Until that point, Columbia really hadn’t had much success with a hard rock band, and after listening to the album, managers felt it contained no single. No single meant a slim chance of airplay; no airplay meant no distribution; and no distribution meant no sales.

Instead, Columbia seemed to be very excited about the release of a first album by a new singer from New Jersey named Bruce Springsteen. “For every dollar they put into Aerosmith, they put a hundred into Springsteen because he fit into the folksier CBS essence,” says David Krebs, Aerosmith’s manager at that time, in Walk This Way.

“So Aerosmith was a band that, in the early stages, happened despite Columbia.” Aerosmith recognized quickly the difficulty of getting the attention of the people inside Columbia, let alone the DJs and fans who generated demand and sales. And while the band was elated to have its first record out, it was equally frustrated by having to sell a product that couldn’t be found in stores. Without the marketing machine that supports many of today’s new artists, the band had to make it happen the good old fashioned way-blood, sweat, tears, and do it yourself marketing. Entrepreneurs understand the frustration of trying to get a product on retailers’ shelves-it usually doesn’t happen just because the new product is so obviously better than existing ones or because of a PR agency’s efforts. Successful products usually succeed through the entrepreneur’s or CEO’s personal marketing efforts. Aerosmith’s solution was to create groundswell by touring from city to city. The key was getting the fans involved, motivating them to call radio stations, request songs, and go to stores looking for the album, all designed to pull the album through the system. The strategy was simple in design, but exhausting in implementation.

In 1989, the band’s drive toward the perfect product was recognized as the Stones themselves were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ron Wood, and Mick Taylor present at the ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Pete Townshend of the Who helped induct the Stones, telling them, “Guys, whatever you do, don’t try to grow old gracefully. It wouldn’t suit you.” Jagger responded, “After a lifetime of bad behavior, it’s slightly ironic that tonight you see us on our best behavior.” Best or worst behavior aside, the Rolling Stones have changed the way people look at rock and roll, from the strategy and business savvy that goes into keeping a brand relevant to a culture to how people think of age, how they dress, and what they sing. They’ve forged the way for corporate sponsorships and bands as multimillion dollar corporations. They set the standard for longevity and vitality in the market and for live entertainment value. They represent continual product improvement and quality control. They are masters of fan creation and fan loyalty. They are, in short, the one and only Rolling Stones.

Aerosmith:

/ Reinventing a Rock and Roll Brand All the big bands started as little bands with a vision.

-STEVEN TYLER I t’s the spring of 2001, and DJs around the country are previewing the hottest summer concerts scheduled to visit their respective cities. In the majority of the top markets, an old familiar group is coming to town, selling out venues from Cincinnati to Sin City (Las Vegas, of course). Aerosmith’s Just Push Play tour is going into full bloom.

The strategies that have created legendary success for Jagger and company can be implemented in any firm looking to build market Ta ble 5. 1 Rolling Stones Income

ACTIVITY REVENUE Royalties $ 56.0 million Album sales 466.4 million Tour revenue: Ticket sales 865.3 million Merchandise 135.9 million Sponsorships 21.5 million TOTAL $1, 545.1 million share, maintain customer loyalty, and remain relevant in the culture and among its fans. The Rolling Stones illustrate how to: S Evolve a product over time at a rate that doesn’t alienate current fans yet keeps it fresh in the market.

S Build product familiarity and cultural acceptance with repetition, repackaging, and recycling.

S Harness the buying power of baby boomers to grow profits.

S Explore new marketing avenues from corporate alliances to alternative product delivery to maximize market impact and profitability.

S Relate to the changing attitudes and lifestyles of customers.

S Keep a talented team together for the long run.

The Rolling Stones didn’t start out as the slick performers or businesspeople they are today, but the band also didn’t fall into the trap that squelches the success of many corporate start ups-waiting for the perfect product before going to market. It often takes experimentation, mistakes, and some outright flops to perfect a product, and few would claim that the Stones started with a perfect product. Their earliest recordings were mostly hits of others, surrounded by some blues riffs, because they had little original material at that time. They certainly weren’t anyone’s definition of beautiful (far less cute than the Beatles); in fact, they appeared dark and dangerous to the general public. They prove, however, that just because early prototypes may not be perfect or stunning in appeal, doesn’t mean an entrepreneur can’t make modifications and improvements while in search of the perfect product.

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.

The Value of a Brand Building brands is a key management skill for any firm. It doesn’t matter whether you are a surgeon or a store, a manufacturer or a wholesaler, an Intel or an Amazon.com, a nonprofit organization, a for profit corporation, or the Rolling Stones. Some brands, such as Wal Mart and Victoria’s Secret, are highly successful. Some were once stellar in consumer acceptance, but turned disastrous-Montgomery Ward and Kmart come to mind-and others simply were put out to pasture, like Borden’s famous mascot Elsie the Cow. But regardless of how good, how bad, or how poorly designed and nebulous, every firm, every institution, and every person is a brand. Even government leaders are brands-consider how the brands of Presidents Clinton and Bush and Mayor Giuliani evolved during their terms of office.

A brand is perhaps the greatest asset of any company not to appear on its balance sheet. Because accountant types find the concept of brand difficult to quantify, it is often thought of as a fuzzy marketing concept, which involves a logo, a tagline, and large expenditures. But a brand is much more than that. It is a product or product line with an identifiable set of benefits, wrapped in a recognizable personality, carrying with it a connection between product and customers. It is the difference between a watch and a Rolex, a car and a Mercedes, a cup of coffee and a Starbucks latte. It is the difference between the Eagles and A Flock of Seagulls or a host of other rockand roll wannabes. In the language of business, music stars are brands.

Some are the Cokes and IBMs of music; others are the Shasta colas and Digital (DEC) computers.