Five marketing lessons from the genius

that is Liam Gallagher

This is the title of an article written by Microsoft's Head of Brand Management, why
do you think he considers Liam Gallagher a genius and what do you think the
marketing lessons will be?

PART ONE

These are the five lessons. The first word is correct but the rest our mixed up. Can
you put them back in order?
a. Invest..... experiences in count that the

b. Redefine...... strengths your when need to you brand

c. Brand..... brand claims confidence beats

d. Take..........narrative your of back control

e. Own.......platforms new - don't.......you own them let

When considering marketing, what do these lessons mean in your own words?
How do they relate to a veteran rock star like Liam Gallagher?

You will now read the article. After you read each section, choose an appropriate
lesson from above.
PART TWO

Some questions about you.

When was the last time you saw a piece of advertising and it stopped you in your
tracks?
Do you know any marketing slogans that get people thinking?
Are you far more likely to buy a product if you see it advertised on TV?
Have you ever made an extravagant purchase because of an exciting marketing
campaign?

Read the text and decide what the lesson is from Part One.

1.

The poster for ‘As You Were’ that appeared on the London Underground two
years ago said it all: 'As good as he said it would be'. It was a great headline,
it stopped me in my tracks and, to be honest, it got me thinking about
the role that confidence should play in branding and content marketing. Yes,
it’s a play on Liam’s reputation for arrogance–but it’s also proof that what
you signal as a brand is as important as what you say. Act like you believe
you have nothing to prove–and people are far more likely to accept that
you have nothing to prove. Saying less with confidence usually beats making
more and more extravagant claims.

The lesson? Believe it or not, it’s one that I’ve taken into content marketing for
B2B brands. If you are the ultimate authority on a subject, there’s no need to
keep adding adjectives to your content to talk up how authoritative it is. Just
tell your audience it’s from you–and act like that should be enough. You’ll find
it usually is.

Do you think this advice is useful in your industry? Why or why not?
Read the text and fill in the text with the following words:
of self doubt -epitomises – head on -compelling – struggles – glossing
over - fly

Read the text and decide what the lesson is from Part One.

2.
This summer saw the release of ‘As it Was’,Oa documentary film following
p
Liam as he starts out on a solo career. The eLiam it shows looks and sounds
like the Oasis frontman, but there are elements
n of him you never got to see
s
before: genuine _________ and moments of ________. It’s about the difficult
process of coming to terms with getting older i and falling in love with music
again. And it _________ what’s suddenly makingn Liam Gallagher a ___________
brand again. Whereas the 2016 Oasis documentary
n
‘Supersonic’ celebrated
the good times while ___________ the band’se break-up and the causes of it, ‘As
it Was’ confronts the difficult stuff _________.
w It invites you to take a second
look at him as a person and an artist. w
i
The lesson? Celebrating weaknesses and being n transparent about failures can
d
be a winning strategy for any brand ( just ask Guinness, Avis or more recently,
o
KFC). However, it’s got to be authentic to ___.
w If you want people to update
their perceptions of you, selling them a neatly packaged narrative won’t work.
Give them the rough, relateable edges and the emotion that goes with them.
These are the real raw materials for people reconsidering how they feel about
you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVXzl3snJOQ

Watch this advert for Guinness Beer. Pay attention to the slogan at the end.
In the text, it says Guinness celebrates a weakness and makes it a strength.
How did Guinness do this? (Bear in mind, it takes 119 seconds to pour the
perfect pint of Guinness)
Read the text and decide what the lesson is from Part One.

3.
Liam’s always had obvious brand strengths: the distinctiveness that comes
from the iconic, hands-behind-back singing position; the inimitable, leering
accent and delivery; the staggering self-confidence. Nobody puts this on as
an act. It makes no sense to put this on as an act.

However, no matter how distinctive or differentiating your brand assets are,

applying them with rigid consistency can leave you in the past when your
audience, and the world, moves on. Just ask Kraft Heinz, amid its painful
struggle to adjust its brands to new eating habits. So it goes with plenty of
music acts from the ‘90s and other eras. Sometimes you either have to
accept that your time has passed–or you need to find other aspects of
yourself that you can bring to the surface to make that whole, distinctive
package engaging and exciting again.

The younger Gallagher is fortunate to have quite a few underexplored

aspects of his identity to play with. There’s fatherhood and the natural
engagement with youngsters that comes with it. There was a real charm to
him jamming with one young fan on a Radio Two breakfast show
appearanceOto promote ‘Why Me? Why Not?’, for example. There’s the
p
humour, whiche was always there, of course, but often drowned out by the
attitude andn the antics. Liam’s pushed it to the front in his promo material
for the latests album. And then there’s the passionate music fan, the Beatles
geek, who would
i name his latest album after notes scribbled on John
Lennon photographs
n that he tracked down and bought.
n
The lesson? eRedefining a brand doesn’t have to mean abandoning what first
made you distinctive–or
w moving away from your authentic self. However, it
does mean breaking out of a narrowing definition that people might have of
w
you. Be readyi to go back to the well of what your brand means and pull
different elements
n further up the hierarchy.
d
o
How has your
w industry redefined itself in the last twenty years?
Can you think of any companies that have redefined themselves?
Netflix is a very modern brand. But, surprisingly, it reinvented itself. Do you
know how?
Netflix

Today’s generation probably doesn’t remember that in the late 1990s and early 2000s, “Netflix and chill”
wasn’t as easy as firing up the laptop and picking out a movie or TV show to binge-watch with no
commercial interruptions. Instead, Netflix was kind of like an online Blockbuster.

