{"id":633,"date":"2006-12-20T13:23:32","date_gmt":"2006-12-20T21:23:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/archives\/2006\/12\/20\/the-man-from-google-returns\/"},"modified":"2006-12-20T13:23:32","modified_gmt":"2006-12-20T21:23:32","slug":"the-man-from-google-returns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2006\/12\/20\/the-man-from-google-returns\/","title":{"rendered":"The Man From Google Returns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Sacca<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0made a return appearance in Aspen this year.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d like to say he was greeted with open arms, but it was clear he felt unexpectedly blindsided.\u00c2\u00a0 You see last year, after delineating all the initiatives of the search giant, Chris said he had an open door, er, open e-mail, policy.\u00c2\u00a0 This turned out not to be true.\u00c2\u00a0 Although Matt Drouin and a couple of other people got through, most queries were rejected.\u00c2\u00a0 Marc Reiter proposed a marketing initiative with the Red Hot Chili Peppers.\u00c2\u00a0 His two e-mails and follow-up phone call languished in the ether, never acknowledged.<\/p>\n

Actually, that was a theme at this year’s Aspen Live.\u00c2\u00a0 How the big tech companies, even the big MEDIA companies, just don’t get the music business, just don’t understand how heavy and powerful we are.\u00c2\u00a0 Shawn Gold, CMO of MySpace (CMO turns out to stand for "Chief Marketing Officer", who knew?) fielded a question from Amy Morrison of AEG Live, wondering why it was so difficult to market tours with MySpace, why the process was so labyrinthian.\u00c2\u00a0 She’d tried to make headway, but could get no traction.\u00c2\u00a0 Shawn asked Amy what the act was, obviously believing it was some independent developing entity with little traction.\u00c2\u00a0 But then Amy blurted out JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE!<\/p>\n

The whole room cracked up.<\/p>\n

Then there was "CSI"’s creator, Anthony Zuiker, lamenting how difficult it was to deal with the musical community.\u00c2\u00a0 He’d made a deal with a household name act to appear on one of his shows, paid them $50,000, but they had ongoing demands and they ended up NOT signing the acting contract, so that CBS was fucked, it affected DVD and other ancillary distribution, the headaches were such that Les Moonves said NO MORE!\u00c2\u00a0 Anthony implored us not to ruin it for everybody else, to be friendly, to see TV as a marketing opportunity, not to make so many DEMANDS!<\/p>\n

Anthony is a brilliant, passionate, creative soul.\u00c2\u00a0 If we had people like him in the record business, we wouldn’t be in trouble.\u00c2\u00a0 But when I caught him in the bathroom at Matsuhisa a few hours later, I told him that I LOVED his story of getting screwed by the act, that that was ROCK AND ROLL!\u00c2\u00a0 Les Moonves might be HIS boss, but a true rock and roll act has NO BOSS!\u00c2\u00a0 CBS is churning out product, but a musical act only has one career, EVERY detail is important.\u00c2\u00a0 As for needing to please Les Moonves, a REAL rock act says FUCK YOU!\u00c2\u00a0 Who do you think you are, just because you wear a suit and are rich and terrorize employees.\u00c2\u00a0 I’M the one with the real power, I’M the one who truly controls mindspace, you should feel PRIVILEGED to be in business with me, to have my image and cred burnish your enterprise.<\/p>\n

Yes, years after the Beatles, after the power of music has been indubitably demonstrated, the record business STILL gets no respect.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re seen as ELEMENTS of other media properties, not the ESSENCE, not the SOUL!\u00c2\u00a0 But that doesn’t mean our shit doesn’t stink, that we’ve always got it right, that those outside the system sometimes don’t have insight that we lack.<\/p>\n

Mr. Gold had down the sense of community, the need to brand ONE’S SELF, that we in the music industry just can’t understand.\u00c2\u00a0 That our audience wants to use music as a tool of SELF-EXPRESSION, and by holding it back, by restricting rights, we’re only pissing fans off.<\/p>\n

And Mr. Zuiker wants to create a Website that decodes music on television.\u00c2\u00a0 That not only lists what is played on what show, but provides clickable visual links, so one can see the EXACT USAGE in the episode, so one can drill down and find the EXACT RIGHT SONG!<\/p>\n

But the big kahuna was Mr. Sacca.<\/p>\n

I was stunned to find out the back story of our interaction last year.\u00c2\u00a0 You see he was pissed about what I wrote about him.\u00c2\u00a0 I couldn’t understand it, this is the kind of publicity money can’t buy.\u00c2\u00a0 But Chris revealed that the day my article appeared was one of the worst of his life.\u00c2\u00a0 For hours later, Barry Diller called him and wondered what he MEANT by saying Google was going to take on TicketMaster.<\/p>\n

I guess I didn’t know I had that kind of reach.\u00c2\u00a0 Made me lighten up in my heart.<\/p>\n

And about sixty percent of Chris’ presentation was identical to last year’s.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 But the remaining forty percent…WHEW!<\/p>\n

You see numbers, unlike promotion men, don’t lie.\u00c2\u00a0 With that vast trove of search data, Google can now PREDICT behavior.<\/p>\n

