The Cool Factor E-Book

Del Breckenfeld

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 431

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2008

Beschreibung

What is cool? Who knows. But there is one thing every marketer does know- nothing increases sales like cool does. In The Cool Factor, Del Breckenfeld, a long-time marketer at Fender® Musical Instruments Corp., presents an inside look at how Fender became the coolest name in musical instruments and how marketers at Fender partnered with cool products, musicians, and events to up their "cool factor" even more. If you're a marketer, The Cool Factor offers lessons for keeping your brand on top.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Praise

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Introduction

CHAPTER 1 - The Birth of the Cool—A 101 Primer

CHAPTER 2 - The Prime Marketing Motivators—Too Much of a Good or Bad Thing?

CHAPTER 3 - Expanding Your Brand’s Identity—Partnership Marketing Outside Your ...

CHAPTER 4 - We Will, We Will, Rock You—Marketing to the Big Beat

CHAPTER 5 - The Recording Industry—An Endangered Species or Emerging ...

CHAPTER 6 - Product Placement—The Inside Story of Getting Your Brand into ...

CHAPTER 7 - Event Marketing—Reaching Your Core Demo One-on-One

CHAPTER 8 - Charitable Causes—Doing Good Things for the Right Reasons

CHAPTER 9 - The Celebrity Quotient—How to Wrangle It, and How to Deal With It ...

CHAPTER 10 - Promotions as an Excuse to Advertise—But We Don’t Really Need an ...

CHAPTER 11 - California Dreaming—The Essence of The Cool Factor in Partnership Marketing

CHAPTER 12 - Putting It All Together—Real-Time Examples

CHAPTER 13 - The Future of Partnership Marketing—Riding the Wave of a Trend and ...

LINER NOTES

INDEX

Advance Praise for The Cool Factor

“Del Breckenfeld’s, The Cool Factor gets the inside story on the music business partnering with major corporations fueling their brands.”

—Billy F Gibbons, guitarist, singer, and songwriter with the multiplatinum ZZ Top and all around “Sharp Dressed Man.”

“The Cool Factor presents a compelling picture on the power of music as a motivator—not just for marketing purposes, but more importantly, for understanding how music making at all ages enriches our everyday lives.”

—Joe Lamond, President & CEO, NAMM

“In the Cool Factor, Del Breckenfeld shows us first hand how to get celebrities to partner with corporations for the purpose of positive outreach. Del and Fender have personally shared their expertise with us throughout the course of many years, specifically helping us raise significant funds for families devastated by Hurricane Katrina. We salute Del and strongly urge readers to pick up this book. It will help you discover how a brand can effectively be catapulted to new heights through partnership marketing with ‘cool’ products, musicians, and events.”

—Don Felder, former lead guitarist and songwriter of The Eagles, best-selling author of Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (1974-2001)

“Del Breckenfeld knows cool. Fender, the brand he oversees, has such a high cool factor that even millions of non-musicians aspire to use its products. I love The Cool Factor—both the book and the idea. It’s what most boring and predictable marketing is lacking today. Read it to find out how cool is your most effective secret weapon and learn how to add it to your marketing arsenal.”

—David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR and World Wide Rave

“Del has no equal when it comes to turning what’s hip into a hit. He’s that rare breed who’s mastered the art of combining the very best of music and film, and creating ripples of contagious enthusiasm wherever he goes. It’s time corporate America understood they can create and not just duplicate. The Cool Factor is the best big-picture primer I know for anyone looking to ‘widespread’ a little magic.”

—Dave Philips, CEO, Corner of The Sky Entertainment, and Executive Producer, Evan Almighty and Where Music Meets Film, live from the Sundance film festival

“A truly cool book that is so hot it can help turn any business into one people are talking about and sending money to. Read this one!”

—Joe Vitale, author of The Attractor Factor and The Key

Copyright © 2009 by Del Breckenfeld. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada.

