Culture as Product

There was a rather interesting article on hypebot about the notion of culture as a product. While the article was very nebulous and abstract, he does lay down some interesting ideas about a company that would focus on culture as a product (although he somewhat confusingly equates the two as being identical).

Basically, the idea is to have a story revolving around what problem you want to solve, build features into the culture product to alleviate those problems, ship the feature and learn from the feature being added.

All this talk about culture reminds me of the manifesto that has been making the rounds on the Internet. Called We, the Web Kids, it's give an interesting insight in to the hivemind of Generation Y. In it, the author talks about how growing up on the Internet has changed the way our generation views the world in a very fundamental way.

The manifesto talks bout searching around for several answers before determining the best one ourselves, and the section about the fact that we can talk to anyone, anytime and as a result, the demanding of mutual respect in our interactions. In particular, the line "We have learned to accept that instead of one answer we find many different ones, and out of these we can abstract the most likely version, disregarding the ones which do not seem credible. We select, we filter, we remember, and we are ready to swap the learned information for a new, better one, when it comes along." sums things up rather well

The reason that these were interesting to me were because of a third article about what to do with people's attention once you get it. In it, the article reinforces everything we've heard about how social media is good, how it should play a big part in a band's marketing strategy, blah blah blah. The poignant bit was about how social media offers bands a chance for 'authentic communication' with fans.

It is this communication which has driven the success of direct to fan marketing, social media and even p2p file-sharing (which got us into this 'mess' in the first place) for indie bands. Not to mention, this authentic communication resonates strongly with the message put forth in the manifesto of the Web Kids. It shows us that the artists aren't gods to be admired from afar, but people like you and me. It's real, and above all else, it's respectful.

The idea that Ethan put forth in the first article isn't how to turn culture into a product. Record labels have been doing that since their inception. Rather, it's how to continue doing that in the framework of the Digital Age culture. You need to continually keep updating and interacting, and tell a story while doing so. Social media has put the soul and personal touch back into business. This is somewhat ironic since it (and digital technology in general) has been decried as being both soulless and impersonal.

Irony aside, the important message in all of this is that developing culture around your product is vital to your success and it's easier then ever. The internet allows us to foster connections worldwide at the speed of light. Given how easy it is to talk to and buy from anyone, people don't give you as much time as they used to. It's nothing personal, they have a lot of things vying for their attention. The way to keep their attention (and theoretically, their money) is to foster a culture or coolness around your band, and to do so personally.

Additionally, making things easy is a must. It goes along with the idea of mutual respect and the ability to access several different sources for the same product or information. Like this article states, don't be surprised when people move on to a different product (in this case, piracy) when you don't make it easy for them to access.

To summarize, a band's success depends upon the culture they form around themselves, the ease of access to that culture and how engaging (and personal) that culture is. Because if you don't, like the manifesto states, we are ready to swap up to something new and better. And there are plenty of options to choose from.