Like with the movie studios.\u00c2\u00a0 By analyzing search queries, Google discovered it could predict within a week of a film’s release what the movie’s gross would be with approximately eighty percent accuracy!\u00c2\u00a0 But the studios said this was not helpful, because by the time this data snapshot was taken, they’d already spent their marketing wad, it was TOO LATE!<\/p>\n

So Google went back to the numbers.\u00c2\u00a0 And found out, purely based on how often people were searching for a film, that SIX WEEKS OUT they could predict the gross of a movie with EIGHTY TWO PERCENT ACCURACY!<\/p>\n

Now maybe you didn’t take statistics in college.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, I certainly didn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 But these geeks, this is the shit they know.\u00c2\u00a0 How to take a mound of numbers, that make no sense to us, and come out with IMMUTABLE CONCLUSIONS!<\/p>\n

Like in the record business.<\/p>\n

Turns out search for a record PEAKS upon single release.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, that’s the HIGHEST INTEREST EVER, when the track is first heard.\u00c2\u00a0 But as you well know, almost always, YOU CAN’T BUY THE TRACK AT ANY PRICE!\u00c2\u00a0 CERTAINLY NOT THE ALBUM!<\/p>\n

So interest takes a nosedive.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, in the ensuing four to six weeks, demand caves.\u00c2\u00a0 AND EVERYBODY STEALS THE TRACK!<\/p>\n

Then, on release date, there’s another bump.\u00c2\u00a0 But the quantity of search, although not de minimis, PALES in comparison to the peak when the single came out.\u00c2\u00a0 As for the AFTERMATH of the album dropping, well, search drops through the floor.<\/p>\n

Chris just didn’t get it.\u00c2\u00a0 What was wrong with our business.\u00c2\u00a0 Why didn’t they make the product available when there was DEMAND!<\/p>\n

Holy shit, I’ve been saying this for years.\u00c2\u00a0 That it makes no sense to advertise when you can’t buy a product.\u00c2\u00a0 Look at Apple Computer.\u00c2\u00a0 When Steve Jobs announces a new iPod, he says it will be available in stores IMMEDIATELY!\u00c2\u00a0 And literally everybody rushes from the auditorium to the Apple Store to buy.<\/p>\n

But we’ve got to create retail demand.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re in cahoots with the big boxes, showing them those CD orders, which we drove down their throats, are REASONABLE, that we can SELL THROUGH!<\/p>\n

We want to enter the chart at number one.\u00c2\u00a0 To impress the act, our colleagues, the media, OURSELVES, that we’re big swinging dicks, that we’ve got it down, that we’re INDOMITABLE!<\/p>\n

We care about everything but money.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, WE’RE LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE!<\/p>\n

What if a sales arc is long and sustained?\u00c2\u00a0 What if we don’t concentrate on one big opening week?\u00c2\u00a0 What if we’re interested in careers instead of moments?\u00c2\u00a0 THESE are the questions Chris Sacca is asking, THIS is what we’re blind to.<\/p>\n

So really, the problem is us.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re not doing a good job communicating what we’re selling, and we’re not doing a good job of selling it EITHER!\u00c2\u00a0 We live in a private club, where we feel our ways of doing business, honed over DECADES, are the only way to proceed, and that outsiders shouldn’t be let in on our party.<\/p>\n

But now outsiders have power.\u00c2\u00a0 Utilizing the TOOLS of technology!<\/p>\n

Want to know if your act is happening?\u00c2\u00a0 If the buzz is building?\u00c2\u00a0 If you’ve GOT SOMETHING?<\/p>\n

Just buy Google ads.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, the clicks will provide real time research, a SNAPSHOT of what’s going on.<\/p>\n

Yes, so many techies are arrogant.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t respect our rules.<\/p>\n

But can you blame them?\u00c2\u00a0 The way we operate, via antiquated systems, focusing on radio instead of new media?<\/p>\n

One of my favorite Sam Kinison routines concerns people starving in Africa.\u00c2\u00a0 Sam says not to send them food, but SUITCASES!\u00c2\u00a0 That those starving souls SHOULD GO WHERE THE FOOD IS!<\/p>\n

Now WE’RE starving.\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t want to move from where we’ve always lived.\u00c2\u00a0 We want help.\u00c2\u00a0 We want the law to protect us.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s a strategy for death.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve got to go where the PEOPLE are!\u00c2\u00a0 Where the FOOD IS!\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, there’s some low hanging fruit at Top Forty radio and Best Buy, but the REAL action is on that newfangled Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is not new if you’re under the age of fifteen, it’s ALWAYS EXISTED!<\/p>\n

We’re ignoring our customers.\u00c2\u00a0 Their needs, wants and desires.\u00c2\u00a0 No wonder this business is in trouble.<\/p>\n

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Chris Sacca\u00c2\u00a0made a return appearance in Aspen this year.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d like to say he was greeted with open arms, but it was clear he felt unexpectedly blindsided.\u00c2\u00a0 You see last year, after delineating all the initiatives of the search giant, Chris said he had an open door, er, open e-mail, policy.\u00c2\u00a0 This turned out not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business","category-technology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-ad","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}