The Dead did thread a needle. They were more-or-less broke in the mid-70s, and really hit their massive success when almost everybody else was going opposite directions. Most of all, though, I think they liked playing, couldn’t make it off of record sale, and figured out how to make touring work.

I love a lot of other bands, but there was nothing like a Grateful Dead concert. Still isn’t.

I wasn’t trying to imply that improvisation was anything to do with marketing, but the lessons contained in an improvisational environment can benefit marketing and business strategy. Maybe I was being a bit less literal when I wrote this — my intention was to use the Grateful Dead’s approach to EVERYTHING as a metaphor for businesses to understand how approaching things with a work-in-progress mentality and dependent on fan interaction is better than a tight, command-and-control approach. Make sense?

The most important thing to know about the Grateful Dead is that the marketing (which might more accurately be called “fan customer service”) was in service to the music–NOT the other way around. The music was everything. Your implication that improvisation had anything whatsoever to do with fan relations is the one area where you’ve strayed in your post. You have to understand that was the musical style. It was not concocted by marketers, it was one of the core elements of the band’s highly original art form.

Anyone who takes this topic seriously needs to understand a few things about the Dead that are not obvious if you weren’t there. First, as I have tweeted, the Dead’s marketing had two things that most campaigns do not: LSD and one of the greatest bands of all time. It’s not really possible to use the Dead as exemplars without acknowledging the integral role of the hippie/psychedelic culture. Second, the Dead Heads were a near-nomadic tribe who were part of that culture and who make today’s rabid fans look like fickle amateurs. The point being no marketing campaign can turn a fan base into a culture–the culture was prerequisite. Third, and this follows from the first two, the Dead were a true cultural phenomenon, not merely one of the greatest bands of all time. If whatever you’re hawking is not one, then your mileage may vary.

All too often, spectacular results come not from spectacular marketing, but from spectacular products. Any attempt to attribute the success of a spectacular product to the marketing is suspect.

We should be careful to avoid twisting the Dead’s story to fit some marketer’s imaginary scenario. Not having read the book yet, I can’t say if it crosses the line. I hope not. There are lessons to be learned, for sure, but we can only learn about fan base marketing from the Dead if the story is complete, accurate and true.

Nice piece. In a similar fashion, I wrote “What Brands and Social Media Players Can Learn from The Grateful Dead” at http://bit.ly/NJX9k a while back. I think we are on the same page – (:>)

Best,
Social Steve

It is also worth noting that John Perry Barlow went on to join WELL in 1986 (where there was an emerging tribe of online deadheads), sat on their board of directors and also later founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

It would be fair to say that the Grateful Dead was instrumental in the actual evolution of the social web and online community, not just a great metaphor for socially optimised business.

I found your posting while researching an article I wrote about: The 7 Business Lessons I Learned From The Grateful Dead:

http://www.purchase.com/blog/leadership/7-business-lessons-i-learned-from-the-grateful-dead