By Jim McCarthy Jan 22, 2009 0 comments

How Many T-shirts Fit Through a Pipeline?

Here’s a story about the launch of Live Nation’s new ticketing system from the Hartford Courant that’s not news to most of you.

But there’s a quote embedded in it that’s worth talking about:

“Ticketing for us was a way to build a fully integrated pipeline between the artist and the fan,” [LIve Nation Ticketing CEO Nathan] Hubbard says.

In theory, this is absolutely correct.

In reality, it often translates into nothing more than people getting a lot of emails they didn’t sign up for and getting offers for t-shirts to go with the concert ticket they bought.

Ok, it’s not just t-shirts.  I suppose that’s a little 80′s centric of me.  (Yes, the 1980s were the golden age of the concert t-shirt.  A black AC/DC, size medium, a la Butthead, was practically the uniform of every burnout I went to high school with.)  It would be t-shirts, ringtones, mp3s, and one or two other baubles.

Sadly, for many marketers, this is what they really mean when they say ‘pipeline to the customer’ is really just a handful of fairly unexcited and financially unimpactful merchandising opportunities.

But’s not just painfully unimaginative; it missed the big idea, which is that there’s a potential relationship between somebody and the ticket buyer.  It’s not always the act.  It could be the venue.  But either way, value comes from establishing a mutually beneficial reciprocal relationship that each side respects and values.  (By the way, to go deep on this topic, dig into Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing.  This link gives you the ability to download the first four chapters free.  Thank me later.)

From the business person’s point of view, it’s like tending a garden rather than mining for gold.

Besides, Butthead only needs so many t-shirts…

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