Seth Godin wrote a great little post recently on what comes first, marketing or the product.

“Marketing is not the same as advertising. Advertising is a tiny slice of what marketing is today, and in fact, it’s pretty clear that the marketing has to come before the product, not after. As Jon points out, the Prius was developed after the marketing thinking was done. Jones Soda, too. In fact, just about every successful product or service is the result of smart marketing thinking first, followed by a great product that makes the marketing story come true.”

In the music industry the labels have been using this technique for years. In the manufactured pop business everything to do with a new band or artist is market tested into submission. Most of the boy band concepts in the early nineties were produced from the same formula of characters but with a subtle twist to fill a gap in the market.

With manufactured pop bands it’s easy to shape the ‘product’ but with indie bands it’s more difficult. Unless your going to go down the ‘manufacture yourself an indie band’ route your going to have to go out and find someone with the sound your looking for. Hence when someone like Coldplay makes it big any band that sounds remotely like them also gets signed up in the hope that everyone can jump on the band wagon. In many ways trends become self fulfilling prophecies as the sniff of success by someone with a new sound sparks a raft of similar bands getting pushed by rival labels homing to cash in on the suddenly ‘hot’ sound.

The reason this is important to realize is that many of the bigger labels will be doing their market research first, identifying the gap in the market and then try to find a band to sign that either fits it or (more commonly) can be shaped into it. If your sound just happens to be the perfect complimentary alternative to the current big seller then you have achieved that rare trick of arriving on the scene with perfect timing but if a label is signing you because they think they can tweak you into something else then your running the risk of being signed into a dead end deal. We’ve met a lot of of bands who have been signed by major labels and promised the world only to be stuck in the same deal years later having never released an album because the label just didn’t know how best to market the resulting record. Trends change, record company A&R people change and you can end up just sitting on the shelf.