FENDER®, STRATOCASTER®, TELECASTER®, SQUIER®, GUILD®, and the distinctive headstock and body designs commonly found on these guitars are trademarks of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. JACKSON® is a trademark of Jackson/Charvel Manufacturing, Inc. GRETSCH® is a trademark of Fred W. Gretsch Enterprises, Ltd. Used herein with express written permission. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Breckenfeld, Del, 1949- The cool factor : building your brand’s image through partnership marketing / Del Breckenfeld. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN : 978-0-470-45444-2

1. Branding (Marketing) 2. Brand name products. 3. Imagery (Psychology) I. Title. HF5415.1255.B74 2009 978-0-470-45444-2 2008020133.

Dedicated to my parents, Ed and Anne, who gave my brothers and I the dream, then the gift, of music

ACKOWLEDGMENTS

Before writing this, my first book, I had no idea how many people would be instrumental in bringing it to reality through their dedicated efforts and support—and now I do. Thanks to Bill Mendello, Rich Kerley, Bill Cummiskey, Jason Padgitt, Richard McDonald, Andy Rossi, and my boss, Mark VanVleet, from Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, who, at one time or another, had enough trust to allow me to expand the boundaries of what a musical instrument manufacturer could do. Also from FMIC, my hard-working and loyal assistant, Dave Collins, who jumped head first into this extremely challenging (but he will admit rewarding) department, entertainment marketing, and never ceases to amaze me with his seemingly endless drive and positive energy. And thanks to Paul Jernigan, Alex Perez, Rich Siegle, Tony Franklin, Justin Norvell, Keith Davis, Chris Suffolk, Lee Holtry, Gayle Castro, Rose Bishop, Kristy Swanson, Ryan Davidson, Larry, Hector, Carlos, Luis, and all my other friends at Fender who work so hard to keep our brand at the top. Thanks, too, to former Fender family members: Bob Heinrich, John Page, Jack Shelton, Al Guzman, Dan Smith, Keith Brawley, Rick Anderson, Bruce Bolen Sr., Chuck Hemich, and Joe Baffa, all of whom placed their trust in me as well. Special thanks to my ex-boss Ritchie Fliegler (who I’m sure at this moment is cruisin’ with the top down somewhere in the Arizona desert in his 1964 Rangoon Red Ford Thunderbird), who shared the vision that the Fender brand should have the same power outside our industry that we have within, and had the bravado to prove it. And to the late Bill Shultz, who I am convinced that, without him, Fender would have never found the light following the dark days under CBS.

I am grateful for the many wonderful friends and associates I have worked with over the years in our industry—Elliot Kendall at Ume, Scotty Finck at Hollywood Records, Jeff Yapp and Carrie Bantin at MTV Networks, Jody Glisman-Best, formerly of Capitol EMI, Liz Erman at Warner’s, the Jetsyn twins and their gang at Pier 3 Entertainment, Spencer Proffer and Steve Plunkett at Meteor 17, Joe Lamond, Dominique Agnew, Morgan Ringwald, and Jeff “Jelly” Livingston at NAMM; Warren Weideman, Mimi Clarke, and Gary Arnold at Best Buy; Dave Philips at Edmonds Entertainment, and all the record labels, managers, and incredible artists I have had the pleasure to know. Kudos to the Tobacco Rouges, Buster, Gambler, the Quarrymen, and the Glimmer Twins as well. I also want to thank my music teacher, Ms. Barnett, who helped bring out a talent in me I would never have realized I had.

