Broken Windows In A Super Club

There is a new Superclub  in town with a 10,000 capacity. Most of the clientèle are single and looking for someone to hook up with. You always used to just go out to the pub in town and see a small crowd of single people, which everyone was happy with, and the only people who ever got to be known by thousands of single people were celebrities, so this is something completely new.

With this new superclub, the opportunities to meet lots of single people have never been greater but there has also never been so much competition. (I hope it’s obvious that this alludes to digital promotion. Otherwise this will be a very confusing few paragraphs.)

The club will be filled with thousands of other people similar to you and in order to be successful and attract attention there, you cannot rely upon the luxury of having plenty of time to build relationships, afforded to you by small and therefore less competitive groups. Critical to initial success, therefore, is the ability to display yourself through appearance and in short bouts of conversation that are both equal to or above that of those that surround you. If there are ten people all of similar intelligence, looks and interests, it becomes the smaller details that differentiate you. Anything from unshined shoes to unkempt hair can mean the difference between sparking conversations and interest in yourself and being left sipping a beer by the fire exit.

Building relationships doesn’t occur on the first night you meet people at the Superclub though does it? First you meet people and talk briefly and get on, hopefully being memorable enough to then pick up and carry on the conversation next time, meeting as people return to the club regularly and remember you and then moving on to meeting away from the Superclub, eventually building a relationship through the greater understanding developed over time.

This is a pretty elaborate way of explaining the application to music of a theory from the brilliant “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell called ‘Broken Windows’, which he uses as part of his dissection of what fuels epidemics and explosions of popularity. The Broken Windows theory was first suggested in explanation of the sudden drop in crime in New York in the 1990s by James Q.Wilson and George Kelling,

“If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no-one cares and that non-one is in charge”

Despite there being a  large police force, a democratic political system, laws and courts protecting people and society, a few broken windows can give the overall impression that no one cares and no one is in charge. This relates to the marketing of music directly, as it reminds us that, as the internet creates a ‘superclub’ of both large scale audiences and large numbers of performers, it is the smaller things that  make a major difference in the success or failure of obtaining the relationships with fans that will create a career.

First and foremost remember that what is most important is that the web presence represents the artist as strongly as possible in image and message, then ensuring that there are no ‘broken windows’; the information is up-to-date, communication is replied to and care is taken in any and all forms of expression including design.

Ensuring that the presentation of an artist online is as professional, tidy and accessible as possible does not mean you will successfully create thousands of relationships. It does, however, give you the best chance of being afforded the opportunity of beginning the conversation in a crowded marketplace.