Grant Leboff - Stickier Marketing: How to Win Customers in a Digital Age

This ebook published in 2014 by

Kogan Page Limited

2nd Floor, 45 Gee Street

London EC1V 3RS

United Kingdom

www.koganpage.com

Grant Leboff, 2014

E-ISBN: 978 0 7494 7109 5

Also by the author

Sales Therapy: Effective selling for the small

business owner

Sticky Marketing: Why everything in marketing has

changed and what to do about it

First published in Great Britain and the United States in 2014 by Kogan Page Limited

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licences issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned addresses:

www.koganpage.com

Grant Leboff, 2014

Sticky Marketing is a trade mark of Grant Leboff

Stickier Marketing is a trade mark of Grant Leboff

Problem Map and Problem Maps are registered trademarks of Grant Leboff

The right of Grant Leboff to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN: 978 0 7494 7108 8

E-ISBN: 978 0 7494 7109 5

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Leboff, Grant.

[Sticky marketing]

Stickier marketing : how to win customers in a digital age / Grant Leboff. [Revised edition].

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-7494-7108-8 (pbk.) ISBN 978-0-7494-7109-5 (ebook) 1. Marketing. 2. Internet marketing. 3. Information technology--Social aspects. I. Title.

HF5415.L362 2014

658.872dc23

2013044131

Typeset by Amnet

Printed and bound in by CPI group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

I t was a mild autumn day in 1999. I was in the UK, in Brighton, at a recording studio belonging to a friend of mine, Paul Mex. We were having a chat about the state of the music industry, because in the summer of that year Shawn Fanning had started Napster, a music file-sharing site that gave people the ability to share music with each other all around the world.

The music industry later had Napster closed down. At the time, however, there were many people who were infuriated that consumers were now sharing music across the web, for free. The music industrys business model was based on the fact that they controlled the distribution of music and charged the public to access it. In 1999, this was mainly by way of CDs.

Paul and I were having a discussion about the future of the music industry, and how they were going to approach this new development. While we were having this debate, Paul suddenly stopped the conversation and told me he wanted me to listen to a recording he had. At the back of the studio was a cupboard full of tapes, records, cables etc, and Paul rummaged in there for what seemed like an age. He eventually returned waving a cassette. He sat me down and told me to have a listen.

He explained that it was a tape of a live phone-in with Paul Cook and Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols, Pauls favourite band, which took place in the summer of 1978 on KSJO Radio in the United States. He pressed play on the tape recorder and we sat back and started to listen. About two minutes into the recording, Paul indicated that the section he wanted me to hear was coming up.

At that moment, a woman listener came on the air. She was decidedly unimpressed with the Sex Pistols and had phoned in to tell them so. She was given her opportunity to speak and started, I just wanted to say that I dont think the Sex Pistols have any right to cut down the Queen until they learn how to be musicians first. At that point Steve Jones interrupted, replying: Its got nothing to do with music, you silly cow! Paul then stopped the cassette player.

I looked at him, puzzled. Did you get it? Paul asked.

I think so, I replied, decidedly unsure.

Paul made an MP3 file of the interview. I saved it to my desktop and every so often I would have a listen. As broadband became ubiquitous and the web was having a greater influence on our lives, Steve Joness comment back in 1978 seemed to resonate with me more and more. Eventually, I could not get it out of my mind. I soon realized that this one comment seemed to summarize much of what I was trying to say in the speeches I was presenting and in the work I was undertaking with clients.