Archive for September, 2005
How I found The ANSWER
September 17th, 2005 • Societal Marketing
I was a right wing Republican, until, in 1985, I read the words of a winner of the National Book Award. He asked the question, in 1975: how is it, that so many well-skilled, wealthy American teenagers, have only a sense of cold hearted self interest? This question started me on a search, on how to reverse the a process that he accurately identified.
An Example
September 15th, 2005 • Events
John Mellencamp speaking today about the lack of integrity on radio and in the music business. His points were very subtle. But he was saying that Andy Lack of Sony, who doesn’t invest in young song writers, and young musicians. They want to sell 20 million records of one artist, instead of 500000 records of 20 artists. They are using a model of the 1960s. He is saying they are out of touch. The music business now is only about if the head of the company is making his number, accountability to the shareholders. The problem, and this connects DIRECTLY into the societal marketing concept: that we should enable a DIFFERENT, MORE ETHICAL group of shareholders to take hold of competitors to the Sony’s and the Clear Channels and offer an alternative paradigm on radio. He is saying the entire nature of present day music is entirely lowest common denominator. In the past, a portion of radio was about LCD. He is saying people like himself, Sammie Davis, and Frank Sinatra are really NOT on the radio anymore. That is strange to me, because these folks are classic, but they really are high quality musicians. Here was a true artist, who did well monetarily; but he wasn’t in it for the money. But, because he didn’t keep quiet, didn’t silence himself about his politics, a position that is certainly not in keeping with most of the key managers of top media companies, he has been virtually blacked out. Regardless of what you think about the hipness quotient of his music, he has made a great contribution.Radio is just an example of where the societal marketing concept can make a profit and a difference while offering a comparatively higher quality product.