Sen Ze’s Business In Your Pajamas! Blog

Simplicity is good.

A simple to use and understand product that is also easy to create is like a god-send.

Your Prospects and Customers can easily buy it without having to spend too much time figuring out what it is that you’re trying to sell.

It’s a good thing for you because it’s very easy for you to create that product for them too.

Take the “American Idol” singing competition (it’s a “business” for its producers), for example.

It’s a singing contest, and the winner is determined by the number of SMS votes that he/she has received, with the contestant having the lowest number of votes being booted out at the end of each episode.

Simple. Easy. And a super-hit.

If you were producing this program, all you need to do is to determine the format of the competition (how many songs, how long for each song, how many to start off with, etc), decide how many judges would participate, decide who they are to be, decide the date and venues for the auditions, set up the phones lines, deal with the network, find the sponsors, and so on.

Those are not rocket-science stuff. There may be many things that need to be done, but they’re simple stuff that anybody with the right experience can do.

And so American Idol began its huge money-making journey and has done so for the past 6 seasons now, with the 7th underway.

Now “American Idol” is a franchise of “Pop Idol” which began in the UK.

Before long, many countries bought the franchise and started having their own “Idol” competition on television. It’s hard to miss the “Idol” phenomenon everywhere you go.

However, because the show itself isn’t difficult to create, it wasn’t long before copycat versions of it started. This has resulted in the “Idol” competition no longer being held with the copycat version taking the spotlight instead, with a different label, different number of judges, different format for the competition, but always ending with SMS votes determining the winner.

Some other countries never bought the franchise, but borrowed the idea and started their own version right from the beginning using all sorts of label except “Idol”.

Simplicity is bad.

(For the “Idol” franchise, that is.)

Sen Ze

P.S. You can link to this post with the following URL:

http://www.SenZe.com/business-blog/simplicity/simplicity-is-good.htm

Technorati Tags: simplicity, American Idol, singing competition, copycat business, SMS votes, business competition, business competitors, product creation

Look at the following letters:

b, c, d, e, g, p, t, v

You can tell them apart if I said them out to you, right?

Even if you’re in a dark room?

Well, I can’t.

Because they all sound the same to me – a very indistinct “eee” sound, even if you’re saying “pee” (for “p”), or “tee” (for “t”).

They all sound like “..eee”…

On the other hand, if you said the same letters to me with the lights on, I could tell exactly which letter you’re saying, and the indistinct “eee” sound becomes “pee”, “tee”, “vee” or whatever alphabet it may be.

What’s going on?

This remained a mystery to me for quite a number of years until I realized that the light has something to do with it.

Because when there is light, I can see you.

And when I can see you…

…I can read your lips.

And when I can read your lips, I can see the way they’re put together to create the sound of the above alphabets.

And in a flash, my brain compensates for what I can’t hear (the “pee”) into what I can hear (the “pee”) – and I think I actually heard the letter.

And you wouldn’t know the difference either because for all intents and purposes, I heard you.

Even though I really didn’t.

I was born with high-frequency “deafness”, and it turned out that I’ve been lip reading for years without realizing it.

Now high-frequency deafness isn’t that uncommon among the general population.

Bill Clinton has it as well (a result of playing in a band in his younger days and ageing).

And so do you.

For example, do you know that dogs can hear sounds that you can’t?

Yes, high-frequency sounds can be heard by some species, but not another.

For example, if you blew on a dog whistle, you wouldn’t be able to hear anything, but your dog could, and would run to you (or away from you).

Well, even within a species (like humans), the degree of hearing ability varies quite a bit from individual to individual.

At one end of the scale are those who are totally deaf.

At the other end are those whose hearing is normal.

And there are plenty of us who fall somewhere in between.

And guess what?

My low-frequency hearing is perfectly normal.

(I can hear you snore a mile away, really.)

But sounds that are of a high-frequency – that’s a different animal altogether.

I can’t hear alarms that use bells to alert me.

Because bells make high-frequency sounds – and I need to be nearer to them when they’re ringing to actually hear them. If I’m a bit further away, I can’t hear them, even though you can, standing next to me.

I can’t hear certain ringtones on my cellphones because of this reason too. (And so I set my cellphone ringtone to a song of a lower frequency. Easy.)

And when I’m not facing you and you say to me, “I’m going _____ today” – the blank is something I can’t get because it starts with an “s” sound which I can’t hear – my brain fills in the gap for me and selects “shopping”.

And I would be right 99% of the time.

My brain processes the surroundings, the other words you said, your character, your habits, the day of the week, the time of the day and more to arrive at “shopping” instead of “sailing” or “swimming” (even though you are good in all 3 activities), all within a split second…

Amazing. (The human brain in general, not necessarily my brain.)

What has this got to do with marketing?

Nothing, really. (Actually, there is, but it’s kinda technical, so I’ll talk about it another day.)

Just thought I’ll share something I have with you – apart from I think 2 (or maybe 3) slipped discs in my spine. Funny, they didn’t slip when I was running and playing intense Futsal (indoor soccer), only when sitting down, on 3 different occasions.

My back specialist said it’s better for me to be more active now that they’ve slipped – and he’s totally right. Otherwise I’ll constantly feel the pain in my back from the slipped discs pressing against the nerves that run throught my spine, due to a weak back.

The trick is in strengthening the muscles surrounding my back which in turn will help in better supporting my upper body and in turn, my spine.

So heavy stretching of my entire body, stomach crunches and lifting of my back off the floor when I’m lying on my belly are great exercises, which I’ve just started – and it’s great to feel some muscles ripping underneath the “fat” once again!