Very special thanks to Greg Reitman of Blue Water Entertainment (Greg, “I got my book!”) and his dad, Bert Davis, who, without them, this book certainly would have never happened; John Wiley & Sons Publishers, in particular, my Executive Editor (now Publisher), Matt Holt, who took a chance on a novice writer, and Jessica Campilango, Christine Moore, and Kate Lindsay for all their guidance; Debbie Shuck from the Fender Center for diligently translating and transcribing my ramblings; and finally, to my family: my mom for her loving support; my brothers Bruce and Ed, whose devotion to music still inspires me today; my sister-in law Sunniva Sorby, a true explorer of life; my stepson Kjell, who taught me how to kill at Rock Band; my two lovely daughters, Shanna for the endless hours of research, and Holly for putting it plain and simple: “Dad, don’t worry about the book. Just write like you talk and you’ll be fine”; and most of all to my beautiful and beloved wife Bettina, who, day after day, gives me the love and encouragement to actually make me believe I can do the things I didn’t think I could do.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In one form or another, Del Breckenfeld has been in entertainment marketing all of his life. Even without a formal degree in marketing (he graduated from Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago with a major in music on a full-talent scholarship in his final years), he did, however, learn street marketing from the bottom up; starting with marketing and promoting his local high school band, and working his way through college playing music; finally signing a major record deal with EMI America Records (a subsidiary of Capitol Records in the United States); then touring with the major bands of the day, and ultimately ending up broke, like so many other musicians in similar circumstances. He then decided he needed to pursue another career in music that would at least give him a regular paycheck to support a growing family, and was fortunate to work for one of the innovative guitar companies of the 1980s, Dean Guitars. It was there that the owner, Dean Zelinsky, and Del developed a groundbreaking promotional program for Anheuser-Busch, where they got to work with some of the most astute marketers in the world. From there, he was able to climb the ladder to reach the pinnacle of the guitar industry—Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, where he was encouraged to expand the boundaries of traditional entertainment marketing. As he states, “When you are the industry leader, you want to always look ahead, not behind, to see who’s gaining on you,” (paraphrased from the great Satchel Paige).

Throughout his career, he has worked closely with some of the biggest names in music, movies, and TV, and has been involved in promotional campaigns with some of the world’s most successful and well-known brands—all along learning the ins and outs of partnership marketing, and developing his own unique approach to brand building.

INTRODUCTION

If you ask someone, “What is cool?” he would probably reply that he can’t tell you in exact words, but knows it when he sees it. So a better question might be, “Can we give examples of what we deem is cool?” To do that, we might have to make it relative—all the way back to the 1930s when the expression cool began to catch on in English slang. In the 1950s, it certainly would have been Marlon Brando in The Wild One, James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, the Beat poets, Miles Davis’s jazz (that is, the landmark recording “The Birth of the Cool”); or maybe the early rockers like Elvis, Gene Vincent, and Little Richard. In the 1960s, it may have been Steve McQueen’s character in The Great Escape, Bob Dylan, the British Invasion led by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, or the Who, with their Mod image and Carnaby Street fashion.

Each generation can be defined by its coolest actors, musicians, fashions, and trends. Cool was determined by the innovators that were most often the rebels of society, who in some way threatened the Establishment and were able to deliver this message through their music, acting, and, perhaps most important, their image. Back then, this message was delivered by relatively narrow choices in media—TV, movies, print, and radio. When I was a youngster, there were only three commercial TV

networks, all of which broadcast to a huge audience and wide demographic. That’s how Elvis was able to reach a massive audience with his first appearances and why the Beatles were able to reach an astounding seventy-three million viewers on their premier performance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. For me, that latter performance was the Big Bang that still resonates today, as that was the moment I decided I would make the entertainment industry my lifelong ambition. The next day, after the Beatles sang “She Loves You,” I, along with millions of other Baby Boomer boys, tried our best to force our shorn locks down onto our foreheads in a desperate attempt to imitate the Beatle bangs of our newfound heroes. I wanted to look like them, talk like them, dress like them, and most important, play guitar with my mates in a band like theirs (Paul McCartney once remarked that he would rather be in a band than drive a Rolls Royce). And the more I succeeded in my makeover, the more the girls took notice—the same ones who used to ignore my very existence just a few months before. And, of course, the girls wanted to be the “birds” who flocked around the Beatles, or in our case, the local musicians, who were the next best thing. Looking back, I realize that that was lifestyle marketing at its most effective and dynamic.

In 1964, in addition to the Beatles, you heard the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, Dean Martin, and Johnny Cash on one massive format—Top 40 radio. Movies were premiered in single-screen movie theaters, and James Bond was the coolest of the cool (once again, orbited by a bevy of beautiful and sometimes dangerous “Bond Girls”). Most magazines were aimed at targeted audiences, but still covered a wide range of related interests in one issue, and newspapers gave us the breaking news, sometimes two or three editions in a single “Extra! Extra! Read All About It!” day. If any performer, or product, for that matter, appeared in one or two of those outlets, chances are they would have reached just about every person in the United States.

