Bryce Blakely's Blog

The blog i want to talk about in this post is in itself a perfect example of the four P’s in practice. I’m talking about the music super-blog gottadancedirty.com. GDD, as I will refer to it from here on in, is a blog made up of a group of djs from LA that has established an international following in the electronic dance music community. As a blog, GDD applies the four P’s in a non-traditional sense as it is after all, not a traditional business. First of all you have to look at product, GDD provides downloadable mixes, compilations, and tracklists as well as a small selection of branded clothing. The blog relies on a reputation for having the latest releases and the best selection of new music to attract and retain “customers”. Those quotation marks are especially appropriate because as far as price goes everything but the clothes are free, definitely not a business in the traditional sense of the word. 

The biggest aspect of GDD’s “business” is the promotion they do for their blog. The djs behind GDD both play and run huge events in LA that both promote the blog and provide a major source of revenue. By booking major artists for their events they build up a brand association with fans as well as profiting based on attendance. Lastly, place, besides promotion in LA there really isn’t one. GDD is an entirely online service which allows to capture such a large market, it’s available to anyone with the right interests and a computer.

Ok, so maybe the title I chose is a little miss leading but the band is fantastic so I decided to stick with it anyway. “You mean this wont be about the alt-rock supergroup behind Return to Cookie Mountain?”, yes, that’s exactly what I mean. This post is actually in response to Kazandra Pangilinan’s post about marketing on the radio. She talks about the numerous techniques markets apply to communicate their message without visual aid. Some obviously do this more effectively than others but we won’t go into the finer points of audio theatrics here.Kazandra argues that companies must perceive these ads as being successful on the grounds that they appear to draw a continual investment from them. But how effective of a medium is radio really?

Realistically the only time i listen to the radio (voluntarily) is in the car, and that’s because my car is too old to have an auxiliary audio input. As products like the iPhone and services like internet radio broadcasting have gained popularity the noises filling the air around (and in) our ears have changed. The greggman blog goes into detail in the article The Death of Radio  about how podcasts and other mediums that weren’t available in the past can now be made by anyone with a computer. Radio will undoubtedly continue to exist well into the future but does this mean companies should continue to pour money into marketing across a medium with a dwindling audience?  I think it is definitely time companies reconsidered the way radio advertising is handled. Perhaps sponsoring a radio program rather than interrupting it? Who knows.