I wish I had done them earlier, especially since I’ve bought a stomach-crunching exercise machine about 2 years back…but better late than never, I guess.

Now that I’ve also just got back from a holiday last week where I added 2 inches (!) to my waist from all the food – the exercise is top priority.

I’m done with the food binging too…

I’m now feeling fitter and healthier than I’ve ever been since my son was born about 20 months ago which is when I stopped all sports and exercise activities – and I’ve only been doing the exercises for a few days.

I’m working towards better fitness to resume my Futsal activities where I used to run and kick practically non-stop for close to 2 hours at a time (I told you it was intense). If you’re played this game before you’ll know that this is quite a feat…

I would require the entire day after the game to fully recover physically from the exertion since my entire body would be aching like crazy. But it’s a good feeling somehow, even though I’ll be lying flat on my back on my bed the entire day as all my muscle tears start to heal and I can sometimes barely walk without flinching from the pain…

Will be back with more awesome Pajamas business concepts soon!

Sen Ze

P.S. You can link to this post with the following URL:

http://www.SenZe.com/business-blog/sounds/high-frequency-sounds-and-compensation.htm

Technorati Tags: exercise, futsal, back problem, slipped discs, high-frequency deafness, Bill Clinton, lip reading, back specialist, back pain, hearing ability, spine

It’s rare indeed for any artist to perform his concert for more than a few days at one venue.

Prince is currently doing 21 days in London alone!

And most of those dates have been sold out. In fact, at one point his tickets were selling at 1,000 per minute!

Why?

Because Prince:

1. Is a musical genius
He composes all his songs, writes the lyrics to all of them, sings them as lead vocal AND backing vocals and plays all the musical instruments used for those songs (up to 25 different instruments for one song)!

2. Is a prolific composer
He has composed hundreds of songs in his entire career, including hits for Celine Dion, Sheena Easton and The Bangles. He has released some of those songs on 46 albums so far – with many more yet unheard!!

3. Sells records
He has many hits from his albums and he has sold millions of them all over the world. The Purple Rain album alone (released in 1984) sold 20 million copies worldwide.

4. Is a great performer
If you’ve seen his Superbowl XLI halftime performance, you would have experienced an unforgettable musical performance.

I’m not a fan of Prince, by the way. Not of his music, nor his style – but I do appreciate genius when I see one.

His London concerts were originally supposed to run for 7 nights but when all 140,000 tickets for them at 31.21 pounds sterling (about $63) sold out in 20 minutes (!), he extended it to 15 days.

And when tickets to those extra 8 days started selling out, he extended it a further 6 days – making a total of 21 days!

He grosses an average of $1.2 million per concert ($63 x 20,000 seats) for this current tour if all tickets are sold out. By the time it’s all over, he would have grossed $1.2 million x 21 days = $25.2 million.

Give or take a few million.

Not bad for less than a month’s work.

And there’s still the US Tour to come.

How did this 21-date London concert come to be?

Here’s a combination of factors:

1. Prince’s an established music star whose concerts are a great spectacle
There’s plenty to see and hear. Prince is known for his flashy performances and he’s backed by some of the most talented musicians in the world, all hand-picked by him.

2. It’s summer time in London
Summertime means time out in the park, and concerts to attend!

3. London is home to about 8 million people
The bigger the population, the bigger is Prince’s number of prospects interested in his songs. 8 million is a big number for a city by any means.

4. London is a popular tourist destination
Millions of people visit London every year. Tour companies usually offer special packages that include free concert tickets as well. Prince’s audience will definitely include many foreigners especially when he’s not performing outside of the US and UK.

5. He has announced that this Planet Earth Tour is “The End” of his live concerts
There’ll be no more Prince in person after this, so this is his fans’ last chance to watch him live. Well, there may be a “Comeback Tour” or “Encore Tour” many years later but they don’t know for sure. In case he isn’t planning any in the future, this is all they have.

6. His latest album, “Planet Earth”, was given away for free by the UK’s Mail On Sunday
They distributed 3 million copies of it on July 15 2007 alone. The newspaper paid Prince a rumored 300,000 pounds for the rights to do this. This generated lots of additional publicity for his upcoming concerts in August 2007 (and sold lots of extra newspapers).

7. All ticket holders get a copy of his latest album, “Planet Earth” as well
This makes his 31.21 pounds ticket price a real bargain since the album sells for about 10 pounds in stores. Not only that, the distribution of CDs in this manner counts towards his final album sales as well – which will help it in music charts tracking album sales.

Since there are music lovers who buy albums according to their ranking in the music charts – this will help push sales of the album further.

8. He’s opening up his songs vault to present 150 of them during his London run
Yep, that’s right. He’ll be playing over 150 songs over the course of his 21-date London concerts. He performs only about 23 songs at each concert, which would leave plenty left over for the remaining dates.

Thus many of his hard-core fans will show up for the concerts multiple times over the next few nights just to hear more of those songs, many of which they’ve never heard before!

How’s that for repeat business?

You can do that only if you’re as prolific a composer as Prince…

The combination of all of the above factors – but especially “The End” of Prince’s live tours – makes for an irresistible series of events that hard-core Prince fans find hard to resist.

The US Tour should be even better. There should be one, because Prince grossed over $87 million the last time he had one in 2004 with the Musicology Tour that went on a run of 96 performances.

Talk soon.

Sen Ze

P.S. You can link to this post with the following URL:

http://www.SenZe.com/business-blog/prince/prince-and-the-new-marketing-generation.htm

Technorati Tags: Prince, Planet Earth Tour, Earth Tour, UK Earth Tour, London UK Earth Tour, music industry, music, tours, innovative marketing, marketing, Mail On Sunday, business profitability, recording industry