In 1998, Netflix launched the first DVD rental and sales site with Netflix.com. One year later, the
company debuted its subscription service, which allowed movie buffs to rent unlimited DVDs for a low
monthly cost and receive them by mail.

It wasn’t until 2007 that Netflix transitioned to online streaming. Finally, viewers of all ages would have
access to some of their favorite shows and movies, as well as original Netflix content.

Although the company has received some negative feedback from customers due to pricing changes,
it’s experienced financial success over the long term. For example, Netflix stock was trading at $3.55 at
the beginning of 2008. On Sept. 5, 2018, the stock closed at $341.18.

These days, it’s safe to say that Netflix is one of the best stocks to invest in. In July 2018, Netflix
announced 5.15 million new subscribers during the previous quarter, bringing its total base to 130
million.

Are there any potential markets into which companies in your sector should
be considering transitioning?
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=376904376411126

This video of Liam went viral.

How would you have exploited this if you were a brand manager?
Watch this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROeOFbueQ1Y

Do you think they did a good job? Why or why not?

Read the text and decide what the lesson is from Part One.

4.
Liam’s new brand narrative has been playing out on social media and AI
platforms that weren’t even being dreamed of when he strutted onto the
stage at Knebworth for those classic Oasis gigs of 1996. What’s really
impressive is the way that he’s leveraged his brand to add new dimensions
to those platforms, rather than compromising the brand to fit in. It’s
something plenty of modern marketers could learn from.

Liam’s conversations with Amazon Echo’s AlexaOwere my favourite piece of

p
promo material for his new album. They were perfectly
e pitched for social–
and like many of the best ideas, they were inspiredn by what audiences were
s
already talking about. Back in December 2018, somebody had edited an
Amazon ad to reveal what would happen if Alexa i had a Liam Gallagher
edition.OIt was hilarious and went viral for the launch
n of ‘Why Me? Why Not?’
p
with Liam
e himself having a typical humility-freenconversation with Alexa
downOthen pub. One heck of a way to become the e musician everyone
p s
associates with their smart speaker–and to persuade
w people to follow him
e
on Amazon
i Music. w
n
s n i
It helps that, like any self-respecting rock star, Liam
n runs his own social
n d
mediai accounts–with all of the rude, riotous randomness that it involves. It
ne o
means w that his Twitter feed sometimes borderswon the incoherent but it’s all
the more
n compelling for that. And it means that when you tweet a
w
videoeexplaining what you think you meant when you tweeted
wi
‘Dodecahedran
n x’, a lot of people watch it. Liam’s social media output is
d
living wproof of the neuroscientific concept known as the Zeigarnik Effect. If
i o
nw
d
o
w
people can’t work out what you mean, they are far more likely to pay
attention.

The lesson? Leveraging a long-running brand on new platforms works best

when you’re bringing brand qualities to the platform that nobody else can.
Don’t rely on algorithms to bring the charm and charisma–that’s your job.
And don’t try to painstakingly spell out the meaning that people should take
away. It’s far more important to intrigue them.

Read the text and decide what the lesson is from Part One.

5.
Liam could be as sympathetic, funny and creative as he liked–and it still
wouldn’t make much difference if he weren’t also putting out a product that
people want to listen to and want to buy. This comes down to investing
time, effort and passion in the craft of writing songs. But it also comes down
to format–and investing in an experience of your product that’s as
compelling as possible. That starts with insight about the experiences and
formats that matter most to your core audience.

It’s no coincidence that Liam’s two number one albums have both been the
fastest-selling records released on vinyl in their respective years. He’s been
an expert in riding the vinyl revival, recognising just how big the overlap is
between music fans who appreciate owning a physical object of value–and
music fans who spent a lot of time in the '90s listening to ‘Definitely Maybe’
and ‘What’s the Story Morning Glory?’ So much so that of the 68,000 album
sales that took ‘Why Me? Why Not?’ to number one, 25% involved good
old-fashioned LPs.

Only, there’s nothing old-fashioned about the deluxe, vinyl edition of the
album–two records, one pressed in yellow with the album and the other
etched with three exclusive bonus tracks; a 20-page hardcover book with
lyrics and original artwork; and removable prints and posters. You even get a
free CD. The amount of craft and attention to detail that’s gone into the
format is breath-taking. It’s a reminder that listeners are valued–and in
today’s music industry, that’s a powerful message.

The lesson? The product matters–but so does the experience that you build
around it. And understanding what your audience values most is the key to
delivering that experience.

Liam Gallagher is a marketing genius not because he’s changed and not
because he hasn’t. Not because he’s co-opted new platforms either, and not
because he’s signalled his attachment to old ones. It’s because he’s shown
how adept he is at balancing all of those things. Confidence in the brand he
represents and the product he puts out has freed him to make far more
creative use of the levers of the music industry than he has in the past. It
feels like that’s the real difference between the last two years and the rest of
his post-Oasis career. And it’s a difference any modern marketer can learn
from. Biblical!

Some more Liam answering questions on Vogue!!!!!! Listen with the

captions and pay attention to the questions!!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBWHXDzWrw4

For Homework choose a famous person who a brand manager could learn from
and write a text explaining what lessons this famous person's choices could teach
a brand manager.

Answers.

Student's own.

c. Brand confidence beats brand claims

d. Take back control of your narrative
b. Redefine your brand strengths when you need to.
e. Own new platforms - don't let them own you
a. Invest in the experiences that count