thereby making more than enough room for the new listeners that never materialized.
Of course, anyone with a cable subscription is only too familiar with that feeling of being neglected when they see Comcast or Time Warner offering rock-bottom pricing to new customers to lure them in, yet always make sure to note "offer not available to current customers".
Thing is, these companies show no self-awareness and only admit their mistakes when lawyers start hauling voluminous amounts of internal company documentation into court.
Meanwhile, the only game in town that seems to be making money, Amazon, continues to do so by selling CD's albums, and cassettes and yet the music industry remains convinced that their future is in radio and streaming.
So, how does the music industry fix itself?
Tune in tomorrow, for my Five Easy Steps To Fix The Music Industry (For Everybody).
Tags:
state of confusion