Several common themes, lessons if you will, rise from the close study of why some bands have remained successful decade after decade and why most have had a few hit songs and scurried off into oblivion. Though dozens of strategies leap from previous chapters of this article, some of the overriding principles learned from analyzing the careers of Elton John, KISS, the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Madonna and Neil Diamond are: S Emotional connections turn customers into fans.

S Maintaining and adapting existing brands is more profitable than inventing new ones.

S Legendary brands evolve to stay culturally relevant.

S Passion and energy create brands people want to adopt.

S Being the best often evolves by borrowing from the best.

S Baby boomers rule much market demand.

Marketers looking to create legendary brands-those that capture a place in the fabric of mainstream culture-take note. Famous rock stars have succeeded in ways that few brands have. Here are some of the ways they’ve done it.

Emotional Connections Turn Customers into Fans Studying the success stories of legendary rock bands reveals that customers buy a product, but fans invest in a relationship. When fans buy the latest Red Hot Chili Peppers CD, they invest time, money, attention, and emotion in furthering their connection to the band.

Buying a concert ticket not only lets fans reinforce their ties to the Chili Peppers, but lets them add another experience to their memory scrapbooks. For fans, purchasing products and experiences is an investment in a healthy relationship they enjoy.

Legendary rock and roll bands achieve their status because they stay connected with fans and remain relevant to the culture. For many, this includes evolving the total band experience over time, from how, where, and when fans hear and experience the band to the look, sound, and overall image of the artists and their music. In addition to creating new music, legendary bands reinvent themselves and avoid becoming outdated and irrelevant by: S Touring-to spark renewed interest in the band and bring it into a new point in time for fans S Collaborating with new artists-to associate themselves with new and contemporary sounds, introduce them to new fans, and accompany new memories S Promoting and aligning with products and brands that are relevant to fans S Releasing greatest hits albums-to rekindle loyalty, stir memories and emotions, and introduce new fans to already adopted music S Embracing new media outlets-to reach audiences through new but accepted technology, from videos and DVDs to the Internet S Repackaging (of music and personalities)-to reflect changes in accepted visual imagery, language, and topics and desired physical appearance Although these strategies focus on change, they demonstrate that an important key is to evolve without abandoning what has made the bands successful in the past. As long as people listen to the music of Bob Seger, the Rolling Stones, and Elton John, these performers will remain an active part of their fans’ lives and part of our culture. If they continue to relate to their fans and stay in tune with their fans’ lifestyles, these legendary bands will continue to build long term loyalty. As a result, they command a major share of fans’ entertainment dollars and increase their value to the marketers of consumer products looking for ways to connect with certain segments of the culture. And, perhaps more important to the artists themselves, they will capture a position in music history.

A majority of the rock stars discussed in Brands That Rock have one thing in common-they didn’t fit in with the other kids in school. They were different, delightfully odd in their own sense of the word.”They all came from outside of society and became the inside,” says Bruce Springsteen in a film featured at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Although they did not fit in the mainstream, they were able to channel their creativity, energies, talents, and idiosyncrasies into the world of music, which is still known for accepting individuals who are misunderstood by society. The irony is that their talents and creativity were most likely ignored by traditionalists-retailers, manufacturers, and the like-who probably thought they had nothing to offer to the world of commerce. But these people were able to catapult their status from outcast to megastar, from those who were outside the culture to those who help define it.

Legendary bands influence the culture, and the best allow the culture to influence them as well. Just as Madonna influences fashion and even exercise trends, Gene Simmons and KISS listened to their fans and figured out how to sell more records by packaging the KISS experience (a key lesson examined in detail in Chapter 6). Bands have even influenced people’s definition of good music, creating acceptance of a style or quality level that might have been unacceptable previously.

“It’s not always about how well you sing, especially in the traditional sense of the word, because standards of what is good or bad change,” says Chris Frantz. “Bob Dylan, for example, proves that the message can overcome a lot of other things that we think are important in being accepted. There are a lot of breakthroughs that occur because of things beyond traditional product quality that center more on message and [emotional] connection that eventually change the standard.” Though its hamburgers may not win as many taste tests as gourmet burgers, McDonald’s created a new standard in food retailing based on convenience, speed, consistency, and emotions that influenced what was acceptable and even desired by many Americans in terms of their food choices. Similarly, Starbucks has set a new standard for good coffee, and Wal Mart has set a new standard of what people expect to pay for products.

For example, Krispy Kreme evokes such intense emotions among its doughnut fans that even the most time pressed consumers will stand in line to satisfy their physical and emotional cravings. But police officers aren’t the only ones drooling at the sight of the now famous green and white polka dot box. Many financial analysts missed the ground floor of stocks of companies like Krispy Kreme, Starbucks, and Wal Mart because they underestimated the impact of emotional connections between brands and customers and failed to see the relationship between these brands and the culture.

After a stint of insanity during the dot com heyday, the business world has again turned to more realistic views of corporate value, for the most part. Warren Buffett and like minded investors, whose focus was always on return on investment, earnings per share (EPS), earnings growth, dividends, and similar measures, can exhale-financial analysts have put renewed faith in the old time religion that equates the salvation of a firm with its profits, not its prophets. In this reborn truth lies the fundamental role of the brand: It is a mechanism to boost a firm’s sales and profits higher than those of its competitors’.

Legendary Bands, Legendary Brands Only a few brands last so long that they might be called legendary.

One of those is Wedgwood china, cited by brand historian Nancy Koehn in her article Brand New (Harvard Business School Press, 2001).

Dating back to the 1700s, this brand still leads the market in terms of closet share among the rich and famous, and tops the wish lists of brides to be around the globe. By no means exclusive to the world of products and commerce, legends abound in the music world. From Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms (whose music has transcended the centuries) to Al Jolson, Glenn Miller, and Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong (who crossed racial barriers and defined an era of music), artists have connected deeply with people and helped to shape culture.