Stiff competition all over the world
I screw you, you screw me, they screw us, here we go again
But alright, we have so much fun when we're together
-Rick Neilsen (Cheap Trick) - "Stiff Competition"
When it all comes down to dust, I will kill you if I must,
I will help you if I can
When it all comes down to dust, I will help you if I must
I will kill you if I can
-Leonard Cohen - "Story of Isaac"
My dad worked in Victoria through much of the 1950's installing residential oil heaters through a major retailer. He enjoyed the work a lot - he was well-payed, he could do it quickly and efficiently, and it required enough of a mental challenge to keep him happily occupied. Eventually, though, he left the company to become a freelance electrician ("Mike's Electric" -I always thought I should use it as a band name someday...). It wasn't his original plan to leave the retailer, but he soured on the job when a new manager took over operations. The manager's business philosophy prioritized the elimination of competition as paramount. Jobs were taken on and priced always with a view to pushing competitors out of business. Dad didn't agree with the philosophy - he saw in Victoria a quickly-growing town that had more than enough customers for all the local residential heating firms to make healthy profits. Management was unable to see things that way, so Dad moved on...The company in question no longer exists.
Thirty years later, I lived in Victoria myself, working part-time in a music instrument shop called Pamus Music (a contraction of "PAcific MUSic). Two blocks east was the competition - Ward Music. To confuse matters, my boss was a third-generation music retailer named Gary Ward, and his dad and grandfather had run Ward Music before selling it off...and then starting Pamus, going into competition against their old namesake (very much like Leo Fender selling, then going up against, the Fender company - with Music Man and G&L). I don't know exactly how this came to be, but I got the sense when I came to work for Pamus that there were a lot of old battle scars from cutthroat competition between Pamus, Ward, and one or two smaller firms that no longer existed by then. There were even several cases of employees from one firm being poached by the other. Things were coldly civil on the surface, but there were a few occasions when competition started looking like a bit of a grudge match, and not so sporting.
Pamus Victoria struggled and eventually sold off to a small independent company, Guitars Plus. Ward Music was swallowed by Long & McQuade, as was the Vancouver remainder of Pamus.
The logic behind eliminating competition is obvious: knock a competitor out of the game, and you take on a greater market share. You also fight your competitive 'war' on fewer fronts, and might even be able to boost your profit margin, with fewer companies trying to under-cut each other's prices. Doesn't that make sense?
It would seem so...but none of these aggressively competitive companies have lived to tell the tale themselves. Meanwhile, my dad ran Mike's Electric until just a few years ago, when he ran out of the energy and financial need to run it anymore. He'll be 88 in September of this year, after all. Eliminating competition was never on his radar in his many decades of operation.
On a related note, one of my favourite shows on CBC radio these days is "Under the Influence", a.k.a. "Age of Persuasion" with Terry O'Reilly. Narrated and co-written by a former advertising executive, it's a fascinating and brilliantly-presented program about the history and principles of various aspects of advertising. In a number of episodes, O'Reilly has made the observation that truly successful companies have an explicit reason for being, a driving philosophy. Mere destruction of the competition is not a genuine raison d'etre. Leo Fender wanted to make the most durable, versatile, ergonomic and professional instruments available in the '50's and '60's, and all those makes and models that he invented are the bread-and-butter of the Fender company today. In fact, most players would probably prefer that the modern company were able to copy the '50's/'60's designs even more closely today than they do.
Meanwhile, this new version of the so-called music business that allows indie bands to (theoretically, at least) reach the entire world without corporate assistance has developed some interesting side-effects, one being that most artists have moved from the 'competition' model to the 'reason for being' approach. Ten years ago or more, there might have been some competition between Nickelback sound-alike bands, for example, as the corporate masters of record-labels were interested only in a quick return on their investments (and a Nickelback-sounding band was a pretty safe ticket for that). Now, it would seem that an artist is far better off staking out his distinctive little patch of stylistic ground and fostering it. Better still, with the advent of social media like Facebook and Twitter, it actually benefits bands to promote other artists; if I follow local rockers Quickness or Coco Jaffra or Paul Black on Facebook and Twitter, I'm happy to know some of the Mike Luno Band audience will check them out - and I certainly don't worry that MLB would lose audience as a result, because each band does its own stylistically distinctive thing. There's plenty of audience to go around.
Some would argue that a dog-eat-dog philosophy allows only the strongest to survive, and therefore produces higher-quality products, but the natural conclusion to that approach is...monopoly - which is even acknowledged legally as an unhealthy situation in that laissez-faire bastion, the USA. I'm very much my father's son - I haven't the slightest interest in taking a non-cooperative, combative stance with other bands or artists. I thoroughly enjoy collaboration and the synergy that comes from combining strengths. I suppose I'd make a terrible CEO of Wal-Mart, but luckily, no one has been twisting my arm to take on that job. While this is a strange, new music business with mighty scant income for the bulk of the artists, there is at least a very healthy atmosphere of cooperation and camaraderie - and that might ultimately build a better foundation than what existed before.
