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Winner

You might not have heard of Imogen Heap, but she is an incredibly successful pop musician and composer who has a devoted following.

She’s our winner of the week because of her decision a few years ago to abandon her big record label and manage her fan base and distribution herself.

Now, instead of spending a year in a studio making a single album, she composes a single track, perfects it, then puts it out on the Web. Today’s cheap production (off-the-shelf software and equipment) and almost zero distribution costs as well as the fact that live touring and merchandising bring in most of the money makes her business model not only possible but very profitable. The pop music world has been turned upside down: in the past touring was a promotional tool for an album, whereas now the tour is the moneymaker.

Heap knows this and uses MySpace and Twitter as well as a video blog to keep her fans involved and up-to-date so that the touring machine remains primed. The result has been impressive. She has over 750,000 fans following her on Twitter, and there have been over 40 million plays of her music on MySpace.

Basically, she plans all of her tours based on the information she receives through social networking. Here’s what she had to say in a recent interview with Craig Mathieson about how she uses YouTube and Twitter to identify her Target Market plan her marketing strategy:

"You can plan your tours around where the love is on Twitter and YouTube. Before, you couldn't tell. I've been touring in Germany, where I've hardly sold any CDs, but the word spread via the Internet and I've come here because I know the fans are out there."

So hats of to Imogen Heap for keeping her Target Market first and foremost in mind and using the precision and interactivity of our new Internet-connected world to do what couldn’t be done before.

Loser

Sad to say, our losers of the week (and probably the next election cycle) could learn a lot from Miss Heap. But more than that, they should simply know better. I’m talking about the Democratic Party, which seems dead set on forgetting its Target Market with the push for health care reform.

As a marketing man, I know that there is always a temptation to think you know better than the consumer. But follow this temptation and you will almost always get into trouble.

The parallel here is with New Coke. Coca Cola made the mistake of forcing a new product onto the consumer in an extreme way that left no options. Theirs was a take-it -or –leave-it approach. As we all know, the approach failed miserably and there was eventually a “product repeal” —New Coke went to the ash heap of history and Classic Coke returned. The consumers had spoken.

The Democrats seem to be behaving like Coca Cola. Comments by Nancy Pelosi and others have indicated that they’ve adopted a kind of “We know better than you the electorate” attitude with respect to this legislation and are prepared to push it even if it means invoking the “reconciliation” maneuver on Capitol Hill.

The problem is that people buy brands, not companies. The Democrats seem to believe that because Barack Obama was elected, the party has been given a mandate to pursue big government policies. This is wrong. Obama was elected as a distinct brand from the Democrats. Not only that, but even if the Democrats were popular, the health care reform legislation (a separate brand entirely from the party) is clearly not popular nor in keeping with America’s long tradition of being wary of social service programs that encroach on individual liberties.

This reminds me of the failed push for the super-deluxe mouse trap. The device failed because people like to throw away the mouse trap with the mouse. They did not want to clean up an expensive super-deluxe mouse trap and opted to stick with the cheap version. Basically, people simply couldn’t relate to the super-deluxe trap… it didn’t meet their needs.

The current health care legislation faces the same problem as the deluxe mouse trap: the people cannot relate to it. Not only has it been presented incomprehensibly so that no one really seems to be able to explain what it is all about, but the parts that can be explained don’t seem to meet the actual needs of the people.

Unlike Europeans, Americans have never been comfortable with the government taking care of them and acting as their primary social service provider. Americans welcome situational or one-time assistance but not systemic assistance. The proposed legislation, however, moves government much closer to this role as a system provider —hence the wide-spread negative reaction so far.
Bottom line: by forcing this brand on the people, the Democrats will be identifying their party brand with it, and that won’t be forgotten anytime soon by their Target Market.

And, remember, things are always easier when you keep marketing and branding in mind.

TODAY'S TANTILLO TAKEAWAY -

Never ignore or condescend to your Target Market.

John Tantillo is a marketing and branding expert and the founder and president of Marketing Department of America. His book, “People Buy Brands Not Companies”, is available on amazon.com