By Christopher Craft, {grow} Community Member
Radiohead’s masterful management of their brand is a blueprint for excellence. The genre-blending band became icons through their extensive and diverse music catalog, but the deeper lessons lie in how they keep creativity at the center of their brand’s promise. They record creatively. They market creatively. They distribute creatively. They perform creatively. I’ve recently learned that two of my favorite authors and branding minds, Mitch Joel and Mark Schaefer, are also huge Radiohead fans. This discovery has inspired me to present to you “The Radiohead Guide to Branding Excellence.”
Push The Envelope
With their seventh studio album, In Rainbows, Radiohead self-distributed a digital version through their website and allowed people to pay what they thought the album was worth. This had never been done before. In true Radiohead fashion, they pushed the envelope. Radiohead embraced the dwindling popularity of physical music medium and didn’t allow developments in digital music delivery to pass them by. There are questions about the financial and distributive success of the experiment, but it was ambitious nonetheless.
Take your brand to the limits in the areas of customer service, product design, and delivery. Standing out trumps blending in.
Create a Window Through Video
Radiohead has always done a good job of giving their fans a window to view how they work and play in creative settings. You can almost get to know every band member through the various personal studio and basement performance videos that they’ve released. My personal favorite is Scotch Mist, which was released on New Year’s Eve 2007 in promotion of In Rainbows. The well-produced video shows Radiohead performing in raw form.
Use video to tell your brand’s story. Video appeals to multiple senses and allows your fans and customers to connect with you emotionally.
Pivot
Radiohead made it big with their song “Creep.” But they mentally expunged it from their catalog and removed it from live playlists and sets by the time they released their second album, The Bends. They knew they had more to offer as artists. They’ve shown time-after-time a lack of fear of pivoting by going different directions with their music. On their fourth studio album, Kid A (my favorite Radiohead album), you hear the band’s heavy electronic influence – a sound they had tinkered with but had never fully unveiled on their previous studio albums. You can depend on Radiohead to always present something new by going in new directions with their music.
The only thing that’s constant in the world is change. Sometimes you know what’s best for your brand. If a pivot of any kind makes sense for your brand, plan it and execute it.
Collaborate
Radiohead is famous for allowing their favorite producers from various genres to remix their works post-release.
Putting synergistic and creative forces to work with your brand will allow you to do great things with others without worrying about competition.
Be Unapologetically Human
Yes, they’re master musicians (did you know Thom Yorke can’t read or write sheet music?) but they’re also very open about their humanity. Radiohead fans love the fact that they don’t take themselves seriously. Check out this video of Radiohead messing up live in concert and totally having fun with the moment. Their fans continued to support them through the song.
Humanizing your brand is a common best practice. Follow through by actually doing it and allowing your team, fans, clients, and stakeholders to join and help you during your “human” moments. The only way this is possible is if you build trust with your supporters over years of showing and proving.
Christopher Craft is a speaker and the author of O.P.E.N. Routine: Four Components to Personal Branding Excellence. He’s also the Chief Visionary at Nao Media and Consulting, a digital agency for the sports and entertainment industries. You can follow Chris on Twitter, connect with him on LinkedIn, and circle him on Google+.
Illustration courtesy Flickr Creative Commons and Oktobr
