In short
Podcast Notes: Hitmakers, Season 2 - Episode: Live with Ana Andjelic
Podcast Overview
- Title: Hitmakers, Season 2
- Description: A fusion of finance and culture, exploring how cultural forces impact market value. Co-hosted by Lee Maschmeyer and Ana Andjelic, the season discusses various cultural phenomena and their financial implications.
Episode Summary
- Guest: Ana Andjelic
- Focus: The resurgence of old-fashioned media in contemporary culture and its implications for brands.
Key Topics Discussed
Revival of Analog Media
- Trend Observation:
- Old-fashioned media, such as books, LPs, and magazines, have gained momentum over the past five years.
- Unlike digital media, analog media requires active engagement from users, signifying a conscious choice made by individuals.
Importance of Human Touch
- Cultural Engagement:
- Analog media highlights human creativity and connection, contrasting algorithm-driven digital content.
- Brands are encouraged to leverage analog media to elevate their narratives and engage customers authentically.
Analog Media as Marketing Tools
- Brand Strategies:
- Brands can use analog media (e.g., magazines, books, zines, vinyl) as a foundation for launching events and gatherings.
- These mediums serve not only as promotional materials but also as collectible items, enhancing brand storytelling and creating durable narratives.
Cultural Capital
- Consumer Behavior:
- Fans engage more deeply with analog experiences (e.g., attending film screenings, reading books in coffee shops) rather than relying solely on streaming platforms.
- The growth in book sales (6.5% increase projected for 2024) and the revival of publications like Life magazine indicate a strong consumer interest in tangible media.
Brand Differentiation Challenges
- Market Saturation:
- As brands excel in digital content creation, the uniqueness of brand identities diminishes.
- Cultural capital is harder to replicate and often resides outside the digital landscape, making analog experiences more valuable.
New Marketing Mix
- Strategic Integration:
- A successful analog strategy should merge print media with digital entertainment and live experiences.
- Suggested elements include:
- Launching physical products (e.g., LPs, books)
- Hosting private events to foster community and engagement
- Utilizing social media for amplification and content creation
Conclusion
- Call to Action:
- Encouragement to explore the concepts discussed in more detail through the Sociology of Business newsletter.
- Importance of integrating analog culture into brand strategies for enhancing consumer connection and elevating brand narratives.
Additional Resources
- Sociology of Business: [Subscribe Here](https://andjelicaaa.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)
- Further Reading: Refer to Ana Andjelic's post on Analog Culture for an in-depth discussion on the topic.
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Key Takeaways
- The revival of analog media represents a significant shift in consumer behavior, emphasizing the need for brands to adapt their strategies.
- The integration of analog culture with modern marketing tactics can create unique engagement opportunities and strengthen brand loyalty.
- Understanding cultural trends and their implications for business is essential for navigating today’s market landscape.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00So I want to talk about old-fashioned media and why I'm seeing how they've been coming back for the past five years and gaining even further momentum. So everything that's old seems to be new again. And unlike ambient digital culture, which happens while we are doing something else, analog media requires our attention. Picking up a book or an LP or a magazine is making a choice. So this choice is not made by an algorithm in the feedback loop with nothing original ever emerges, but it's actually made by humans, by human touch, which is the main selling point of media. So for brands, launch a new magazine, publish a book, have a zine, have a catalog, have a vinyl.
0:51All of that is an excuse to have endless launch parties, gatherings, dinner, events, readings, and so on. That's a great way to activate experience in your stores. So, in addition to experiential component and the PR component of analog media, there is also the fact that print media really elevates brand narrative and makes them more durable than social content, turns a brand story into a collectible, and packages them in a stylized keepsake. It's really a PR, analog media PR goldmine. I really don't know why brands don't do it more often, especially consider these figures. Taylor Swift's album, The Torture Points Department, sold 2.2 million copies in vinyl.
1:41Analog media are expressions of fandom. Fans line up at Metrograph, a Lower East Side movie theater to see new releases rather than on Netflix. I have seen in New York more people reading a book or playing board games in coffee shops than ever before. And in fact, in 2024, there's a 6.5 % increase in book sales. Incredibly, Life magazine is also back to life. And so are Onion and Playboy, which now has annual edition. 35 millimeter film grew at double pace than five years ago. Also, animal culture is much harder to hijack. Performance, media, third-party cookies, retargeting, none of that works here.
2:37And neither do influencers, content creators, and paid social. So when every brand masters the business of social content and creativity of the algorithm, brand differentiation is not anymore there. Worse yet, culture is not anymore there either if it ever was. Culture is reproduce, comment and don't, criticize, remix, share, edit, amplify it on social media, but I don't believe it's made there. Cultural trendsetters are in the analog world. You simply had to be there. Oasis has been the biggest event of this past summer. Member clubs, invite-only gatherings, independent magazine events, podcast live recordings, brand dinners.
3:28Again, you had to be there. So, now, what does this revival of analog culture mean for brands? To me, the best analog strategy combines print, digital entertainment, and live experiences with cultural products to match. LPs, cameras, movies, books, and other tangible forms of community building are all social objects, shareable memes, symbols of belonging, and membership cards all at the same time. This is a new marketing mix, and the right balance is defined. by the brand category, by the brand size, its budgets, its growth ambitions. So to recap, what we have here is a brand launching even an LP, a book for sure, a catalog, a zine, like podcast recording in their stores, then organizing or private events or dinners, invite-only dinners.
4:32So you have a piece of analog media. Then you have a PR program that amplifies it. Again, this is all in real world. Analog media in real world. PR program in the real world to amplify endless book launch parties, openings, readings. It goes on and on. Then you have social media that remixes, creates content that gives all of it legs and scale and global reach and also creates, I don't know, a series, a program. extending it. So these are three steps. And then repeat again. I wrote about this in my post, Analog Culture on the Sociology of Business. Head over there to read it. It's all about what I said and much, much more.
5:20Subscribe to the Sociology of Business, a weekly newsletter about how brands connect business with culture. Thanks so much for listening. Take care.
5:34Thank you.