I screw you, you screw me, they screw us, here we go again
But alright, we have so much fun when we're together
-Rick Neilsen (Cheap Trick) - "Stiff Competition"
When it all comes down to dust, I will kill you if I must,
I will help you if I can
When it all comes down to dust, I will help you if I must
I will kill you if I can
-Leonard Cohen - "Story of Isaac"
My dad worked in Victoria through much of the 1950's installing residential oil heaters through a major retailer. He enjoyed the work a lot - he was well-payed, he could do it quickly and efficiently, and it required enough of a mental challenge to keep him happily occupied. Eventually, though, he left the company to become a freelance electrician ("Mike's Electric" -I always thought I should use it as a band name someday...). It wasn't his original plan to leave the retailer, but he soured on the job when a new manager took over operations. The manager's business philosophy prioritized the elimination of competition as paramount. Jobs were taken on and priced always with a view to pushing competitors out of business. Dad didn't agree with the philosophy - he saw in Victoria a quickly-growing town that had more than enough customers for all the local residential heating firms to make healthy profits. Management was unable to see things that way, so Dad moved on...The company in question no longer exists.
Thirty years later, I lived in Victoria myself, working part-time in a music instrument shop called Pamus Music (a contraction of "PAcific MUSic). Two blocks east was the competition - Ward Music. To confuse matters, my boss was a third-generation music retailer named Gary Ward, and his dad and grandfather had run Ward Music before selling it off...and then starting Pamus, going into competition against their old namesake (very much like Leo Fender selling, then going up against, the Fender company - with Music Man and G&L). I don't know exactly how this came to be, but I got the sense when I came to work for Pamus that there were a lot of old battle scars from cutthroat competition between Pamus, Ward, and one or two smaller firms that no longer existed by then. There were even several cases of employees from one firm being poached by the other. Things were coldly civil on the surface, but there were a few occasions when competition started looking like a bit of a grudge match, and not so sporting.
Pamus Victoria struggled and eventually sold off to a small independent company, Guitars Plus. Ward Music was swallowed by Long & McQuade, as was the Vancouver remainder of Pamus.
The logic behind eliminating competition is obvious: knock a competitor out of the game, and you take on a greater market share. You also fight your competitive 'war' on fewer fronts, and might even be able to boost your profit margin, with fewer companies trying to under-cut each other's prices. Doesn't that make sense?
It would seem so...but none of these aggressively competitive companies have lived to tell the tale themselves. Meanwhile, my dad ran Mike's Electric until just a few years ago, when he ran out of the energy and financial need to run it anymore. He'll be 88 in September of this year, after all. Eliminating competition was never on his radar in his many decades of operation.
On a related note, one of my favourite shows on CBC radio these days is "Under the Influence", a.k.a. "Age of Persuasion" with Terry O'Reilly. Narrated and co-written by a former advertising executive, it's a fascinating and brilliantly-presented program about the history and principles of various aspects of advertising. In a number of episodes, O'Reilly has made the observation that truly successful companies have an explicit reason for being, a driving philosophy. Mere destruction of the competition is not a genuine raison d'etre. Leo Fender wanted to make the most durable, versatile, ergonomic and professional instruments available in the '50's and '60's, and all those makes and models that he invented are the bread-and-butter of the Fender company today. In fact, most players would probably prefer that the modern company were able to copy the '50's/'60's designs even more closely today than they do.
Meanwhile, this new version of the so-called music business that allows indie bands to (theoretically, at least) reach the entire world without corporate assistance has developed some interesting side-effects, one being that most artists have moved from the 'competition' model to the 'reason for being' approach. Ten years ago or more, there might have been some competition between Nickelback sound-alike bands, for example, as the corporate masters of record-labels were interested only in a quick return on their investments (and a Nickelback-sounding band was a pretty safe ticket for that). Now, it would seem that an artist is far better off staking out his distinctive little patch of stylistic ground and fostering it. Better still, with the advent of social media like Facebook and Twitter, it actually benefits bands to promote other artists; if I follow local rockers Quickness or Coco Jaffra or Paul Black on Facebook and Twitter, I'm happy to know some of the Mike Luno Band audience will check them out - and I certainly don't worry that MLB would lose audience as a result, because each band does its own stylistically distinctive thing. There's plenty of audience to go around.
Some would argue that a dog-eat-dog philosophy allows only the strongest to survive, and therefore produces higher-quality products, but the natural conclusion to that approach is...monopoly - which is even acknowledged legally as an unhealthy situation in that laissez-faire bastion, the USA. I'm very much my father's son - I haven't the slightest interest in taking a non-cooperative, combative stance with other bands or artists. I thoroughly enjoy collaboration and the synergy that comes from combining strengths. I suppose I'd make a terrible CEO of Wal-Mart, but luckily, no one has been twisting my arm to take on that job. While this is a strange, new music business with mighty scant income for the bulk of the artists, there is at least a very healthy atmosphere of cooperation and camaraderie - and that might ultimately build a better foundation than what existed before.