Seth Godin’s Music Industry Talk

Written by: Chris Castiglione

March 20th, 2008 | Category: musicNeutral's Blog

seth godin

Marketing genius Seth Godin had a talk with some music industry folks a few weeks ago.

He has a great analogy of free music as “dating”.

Basically, let the fans listen to your music. See how this first encounter feels (just like “dating”). If it all goes well, then go on another date. Hopefully after enough listening, if it works out then you’ll fall in love. He sums it up with this point, “I have every record Ricky Lee Jones has ever made including the bootlegs that she sells. Rick Lee Jones should know who I am!” The idea is that when people fall in love they will spend lots of money to nurture that relationship, but you can’t just walk up to a random person on the street and propose marriage! You have to date first.

More insight and the full transcript is on the Seth Godin Blog.

4 comments

4 Comments so far

  1. Dan Seipel March 21st, 2008 8:46 pm

    considering the divorce rate, I’ll pass on this propaganda.

  2. josh March 24th, 2008 11:34 am

    haha! Good one. But he’s not saying that it is a proven strategy. It’s just marketing. Isn’t marketing really just “propaganda” anyway?

  3. Linda June 4th, 2009 10:07 am

    Propaganda is “information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation,etc.”

    Most people *wish* their marketing was propaganda. ;)

  4. Chris Castiglione June 9th, 2009 1:28 pm

    @linda…
    well I think Dan was referring to this site or Seth’s talk as being propaganda, while Josh is talking about the marketing of music as propaganda (maybe).

    anyway, good point…. so if it isn’t propaganda because it hasn’t “spread widely” yet, then is it just …advertising? a persuasive argument?

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