That all gradually changed, however, with the introduction of cable and satellite TV, formatted radio, multiplex cinemas, specialty magazines, and the Biggest Daddy of them all—the World Wide Web. People today expect everything on demand, and we have created a system to facilitate that, not just in the United States, but globally. Even though it can be delivered on demand, the more the delivery system is subdivided and formatted to individual tastes, the harder it is to reach the widest possible audience with a single broadcast event. Case in point: over 65,000 CDs were released in 2006 (wait a minute, there’s only 8,760 hours in a year, so even if the most dedicated music aficionado listened 24/7 he could only listen to . . . well, you get the point). Plus, according to the February 2008 issue of Marketing, Inc., there are over 100 million blogs worldwide. That’s why I believe that, small or large, individual, independent, or part of a large conglomerate, having a recognizable brand name has never been more essential to rising above the din to achieve and sustain success.

But how does brand (or band, for that matter) get its message through such a chaotic delivery system? The good news is that somehow, the innovators can still determine what is cool, and when certain people in the delivery system catch on, it becomes hot. In the number one best-seller, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, author Malcolm Gladwell’s premise is that a small group of influential people can create an “epidemic” that becomes a fad for the masses.

Before the success of his book, Gladwell had published a 1997 article in The New Yorker in which he popularized the term cool hunters, marketers who looked for and identified the next big trends. Today, cool hunters have been replaced by people like Jane Buckingham, who charges companies such as Fox, Sony, Lancome, and T-Mobile $35,000 per year to receive her Cassandra Report; which features comprehensive studies on Generations X and Y, the 112 million U.S. residents between the ages of 14 and 34. Buckingham told the Los Angeles Times in a recent article that this is the demographic that “dictates what’s cool to both those older and younger than them [sic].”

On the Web, users of sites like Myspace and You Tube can run the gamut from amateurs to professionals, and present everything in between through the same delivery system. A certain amount of reality is deemed cool, so even large corporations place content on those sites that are made to look amateurish even though they are produced by some of the slickest agencies in the world. Savvy marketers agree on one thing—if your brand is deemed cool—you rule!

I understand that if you are a marketer, you may be saying, “I have a much greater problem, which is that my brand is not cool. So even if I can reach a large audience, my brand may still not ignite enough interest for someone to purchase it.” That is precisely my motivation for writing this book.

I never intended to write a how-to book on marketing, but rather to illustrate through examples—often backed up by my experiences—how a brand can be effectively driven to new heights by partnership marketing with cool products, celebrities, musicians, and events that have already established The Cool Factor. I will give firsthand insights on how the company I work for, Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, the best-selling and most recognizable brand name in electric guitars and amps, partners with many other larger corporations outside our industry that want to tap into Fender’s cool factor. But this is not a book about the guitar industry or limited to the music industry; rather, it is a book that will demonstrate how the whole entertainment industry—and beyond—can offer countless opportunities for partnership marketing.

Fender® has three flagship models (and several other models and brands that dominate our industry) in its arsenal that are revered among musicians. So the primary question is what makes the Stratocaster®guitar, Telecaster®guitar, and P Bass® so cool in our world, even after more than 50 years? First of all, the founder, Leo Fender, created products that were uniquely different from other brands and then launched them through partnership marketing with the coolest artists of the day (a trend that Fender continues today).

When Leo Fender founded the company in 1946, he was the new kid on the block, as giants like Gibson and Martin were around for more than 50 and 100 years, respectively (and for the most part, looked it). Additionally, Leo himself was not a guitar player, so he relied on his artist partners to tell him how to improve his product and make it more appealing to musicians and ultimately, to the masses.

Leo did have an eye for design, so when the Stratocaster guitar was introduced in 1954 (using lots of chrome, and a few years later, custom colors from DuPont, just like the coolest cars of the era), there was nothing remotely comparable in the world of instruments (there we go again with being an innovator and a rebel!). Of course, the Stratocaster sounded and played great, and that’s also why artists picked up on it. Without their influence, Fender would not have had the same powerful impact on the world.

