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Everything is Marketing ep 100
We celebrate the 100th episode of Everything Is Marketing with the crew from Be Less Typical talking about the auto industry and the people who are shaping it
You Just Never Know
I was having drinks with a friend the other night and we got to talking about how “business” gets done.
This idea that you can accomplish what you need to do either by yourself, or while scorching the Earth around you is simply not a viable strategy. We talked about how the Internet decentralizes things like authority and control while at the same time allows you to connect with nearly anyone, at anytime. In the connection economy that can only be a good thing and something we should take advantage of.
When I worked in radio I never understood the idea that I needed to hate the people I competed against, make no mistake my job was to beat them, but hate them? That seemed not only counterproductive to growth but a large output of energy for something that would gain you nothing back. Here we are 20 years later and I have many friends at many stations that I still keep in touch with and while I don’t plan to get back into broadcasting, you just never know.
“That relationship you cultivated just might be the difference between success and failure.”
You foster and build relationships because those relationships build audiences, communities, social circle, business associates, and opportunities and most people are diligent at maintaining those relationships when the output is reciprocal. The magic, however, occurs when you are giving or fostering with no expectation of reciprocation. This is true in nearly every industry, relationships you put work into will be important to you — the problem is you might not know when.
Think about it this way, many people in the Midwest pay for snow removal for the whole season. Some seasons the snow plow guy wins that bet, other seasons the customer wins. But you never know and in this analogy the person who always loses is the one who needs snow removal ONLY when there are 100 feet of snow on the ground, that guy pays out the ass because he bet on the weather and not a relationship.
Any good relationship contains a bit of serendipity, that ability to find something good when you aren’t looking for it. In order to get that magic to take place you need to put in the time, you need to foster, you need to reach out even if they haven’t — because you never know. It might not be today and it might not be tomorrow. But that relationship you cultivated just might be the difference between success and failure — you just have to trust that you won’t know, or more frustratingly, can’t know when that train will roll into town.
Own Your Suck
This weekend Fantastic Four (a reboot) was released in theaters and almost immediately was getting bad to terrible reviews. As of this writing it is at 9% rotten on Rotten Tomatoes which it has held at since Thursday night, not good in the WOM (word of mouth) universe that movies live or die by in that first weekend.
But terrible movies get released all the time and if that is what I used this blog for I would have written a tome about Pixels…because, come on.
Instead, I share this story with you because of the tweet at the top of the blog post. It was a tweet (since deleted) written on Thursday night by the director of the Fantastic Four, Josh Trank.
In industry speak the tweet essentially says the movie you are about to pay to go see does in fact suck, but isn’t his fault — it is the fault of executives at 20th Century Fox. What is very powerful about this story is that Josh only has 9,565 followers on twitter but insiders estimate that tweet cost Fantastic Four nearly $10 million dollars. To put that another way, Josh’s network is worth, in this case, just over $1000, that worth can either go towards the net, or the deficit. The later was the case earning a disappointing $26 million on its opening weekend which will plummet to around $9 million by next weekend because of the aforementioned word of mouth.
His tweet was irresponsible on so many reasons it is hard to know where to start, but let’s start with the cast and crew. These are people that worked very hard to put out a piece of art into the world (regardless of your thoughts of said art) and deserve to have the market decide if it is worth seeing. This is certainly true when “the CEO” of the movie (in this case that is the part Josh plays) tells everyone to stay out of the movie theaters. What is more egregious is Josh’s claim that the quality of the movie rests only at the feet of studio executives and if only he could have edited it differently, you would have loved it.
John Stewart on Thursday night gave his final performance to camera #3 and explained that there are three types of bullshit in the world, Josh’s explanation of why his project is terrible lands comfortably in #3 “If only I had the opportunity to produce the version of the film I had in mind…” except, you did. You see, the director is like any manager of a project and part of your job is to protect the project and the staff attached like they are your kids. If studio pressure gets too much and damages you and the cast’s vision then you need to fight them on it or walk if necessary.
I am a pragmatists so I understand that quitting your job or walking from a project like Fantastic Four isn’t something everyone can do. But if you stay on and finish this project — IT IS YOUR PROJECT. So own your own suck.
This movie is your problem, not 20th Century Fox and blaming everyone but yourself and along the way costing the project $10 million dollars is childish, irresponsible, and irrevocably damaging to both the franchise and actors attached to it. Let’s remember Miles Teller was in Whiplash, but is currently remembered as “terrible Reed Richards.”
You owe it to your staff to protect them with fire and own your collective suck and if you are too much of a coward to do that, management is not the place for you and that self-awareness could save a lot of money and a lot of heartache. It is important to fail forward and learn from it, it is equally important to know when that failing is happening and why.
What Dr. Dre can teach us about letting go
As a fan I have waited for over a decade for this moment, Dr. Dre dropped a new album last night “Compton” inspired by the movie “Straight Outta Compton.” Dr. Dre has been one of the most sought after producers for a long time so when rumors of an album called Detox started to surface in 2002, the music world was abuzz with what Dre could come back with. We would stay that way for over thirteen years, until Aug 1st, 2015. That was the day that Dr. Dre said that Detox was officially a dead project.
Five days later Dr. Dre drops “Compton,” his first album (if you ignore the singles “Kush” + “I Need a Dr.” from the aforementioned Detox) in over 16 years — it was worth the wait. But that isn’t what I want to talk about, instead let’s talk about barriers.
There was something preventing Dre from putting “Detox” out, the rumors of the 50 Cent projects getting in the way may have been part of the issue but five years ago Dre stood on stage with Eminem at Ford Field and said it was coming, as in soon.
It never did.
It never came because he knew it wasn’t right, didn’t fit the image he had in his head, it — to him, was garbage. But he kept at it because he said it was coming and the longer he pushed this failed project up the hill the more pressure he felt and the worse and farther behind the project got.
Until he let go.
As the story goes Dr. Dre was on the set of “Straight Outta Compton” and came back from the movie absolutely invigorated, sat down inspired and recorded an entirely new album — “Compton.” Dre did this quietly because he learned from Detox, Dr. Dre knew that he needed to ship and now he was ready to do just that — six days after he announced he did it.
The lesson here is about barriers, perceived or otherwise. Barriers can cripple you, they can paralyze you, barriers can turn excitement for a project into dread and dread into apathy. Apathy gets zero things done.
Dr. Dre did something different, went to a movie set of a movie that was about his origins as a producer. The energy around this movie from those who made it and those want to see it — was infectious. Dr. Dre took that energy and turned it into art. So maybe you just need a change of scenery, get around things and people who inspire you, take a walk in the woods, go on vacation, try something you have never done before. See what those things do to your barriers and what it does to your art.
What have you been holding on to for far too long, instead of taking a chance on the art that wants to get out? Listen to “Compton,” you will know what I mean. There is power in freeing yourself from a failed project. There is even more power when that freedom creates something even you didn’t know was in there.