Music Marketing Law #5
Focus
You can't be everything to everyone
The all-time best way for your brand to become successful in the music industry is to own a word, name, or concept. Consider these...
- titles King of Pop, The Boss, Queen of Soul, The King etc.
- genres Punk, Grunge, Gangster Rap
- names Elvis, Adele, Prince, Sting - the list is endless.
You burn your brand into the mind by narrowing the focus to a single word or concept. It is the ultimate marketing sacrifice.
Michael Jackson is the "King of Pop". He will never be the King of R&B, though that might be an equally accurate classification for him.
Who is the World’s greatest guitarist? Jimi, Clapton, Page, Beck, Santana, Slash, Larry Carlton? See what’s happening there. All seared into pop culture, you don’t even need the full names of the main contenders.
There’s no such thing as the best guitarist of course, but they all own a word. Eddie Van Halen owns ‘tapping’ for example (even if he didn't invent it). You might not have heard of Larry Carlton (my choice), but he owns the concept ‘Steely Dan’s Guitar player’ (even though Walter Becker played more Dan solos).
So, what word, concept or name are you going to own?
You could always get yourself a Blues name. After all, Donald Glover got his rapper alter-ego (Childish Gambino) from a Wu-Tang name generator, so who’s to say you can’t do the same?
For fun I’m going to call myself Benny ‘Fingers’ Sutton from now on - a name that others once called me in affectionate jest (thanks Steve).