Purchasing behavior Regula Fecker and David Schärer on the principle of the self-fulfilling prophecy and the phenomenon of increasingly selective consumption.
Hand on heart: when was the last time you listened to a music album from the first riff onwards and, after the first three warm-up numbers, listened to the experimental, painful fourth song, only to be able to cheer along unrestrainedly to the album's real hit - the infamous number five - only to suffer again with number six - until a musical ray of hope awaited you again with the seventh song? Yes, that must have been some time ago. MP3 players in general and the iPod specifically have had a lasting effect on people's behavior in terms of their music consumption. Which in turn has an effect on human behavior in general consumption, as we will show later.
A personalized experienceBack to the music: Intelligent music lists play what you already like, thanks to the four-star rating and more. Every song with four stars plus from the Beatles' oeuvre can provide a musical experience lasting several hours to suit your taste. But woe betide anyone who missed out on rating the song "Helter Skelter" with at least four stars! They will probably be denied the cornerstone of heavy metal - released as the 6th song on the C-side of the "White Album" - forever and ever. Unless he stumbles across it by chance in shuffle mode after 14 days and umpteen megabytes.
How music is consumed is a precise analogy for how content, offers and services are used. Apart from the fact that Beatles songs will probably not be available on music download portals until later this year, it is all the more likely that "Helter Skelter" will not even make it onto the iPod of the "Generation Playlist". This is because this generation no longer purchases entire albums from the primary supplier of raw materials for MP3 players - the iTunes MusicStore - but only individual songs at 1.50 francs each. Consumers of the "Generation Playlist" can see which song is currently being bought by the most customers. This separates the wheat from the chaff and the hits from the slow sellers.
For the consumer, this naturally means valuable guidance for shopping in an environment where the choice is almost endless. But it is also a self-fulfilling prophecy: if a song is bought often, it immediately rises in the purchase recommendation. If it rises in the purchase recommendation, it will be bought even more often. In this way, people are once again guided by the tastes of the masses when they are completely overwhelmed by individualization. Incidentally, the same phenomenon can also be observed on YouTube - a look at the "Most Viewed Videos" proves it.
Only singles wantedPeople are becoming more and more hit hunters. It has never been easier than it is today to "snack" on only the best, not only from a musical point of view, instead of enjoying a multi-player, i.e. an entire album. In short, people's user behavior on the web means that the music industry is facing a new challenge after the Napster fiasco. How do you still sell albums with twelve or thirteen songs when a young generation has become accustomed to only buying singles?
The music industry is reacting to this development. Surprisingly quickly, in fact. Over the past few weeks, we have been hearing interesting new sounds from the music industry: the reunited successful American band Smashing Pumpkins announced in a press release that they were planning to abandon the good old album format and only release mini albums with three to four songs in future. In order to become faster and more up-to-date, but also to be able to respond more directly to the trends and whims of the buying public, her increasingly volatile fans. "A 24-year-old today no longer buys albums, only songs. It is therefore in our best interest to launch smaller block albums," says the US. The band is therefore planning to launch their mini-albums at a higher rate and via alternative channels. The Smashing Pumpkins are not alone with this idea. Muse, the high-flyers of the 2007 concert season, are also taking the same route.
Website instead of newspaper subscriptionA 65-year-old man known to the authors who canceled his subscription to his daily newspaper after 40 years because he could get information from its website - for free, of course. He, who devoured the stories in his daily newspaper every day for 40 years, from the big headlines on the front page to the obituaries and a review of a hard-to-digest production of a small German theater from A to Z, wants to get the same amount of information on the web. Although this is possible, it is extremely unlikely according to the principle of self-fulfilling prophecy. Because he too will orient himself to the mainstream bestseller list. And the production of Medea at the Kleinbühne in Bern, Hanover or Innsbruck is certainly not one of them. Who reads a website from start to finish? Nobody.
Endless and boundlessBecause there is no beginning and no end to the web, navigation in virtual three-dimensionality is endless and boundless. You often discover new topics that you didn't even know could interest you, but you also lose yourself in the endless variety of topics and no longer have an overview. No wonder, platforms like Blick.ch apply the same principle as the iTunes MusicStore. In order to provide orientation, stories are dynamically rearranged during the course of the day based on their popularity in the sense of a hit parade. This in turn makes the most popular stories even more popular. More and more people are looking at the same mainstream stories and delving deeper into individual areas of interest, but compared to the printed newspaper, the socially integrating overview of many topics is increasingly lost on the web.
What is certain is that the role of the mass media has long since changed. What people think about is no longer dictated by the editorial offices, but has long since been democratized. The social and cultural impact of this consequence cannot be estimated. For brand owners, this means following the principle of the self-fulfilling prophecy in marketing. Entry into the public consciousness is no longer achieved with a crowbar, but by cleverly and unconventionally occupying the best list. In this way, even the most unwieldy track becomes a hit.
The PandoraMan box listens to a song
and think to yourself "Man, if only all songs could be this cool!". The problem: you only know a certain spectrum and don't have the time/desire/money to find the other 279 artists with similar styles. Of course, "the Internet" has come up with a solution and has already created Pandora.com. Pandora is based on the Music Genome Project. This uses statistical characteristics to analyze personal preferences based on a given song or artist and searches for "matching" titles and artists from its database. The songs are played there in full length. There is also a link to where you can buy the music. (pan)RodRegula Fecker and David Schärer
are two of the founders of the Zurich-based communications agency Rod, which recently opened its doors and now employs ten people. Fecker and Schärer, together with the third founding member and partner, Oliver Fennel, worked at a Zurich creative agency for seven years before taking the plunge into self-employment. Rod works for clients such as 20 Minuten, Denner, Dove, Ikea, Sanitas and Weleda.
