Lots of chatter about the move by Prince this past Sunday to give away 3 million copies of his new CD via London’s the Mail on Sunday. James references it as an example of open source doing what it should and, well, I’m all for that.
The interesting thing to me is that I don’t know if the album is any good. I’ve never listened to it. Most people haven’t – including those scribes who have written about it at length. The world is talking about Prince this week not because his new album is worth talking about, they’re talking about Prince because his disruptive distribution model is worth talking about.
Many marketers lament over trying to market a commodity and, if given the choice, I would always say it’s better to start with a remarkable product and go from there. If you can’t, there are always options to do something remarkable with the processes that surround your product or service delivery. Haworth Canada answers the phone before you even hear it ring. Every time. Or at least they used to. Prince gives away the first 3 million copies of his CD. There are plenty of options if you look for them.
