Flavor Flav famously screamed out, “Don’t believe the hype!” Despite being recently and repeatedly referred to as the Jewish, marketing version of Flava Flav by some of your favorite stars and editors, I’d have to disagree with him here.
The job of the artist is not just to create the work, but to position it for the world to see. People need to be able to experience your output. You are a vessel for your art. After you create it, you need to ship it.
The same goes for brands. It’s not just a brand’s job to make products, but to market them, too.
In a changing landscape where people are dealing with a down economy, tariffs, inflation, and vast uncertainty, we need new music to uplift and help us cope. In many cases, the same goes for new products.
Artists need to think like brands and brand marketers need to think like artists. But how?
Well, the core of the endeavor is to find your consumers, find your tribe, and give your people what they want. They will remember you this way and your market will grow. The only way to build your brand is to put your work out.
Anonymity feels like a hip trend right now, but as an artist or brand, you need to get your work in front of folks, and it’s tough to do that behind an iron curtain of coyness and cool.
There are seasoned tricks of the trade when it comes to making deep connections with your consumers at scale, and I’m not saying that content marketing is easy, either on the brand or the artist side. But there are experts sharing gratuitously on the daily who you can tap in with, and there are agents you can bring in to help you. The methodologies for breaking artists and brands are similar. Hype men and women can help set the stage and accentuate your points.
They say it’s the author’s job to sell the first 10,000 books, and it’s the book’s job to sell the rest. Artists need to think the same way. Getting from 0 to 1 is tough in a market saturated with synthetic content. But authenticity is the frequency that will cut through the noise.
As we head into Memorial Day weekend with the whole summer in front of us, I ask: What do you want to create? Who do you want to receive it? You must be prepared to ship, because it’s go time!
