HOLY CROSS 2.0 [Series]
The twin Worlds of making money and creating IP value. IP is Intellectual Property and it basically means Brand value. This is an interesting topic since there is a cc0 movement adjacent to cryptoArt and a lot of the creative entities and industry are creating a strategy of, community-driven Art or contribution and allowing the full rights and use of works and trademarks to be given to the public domain, or to holders of NFTs, or specific online communities. [This is an extensive topic which I’ll save for another article.]
Regardless on your stance of whether all Art use should be given away for free, to public domain, AI, to specific communities, or if some should be owned by the creators, etc., the value of IP or Brand is an important aspect of the success of project, Brand, or company. [The real answer is that there will always be a mix of exclusivity and free-as-fuck Anarchy.]
So we established that we need to compound value. To do this, many auto-think one needs to be popular, viral, farm likes and engagement, rage bait, concern-farming, hook users and collect views. The other half auto-thinks that they need to be logical, run numbers, check data and sales funnels, ad data, adjust product to match the data feedback of “what-customers-want” based on analytics, look at SEO and conversion rates etc. etc. etc.
[From my research confluence I have found that its both. It is always both.]
“You should not have a favorite weapon. To become over-familiar with one weapon is as much a fault as not knowing it sufficiently well.”
-Miyamoto Musashi
If we look at the popular entrepreneurial advice of the influencer market, the Popular Opinion is the formula of, copying what is popular, running data analytics, doing more of what the data says is working; testing, changing product and advertisement according to numbers, and giving “what-the-market-wants.” This works. Problem is, everything works. But to what degree.
y-3 by Yohji Yamamoto
[It is a ritual for CULFVCK to shill LVMH at least once per article, so lets engage.] If we look at some of the highest IP value, they do not do this at all. They do not do any “marketing.” They do not create or change their products to suit the data. They remain consistently creative, in the deepest or genius-of-ways, working with hypercreatives and avant-garde ideas even if they are extremely difficult to work with or confusing to understand, of abstraction and the like. This is strategy, as said by Bernard Arnault himself, but also of Brands like HERMES, or any of the high Fashion brands, which you can extrapolate for yourself. It is, indeed, also the ethos for many Japanese boutique brands and establishments, who carry and create some of the most coveted items and services, businesses, in the World.
So everything fucking works, now what. On one hand, we have incredible high-end brands and success stories who don’t give a fuck about what customers want, and just go deep within themselves and write, creating a new Chapter of Reality, on the other hand we have Japanese packaged bread brands who constantly analyze customer data and change their bread [pan] formulas according to the slightest percentage difference in the analytics.
The Birkin Bag by Hermes.
Creative hyperstition doesn’t always work, or so it seems. In my research, this isn’t true. There is always a way to make it work. The “Birkin Bag” which is the most coveted, treasure-like item in the world, [sold in retail for no less than $12,000] formed by HERMES, was a whimsical idea thought of on an airplane ride from a discussion between a [famous] singer-actress, Jane Birkin and Jean-Louis Dumas of Hermes. The story was that Jane Birkin wanted a slimmer and more functional version of the characteristic and rebellious basket she would carry everywhere she went. And thus, the Birkin bag was born. But it didn’t take off. It took five years for any significant movement of the bag to occur. Even after those 5 years it was a very slow climb to the status it has today. HERMES also had to historically change their marketing to have a more youthful look, for their Brand line, such that it would allow their customers to “see with new eyes” what the Brand was, without changing their product to suit the market, both against the data and the advice of consultants.
We can then conclude that both of these stratagems work, although in the long-term, the stubbornness of the internal ethos of a Brand is superior, in the Grand Scheme. In the mid and short-term, Brands can certainly make money, even millions running market analysis and data and changing ads, virality, product design to suit the data.
But the highest IP or Brand value lies within forcing the market to see it your way, a process of innovation, patience, and agility surrounding the original idea. Not compromising is a difficult and arduous path, but ultimately can become the winner of the gamut.
It is much faster result to simply iterate and change quickly, the idea or design of your product and throw away the ads not working and change the aesthetic of your brand, like a chameleon. But somehow, one breaks the compounding structure and sense of prominence psychographically within the customer subconscious.
I suspect that many of the products which Brands create or songs which bands or Artists write are certainly able to achieve success, they just aren’t fucking stubborn enough. I hear so many bullshit takes about how people “have no idea” why a song or a product takes off but it is in my view that this is complete ignorance and horseshit. All of it is market penetration or strategic signaling. There is indeed an answer to every problem, and if there really is a “certain” way that the markets wants, then why is it that every creative Style, of so many directions and at random times, can win. I believe the understanding of the “experts” who have made money in the music industry, or Fashion, Art, or God-knows-what are simply fucking ignorant. More ignorant of human psychology and psychographics than one would ever think.
The craziest shit has succeeded. And had nothing to do with the timing of the trend. They became the trend. Vice versa, the most boring and “safe” normcore Style has also flourished. There are literally no rules. Except that you establish the rules. The proof is the fact and the fact has no meaning except what is given to it by those who establish the facts. Create your Style. Force the market to get it. Or, alternatively, choose a faster and more disposable boat and take money from the masses and run. You can always switch it up.
Of course, once you damage a brand from doing short-term behavior you must work against that public perception to a certain degree. Everything has tradeoffs. But if you want to make it work, you can fucking make it work.
[I feel my message is clear.]
CULTII.