When musician, Moby, released the album Play, in 1999, it was a critical disaster. Just 30 people turned up for the launch party, and the omens weren’t good.
So how come nine years later, it had sold over 10 million copies?
The answer is fascinating, and may contain within it, the germ of an idea for you to transform one of your struggling products or businesses into an outrageous success.
The ‘normal’ way to make money from a record (certainly in pre-Internet days) is to get it played as much as possible on the radio and TV. People hear it, like it and go out and buy the album. And then the bandwagon starts to gather pace.
But with thousands of artists battling for a limited amount of airtime, it isn’t easy for a relative unknown to get significant coverage. Without radio and TV coverage nobody gets to hear the music. And if they don’t hear it, they don’t go out and buy it.
At first, nobody was playing Play, and nobody was buying it.
The record company (and Moby himself, who was broke at the time) were keen to recoup some money from what was looking like a disaster. What they did, was probably done as a last resort, but it turned the record into a hit and Moby into a star.
They started licensing the tracks on the album to companies for use in advertising campaigns. I don’t know whether they did it purely for the licensing fees, or whether they had the longer game in mind from the start, but the outcome was that the songs on the album quickly gained a massive audience ~ far bigger than could normally be achieved from radio play alone.
Play was the first album to have all its tracks licensed for use in either advertising or films.
People heard the songs in the ads and movies, liked them, and went out and bought the album. The rest is history.
I know what you’re thinking though…
“Why the heck is he telling me that? Has he taken leave of what few senses he has left? I don’t have any undiscovered music to license out – or anything else for that matter!”
Well maybe you haven’t, but the point is this – there’s always more than one route to the same destination, in this case a multi-million bestselling record. Your destination will probably be different, but there will still be numerous routes to get there.
There will be the well-trodden path that everyone else is on. It will be crowded and uncomfortable and you’re going to have a real fight on your hands to make any progress. In music terms, think about the huge queue of ‘hopefuls’ outside the X Factor auditions, and you get the idea.
And then there will be other paths, which may take a little lateral thinking to reach, but they’ll be less crowded and you’ll get the chance to do things on your own terms. Compare the rise of Arctic Monkeys via the Internet and word of mouth to that of your average X Factor winner, and you’ll see what I mean.
It’s difficult for me to be specific here, because I don’t know what you’re involved in, and working on, but let me give you an example from my own business which might explain what I’m talking about a little better…
Walk into W H Smith and you will find thousands of books competing for attention – and their publishers are the lucky ones ~ the ones that have managed to secure some shelf space. Only a small percentage of books even make it to the shelves.
I don’t have a single book in W H Smith or any other bookstore for that matter (not that I’ve ever tried to get them there) and yet I sell millions of pounds worth of books and other publications every year.
How did I do it?
By selecting a different, less crowded route to achieving the same end…selling a lot of publications and making money. In my case, this different route consisted of a combination of unique subject matter and unusual marketing methods, but it doesn’t really matter.
The point is that I looked at the mainstream way of doing things, didn’t like the crowds or the odds and looked for a different route.
Whatever business or field you’re in, there are back roads, shortcuts and alternative routes away from the main highway that everyone else is using. Once you separate yourself from the crowd, the rules of the road are far more flexible. You get to do things your way, maybe even carve out a piece of your own track while nobody’s looking.
It’s all the more satisfying when you arrive at your destination, knowing that you’ve done it on your own terms, and avoided becoming a physical or emotional casualty of the mainstream journey.
Moby did it, I did it, and you can too.
Kind Regards
John Harrison
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