The images of Buddy Holly playing his Strat on the Ed Sullivan Show and Jimi Hendrix playing (and burning) his Strat at the Monterey Pop Festival are timeless reflections in rock history. And although the look of the Stratocaster guitar and the other flagship models at Fender have not changed much over the years, they are still played by today’s top artists. One reason is certainly the assumption that if one of the greatest and most influential guitarists of all time—Jimi Hendrix—and his legions of disciples deemed the Stratocaster guitar cool enough to play, then it’s plenty cool enough for everyone else.

And that rule can apply to most brands—coolness by association. Al & Laura Ries state in their book, The Origin of Brands, “What makes a brand fashionable (re: cool)? In a word, celebrities.” (Al also co-wrote what I consider to be the bible of brand marketing, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind.) Fenders were cool at their conception, but they were essentially launched with a stamp of approval from the coolest artists of the era who were searching for something new and different. And when they found it, they propelled it to perpetual stardom. As a result, many people who work with me tell me I must have “the coolest job in the world.” That may be somewhat true, but quite a bit of that perception comes from the fact that if you are not in our industry, what we do day to day may seem mysterious. Ultimately, my purpose for this book is to give marketers in any field the magic key to unlock that mystery.

The premise of this book grew out of my experiences in the music and entertainment industry, in which I have been continuously working since the age of eleven—when my mom purchased a 1950s-era Kay acoustic arch top from one of her weekly “bridge girls,” Marguerite Bugarewicz. Marguerite’s son Ken had lost interest in the guitar purchased at Sears, so she wanted to give it—or throw it—away. My mom didn’t feel right taking it for free, so she paid a whole five bucks for that guitar. Little did she know that that fin would open the door to a lifelong passion for music and respect for true artists, which also led to the only career I have ever known.

I didn’t want to base the book, however, solely on my own instincts and experience, so I reached out to many old friends, including Warren Weideman, who created the first entertainment marketing company; and the Jetsyn twins, who were there with their company, Pier 3 Entertainment, at the dawn of the product placement boom, and are still going strong as other Johnny-come-latelies have folded. I also spoke to new friends like licensing guru Art Ford, with whom I worked at Sundance on the “Where Music Meets Film” events and who thinks this is the most exciting time to be an independent in our industry; Tim Meyers, the talented young singer-songwriter who decided to go it alone without label support and is the first unsigned artist to be featured on a national ad campaign for retail giant Target; and the fascinating Karl T. Bruhn, whose lifelong dream is to introduce recreational music-making to the masses.

Along with these interviews, my research also introduced me to a new collection of wonderful books and authors I otherwise wouldn’t have known. This is Your Brain on Music, Unmarketable, Musicophilia, and the hilarious Rock On are just some of the gems I have unearthed that have taught me that the adventure of discovery and learning never abates. For that, I will always be appreciative.

Note: The parent company of the Fender brand is the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. For the purpose of simplification, I will refer to the company as Fender, and I will have a model name or the word guitar following Fender when referring to the instrument. I will also sometimes refer to marketing personnel as marketeers when I feel it is warranted to convey their expertise as opposed to just describing their occupation.

CHAPTER 1

The Birth of the Cool—A 101 Primer

For anything or anyone to be thought of as cool, they have to have two things going for them: first, they have to be imbued with the rebel spirit, and second, they have to be unique when compared with the norm of the day. They then, of course, must be exposed to the widest possible audience, who will publicly or secretly aspire to be like them, or who want to be associated with them. As Richard McDonald, FMIC’s senior vice president of marketing, instills in us, everyone is an individual—so the first thing we do to express that individuality is to find others who share the same interests as us. A paradox? Not at all, because in that group will be the born leaders who will show us the way to individual expression. In other words, their guidance bestows upon us something to emulate or to associate with. People, places, and things can have a powerful influence on our lifestyles and buying habits, so brands associated with them can also be perceived as having the Cool Factor. Simply put, coolness by association.