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Chasing Cool; Noah Kerner, Gene Pressman

Suddenly, people in nightlife think the purpose of nightlife is to make a lot of money. The purpose of nightlife is to enjoy the lifestyle itself. When you approach it like a business, it ceases to be fun because you end up sitting with a guy who has to pay just to get in as opposed to the guy who is interesting. Truthfully, you have to create something for yourself, something that you love.

Cool is not the outcome of a chase but rather the province of a tasteful visionary who maintains a personal, authentic point of view.

They saw opportunities where others didn’t. They inspired change when others were defending their positions. They were driven by passion and constantly alive to inspiration from everywhere. And they had the balls to keep reinventing themselves. They saw opportunities where others didn’t.

In the ’50s you wanted to be the General Motors of something. In the early ’60s you wanted to be the Xerox of something, then it became the IBM of something, then the Nike of something, and the list goes on and on.

U2 shares its own equity by partnering with iPod; so does Eminem. Cars advertise iPod connectivity. Levi’s is creating iPod-compatible jeans. The word podcast has long since entered the dictionary.

Most of the companies that came in first ended up going out of business first. P&G are masters at the process of having a process, of being second. They don’t often go out on a limb. They follow other company’s footsteps and have obviously been pretty successful at it. Don’t complain when they copy, complain when they don’t. As with everything, it’s all about the execution of the vision.

The moment a company focuses too heavily on what’s going on around it is when its products become Me-Too.

Outsourced vision doesn’t work unless you first take a closer look at what goes on inside your walls.
Outside help doesn’t solve internal deficiencies. And an outside vision will never be properly shepherded unless that vision also exists internally.

An overreliance on committees makes it hard to really get anything right. They lead to a shuffling of responsibilities. A group makes it hard for things to coalesce. Everyone is enamored with ideas—but nobody wants to totally take the responsibility for working them out in a thorough way. When there are too many opinions, coming to a gemlike conclusion is nearly impossible. Assign too many chefs to cook up a vision, and the product will taste like something reheated. Don’t let committees, status quo, focus groups, or fear compromise an authentic internal vision.

Research is critical to that process. But you have to start from a place of really knowing who you are and what you stand for. MTV knows what it is and what it isn’t.

We had to educate our customer and, simultaneously, imbue a sense of self-discovery. We had to make customers feel like we had the best-kept secret.

how do we break down the barriers between content and advertising to create that beautiful seamless branded entertainment experience?

Quick marketing fixes don’t solve deep product issues.

The college web phenomenon Facebook garnered millions of members with a marketing budget of $300. And $200 of that was spent on creating T-shirts for an event. They created a great online property and shortly thereafter every college student across America became an ambassador. Buzz was their only tactic. It was real and it worked.

Good advertising makes a bad product fail faster.

Gmail, Google’s e-mail system, uses a similar premise based around invite-only peer recommendations.

Remember, the etymology of the word brand comes from the Old English for “burn.” It’s defined in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary as “a mark made by burning with a hot iron to attest manufacture or quality or to designate ownership.”

“Suddenly, people in nightlife think the purpose of nightlife is to make a lot of money. The purpose of nightlife is to enjoy the lifestyle itself. When you approach it like a business, it ceases to be fun because you end up sitting with a guy who has to pay just to get in as opposed to the guy who is interesting. Truthfully, you have to create something for yourself, something that you love.

Aesthetic is about a very personal point of view, an internal credo; not compromise or consensus. And that internal point of view needs to flow right into the company’s central nervous system.

A quality aesthetic lasts, and long-term loyalty derived from an improved aesthetic experience is worth the short-term losses. It just requires conviction (with a good business model to back it up).

Steve Jobs was fired from Apple. A few of Ian Schrager’s hotels have been through bankruptcy. Richard Branson has been unsuccessful with various Virgin sub-brands. It’s hard to have major hits without some fairly big hiccups. Yet, when you look at the brands today—Virgin, Apple, Schrager, Barneys, and so on—they’re all very much on top.

The key for a brand at the top is to create new marketing models that reinvent the wheel, year after year after year, and to avoid, at all costs, what we call Don’t Fuck Up Mode (DFUM)—the mode that far too many successful brands seem to shift into just when they should be moving ahead.

Great legends, are usually people who die young because they didn’t live long enough to spoil their image.

MAC Cosmetics became a success in the hip-hop community, for instance, because it was behind the scenes. It was the backstage resource for all the recording artists. Tommy didn’t set out to create a line of clothing for hip-hop culture—he created a line that the members of this culture aspired to. They aspired to it because it suggested a ritzy New Englander lifestyle. Confronted with the fact that his brand was gaining serious traction in that market, Tommy shifted his strategy to specifically appeal to this segment —and that was where the problems arose.

Maxim, whether it be with a readership of 2 million or a readership of 14 million, as it has now, remains true to its core values—an entertainment brand that makes a guy’s life better.

Clint Eastwood and Prince reinvented their personalities: one became a stylish and sensitive filmmaker, the other became a record-business

You have to plan for your next career, every smart person does. But it has to be in line with my passions. I have to really care about it. It has to make sense for who I am. I think the definition of greatness is about consistency even as you’re changing. It’s not about showing people what you can do. It’s about doing what you do, becoming great at it, and doing that time and time again.

If your business isn’t based on a personal understanding of who you’re talking to, there’s going to be a certain honesty missing.

People
Grey Goose
Us Weekly
SubservientChicken.com
pay-for-play tactic: In other words, if you don’t pay, you’re marginalized—and
Crooked line: early arrivals would be kept waiting outside the door for what seemed like hours. The idea was that a crowd outside would create the allure of a packed venue.